London Calling

So, I feel its kind of needed to have a more calloused approach to the idea of London being bombed.

London's attack today has reached the hearts of the public again. It may not hit as close to home, but people are still leaving messages and stuff. I imagine that this will be at the forefront of most people's thoughts for the next few days. And, much like last year's bombings in Madrid, the horror of the events wil soon be forgotten in lieu of a more violating use of the events to put forth whatever political viewpoint people have. It has already started, as of today. The people of London have my sympathy.

What makes this most amusing is how things change when they go from being somewhere ese to being in your or your friend's backyards. People are people, and will always associated over there with over there. CNN, Fox News, and other such 24 hour news channels do little more than raise the death toll every time a bombing happens in the Middle East. 20 dead. 40 dead. There are no real conferences each time this happens. Why? Because they are over there. To the Western Civilization, they've made their bed, they can sleep in it, we don't care. They are not the same as us. And other such elements of distancing occurs.

As soon as it moved to the backyard, in this case London, it becomes front page news, headlines happen, news shows change, conferences are held. These are English speaking people who are victims. White people of European descent. They are us. This is abominable. Why did it have to happen, etc etc. Sure, it may not be on the scale of 9/11 (think 9/11 divided by 100, or 9.1), but it still is shocking.

But, what will be the overall response? The problem is that this will probably push people back into extremist divisions again. The Right Wing people will say, "You liberals have tied our hands behind our backs. This is what happens when we diminish our presence. We need to renew the Patriot Act so it doesn't happen around here. These people need policing." The Left Wing will say, "See what happens when you go around policing the world? They retaliate! It's not their fault they're miserable. It's ours."

Either way, in the shuffle of the upcoming political propagandizing, and abuse of the horror that people feel when they think about these events, the real London victims will be lost, and the constant barrage of attacks in Iraq and other nations will still be largely ignored. There may be some sympathizing, but maybe not.

The other thing that will happen is the real motive will be lost. One motive that may be used will be that people are trying to draw attention to the plight of the people and get the nations of the world to do something about it. The other motive will probably be that these are the people committing the steady stream of bombings already occurring, and they are trying to get the nations of the world to stop and leave them along. And, this, again, will further divide opinion.

The public has my sympathy.