<3 London

[nirix5]

First, I hope that everyone in Britain on my friends list is okay. I hope that your families and loved ones are all right, too.

The bombings were the first thing on the news this morning. Hell of a thing to wake up to. Why do these things always happen first thing in the morning? Or why do I always wind up hearing about them first thing in the morning?

I don't get it. I seriously, truly just don't get it. Terrorism is only effective in the immediate sense- that is, when you're involved in a bombing or something, you might panic or something. What about after people calm down? I was watching BBC World a little while ago, and in all the video they showed of Londoners this afternoon, people were quietly walking to wherever they had to go. There was no mass hysteria, no fear, no breakdown of their system or society. If that's the aftermath of a terrorist attack, then what the hell is the point of doing it in the first place?

Obviously, the public reaction increases or decreases depending on the scale of the incident itself. But even for gigantic things like September 11th... shit, the rest of the country went on doing what it was doing the day before, even if New York and Washington were shut down. No one hid in their houses for days on end. Day to day life didn't change at all unless you were directly involved. Well, things changed, but the country didn't go straight to hell (unless you count the Patriot Act. And I highly doubt that the terrorists' aim was to push that piece of legislation through.)

Does it suck? Yeah. Big time. Is it upsetting? Of course it is. Bombs, attacks, death tolls; all of those things and everything that accompanies them is scary and disconcerting.
But these are the British, for god's sake. One of the toughest, most defiant, self-controlled, muddle-through-anything-and-come-out-on-top groups of people in the entire world. That really says something for the intellegence of the terrorists. Namely, that if they're trying to terrorize someone, they're better off picking people who would be easily terrorized. Fucktards. God.

I don't know. I'm kind of upset, in a weird, peripheral sort of way. Maybe I'm more disturbed than upset. The whole thing just reminds me of the strange times we live in, where nothing is simple and everything is hopelessly screwed up. I can't see any ways to fix this. Sometimes I find myself wishing that the doomsayers are right and these are the Last Days or whatever, just so everything will end and the stupid pointless violence will stop. Thoughts like that just make me cynical and bitter. I hate feeling like that.

Please excuse my rambling. I feel all mixed up.

Comments

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Sadly, the British do have a certain experience with dealing with this sort of thing. They'll stand strong.

But we musn't underestimate the symbolism of "no one is safe".

[http://users.livejournal.com/_waterlilies/]

I've noticed something about this attack: people I've talked to (myself included) haven't been shocked or outraged or anything. Mostly I've heard people say, "God, I'm so sick of this [terrorism]." I don't know what they're hoping to accomplish. They get some publicity and kill some people, but it's not like a car bomb is going to bring to the West to it's knees or anything. The fucktards devastate some families and leave a few kids without their parents, which is repre-fucking-hensible, but doesn't accomplish much in the grand scheme of things. Ultimately, it's pointless. Pointless and unnecessary violence. And I just. don't. get. it.

[nirix5.livejournal.com]

True.

Makes me kind of think of the Chinese curse/blessing, "May you live in interesting times."

[nirix5.livejournal.com]

Amen to that. And then I sit around and wonder why they don't think of that. My mom thinks that their brains are fried from living in the desert too long. Mabye the feng shui of that part of the world drives you crazy. Do car bombs put the fear in them, where they don't in us, particularly?

It's stupid, it's pointless, and it makes me want to cry.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_waterlilies/]

My roommate Ashley and I blame the feng shui in our apartment for our insomnia, so I could see it driving a few people bugshit nuts enough to think what they're doing is a) right and b) effective. It's just... it's just a fucked up time we live in, Feather my friend. Fucked. Up. I spent the night before the 4th in tears because I was thinking about just how screwed up the world is right now.

[nirix5.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough, I was talking about it with Mom the other day. Life has never been like this, EVER, in all of human history before. The last century has seen incredible and unnerving leaps of technology that, if (and it will) it figures in the collapse of this society/empire/whatever, will be catastrophic. I don't see how we could survive it or rebuild from it in a way that wouldn't let us make the same mistakes all over again.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_waterlilies/]

I hate to rip off Kelly Clarkson's song titles, but this world's a beautiful disaster. We have so much potential to help, but it seems like we're inherently self-destructive, so I wouldn't be surprised if we see a catastrophic nuclear war in the next couple decades. Think of what kind of genius it took to create those bombs, and look at the result of that genius. It's shocking and sickening, that someone would even think to create it. As far as what the result of that war would be... *sigh* I'd like to think the world would learn for a mistake that huge. I'd like to, but... *sigh*

[elfstone.livejournal.com]

Because the public transport systems are the busiest in the morning. The sad truth is they want to kill as many people as possible to create as much terror as they can.

However if have a look at what's happened as a result of the latest spurt of terrorism - they've lost their impunity in Afghanistan, they've ended up killing many of their fellow muslims in Iraq and thereby pissing everyone off there, and they've also made it a lot harder for themselves to get what they want! What they're doing isn't working for them and I hope they realise it soon! I also hope they catch the bastards and string them up by their testicles.

This is a good article I read recently:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/paul-sheehan/murder-of-innocents-a-lost-cause/2005/07/10/1120934125023.html

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