The recent bombing at the finish line of the Boston Marathon had America scared – until the next fad in reactionary emotion begged for attention. Before the shootout and present manhunt began, the incident was slowly drifting out of the news cycle, and thus, so was the attention the public was handing over. Sure, inquiries into why two sick individuals found the need to inflict harm on the innocent will continue. But as soon as the vanity crooks in Congress decide to focus their attention on another inane scheme, all the mourning, prayers, and alms dedicated to the attack will work their way to the next trend. The only people who will actually remember the dark day are those who faced the pain of losing a loved one or felt the sting of shrapnel entering their skin.
Just days after the attack, an explosion at a fertilizer plant in a small Texas town took the lives of fifteen. Hardly an hour of coverage was given to the tragedy. The failure of gun control and registry legislation to pass the Senate absorbed the pea-brained opinions of the media. It goes to show actual human life comes second to a political agenda that anyone with a modicum of sense can see will result in more needless death. The flag of altruism statists wrap themselves up in is never anything else but the cloth of blood and trampled skulls.
At the time of writing, the search for alleged culprit Dzhokhar Tsarnaev continues with police scouring the city. De facto martial law has been declared with public transportation shut down and residents ordered indoors. When the drama initially unfolded, the usual televised boobs displayed their simple-minded political ideologies in the form of arguments. The unwatched, uncared for Lawrence O’Donnell, who somehow manages to have a nightly broadcast, blamed the National Rifle Association for the incident because, well, guns are the same as explosives. Neoconservatives were frothing at the mouth hoping the trigger man was a follower of Islam (wish granted) so they could breed their penchant for warmongering with the fever of anxiety that would undoubtedly follow. Bringing justice to the culprit lost importance to extending political power. In acts of terror, opportunism often pushes the truth to join the innocent in an untimely grave.
One writer at the liberal magazine Salon (which, again, no one reads after Glenn Greenwald’s departure) hoped the bomber was “white” so the impending political aftermath won’t be a repeat of the September 11th alarm fest that ushered in warrantless wiretapping and over a decade of war. The piece was picked up on by multiple conservative publications who helped themselves to shredding the message like hyenas cornering a timid muskrat. The crucified author, David Sirota, may have came off as self-loathing of his own skin color but he had a relevant point. Whoever the perpetrator might have been at the time he penned the article, the fallout is likely to claim what little remains of liberty as an additional victim.
I share the very same attitude. My immediate reaction to the whole affair was dread. Security of major points of travel and congregation increased around the country. Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss reportedly made the call for increased surveillance of public events, with even more involvement by the federal government. My own commute was plagued by the presence of heavily armed, buzzcut police personnel who, if I had to guess, were ex-military. The only way to deal with that type of thuggery is to walk unassumingly and deprive their stares of the intimidation their egos feed off of. The average person placidly accepts the company of assault rifle toting guards as a necessary security measure. But I personally feel no safer under their watchful “protection.” Too trusting is the man who thinks anyone empowered with monopoly force is chivalrous. It is one thing to honor authority when it’s warranted; it’s another to be made to cower because of an uppity government that enjoys displaying its own strength.
So the sideshow cat-and-mouse game plays on. A nineteen year old remains at large while the nation cheers for his goring. There is little question that Tsarnaev deserves justice. Yet the same folks baying for blood pay no attention to their own government’s indefinite detainment of accused terrorists. In a recent editorial in the New York Times, Guantanamo Bay prisoner and Yemen national Samir Naji al Hasan Moqbel gives excruciating detail of his imprisonment without charge or trial and the hunger strike he is enduring as a political protest. For claiming the right to his body and refusing to eat, Moqbel was aggressively punished in the form of a having nutrients pumped into his bloodstream. He writes,
They tied my hands and feet to the bed. They forcibly inserted an IV into my hand. I spent 26 hours in this state, tied to the bed. During this time I was not permitted to go to the toilet. They inserted a catheter, which was painful, degrading and unnecessary.was not even permitted to pray.
I will never forget the first time they passed the feeding tube up my nose. I can’t describe how painful it is to be force-fed this way. As it was thrust in, it made me feel like throwing up. I wanted to vomit, but I couldn’t. There was agony in my chest, throat and stomach. I had never experienced such pain before.
Moqbel’s detailed plea received little attention in the press despite its publishing in the one of th world’s most popular newspapers. Most prisoners in Guantanamo Bay have been cleared of any wrongdoing but the U.S. government refuses to release them. It is an uncomforting truth swept under the rug of America’s conscience. Of the numerous, immoral, and costly consequences of the War on Terror, the shield of unconcern many Americans have surrounded themselves in ranks among the worst. The eleven children killed by a NATO airstrike in Afghanistan just a week ago earned little coverage and no tearful condolence by the President. Rather, the eight year old killed by the Tsarnaevs’ rigged explosives receives an inestimable amount of grief.
As sad as it is to say, the response to the Boston Marathon bombing was American politics like usual: politicization by media figures, politicians looking to score cheap points against the opposition, and the President acting like his word soothes and consoles the masses back to calmness. The untamed state combined with the cult of presidential personality makes every crisis into a ticker tape parade for the king’s court. The president and his favored congressmen shove gobs of stolen money at the victims while smiling for publicity shots. When the situation proves egregious enough, it warrants a crackdown on civil liberties. And in the most extreme cases, war-hungry pols are allowed to sink their teeth into the delight of invading a foreign land.
The Boston incident is already brewing talk of increased immigration measures. One boot-kissing columnist at Slate is using the situation to justify an increased use of government video surveillance. Amid all the dreamt up fantasies, the commentariat have done well enough to not shower attention at the daunting timeliness the police were able to shut down commercial activity. As the hunt for the remaining suspect erupted, Boston authorities effectively locked down the city and ordered residents indoors. In effect, life and property were subverted out of pure necessity. Under the classical theory of just war, the rights of the innocents were not to be infringed upon by warring parties. The state and its doctrine of compelled membership has butchered this understanding and made the whole of the public subject to the whims of combating forces. Like a herd of beef cows, Bostonians were forced into their homes so the same authorities who failed to prevent the attack and bumbled the manhunt. It was accepted as normal routine.
The coming political response will be defined by the same bellicose attitude the ruling class takes in squelching domestic threats. More surveillance, more security, more guns, more guards, more bullets, and more downward-looking scowls from appointed protectors of peace. The country will pick up and move on; much like it does after every disaster. With passive acceptance, new measures “in the public’s interest of safety” will be employed. Constant monitoring will soon be a way of life. The American people will sit silently and receive the new rules like a trained dog. It will be called another necessary price for freedom when it’s just a tightening of the master chain.