Terrorball

[Are_grits_groceries]

I’m quite sure I could beat LeBron James in a game of one on one basketball. The game merely needs to feature two special rules: It lasts until I score, and as soon as I score I win. Such a game might last several hours, or even a week or two, and James would probably score hundreds and possibly thousands of points before my ultimate victory, but eventually I’m going to find a way to put the ball in the basket.

Our national government and almost all of the establishment media have decided to play a similar game, which could be called Terrorball. The first two rules of Terrorball are:

(1) The game lasts until there are no longer any terrorists, and;
(2) If terrorists manage to ever kill or injure or seriously frighten any Americans, they win.
<snip>
On one level, Terrorball can be understood as a product of straightforward cynicism: Both politicians and media moguls know that fear can be exploited for power and profit. But the rules of the game have another source as well.
<snip>
So why do Islamic terrorists continue to try to blow up commercial jetliners, rather than focusing their efforts on more vulnerable targets? Besides the most obvious reason – that there are very few such terrorists, and their destructive abilities are in fact extremely limited – it appears these terrorists understand the psychology of our political and media elites quite well.

That psychology dictates a third rule of Terrorball: destroying a commercial jet is the most terrifying form of terrorism, and if (when) terrorists once again manage this feat, in the face of all the elaborate steps taken to stop them, then they will have truly “won.”

Now why should this be? Part of the reason is that the normal conditions of airline travel, which create feelings of claustrophobia, helplessness, and a general loss of control, are ripe for exploitation by those who want to use fear as a political weapon, i.e., terrorists and those eager to enhance and manipulate the fear of terrorism.
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Another reason has to do the imaginative capacities of our elites. The typical Congressional subcommittee chairman or cable news anchor or syndicated columnist can’t really imagine not being able to afford to take his child to a doctor, or being wrongly convicted of a crime, but he is quite capable of imagining being on a Paris to New York flight that’s blown out of the sky. And while it’s true the risk he faces of suffering this fate are very close to zero, they are not, as they are for a poor person, literally zero.
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Terrorball, then, is an elaborate political game that seems irrational on its face – after all, it’s certain that more than 2.4 million Americans will die this year, and fairly likely that not even one of those deaths will be caused by terrorism -- but which features its own peculiar logic. That logic reflects the anxieties of those who have created its rules, and serves the interests of both terrorists and those who profit from exploiting the fear of terrorism.

http://lefarkins.blogspot.com/2010/01/terrorball.html

Can't win this game. He's right about Congress and the MSM focusing on what they imagine can happen to them. They don't really focus on health care or the growing number of people on foodstamps or who are homeless. They can't imagine these conditions therefore they must not really exist to a large extent.

Maybe they need to have their main offices in their states and work in DC a lot less. The should also be dragged around by their ears if necessary to see the people who are suffering. I'd lock them up for a bus trip on the "Shameful Express."

[Quantess]

1. This OP is really wide on the screen.

Maybe it's the dashed line margins causing it.

[Are_grits_groceries]

2. Did that help.

I think it worked.

[Quantess]

3. Yes, that did the trick!

[Rosa Luxemburg]

4. gullible nations and propaganda

if there wasn't a medium to exploit this with then people wouldn't hear about it.

[Orsino]

5. For a given value of "win," yes.

You've underscored the essential futility of our preparing for "war" against a foe that doesn't accept our invitation to meet on a battlefield.

The Lakers can take home an NBA trophy, but they are simply not equipped to take on every amateur player on every street corner. They are, in effect, playing the wrong game.