Beslan
As I've been watching these horrific school shootings over the past weeks, I've been struck by really how little can be done to prevent these attacks. Since Columbine, the student awareness has gone way up, and shootings by students have been frequently sussed out.
But there is so very little that can be done to stop a random attack, a random person just wandering in and killing people.
The next time I hear the Republicans crow that there hasn't been another terror attack, I'm probably going to think of this and think of that horrible attack on the school in the Russian city of Beslan.
Certainly steps have been taken that have aided in preventing attacks, but if terrorists really wanted to, the could commit Beslan after Beslan here in the US. There're really no measures to prevent that. For whatever reason, they don't want to.
It's not so much a success that there hasn't been another terror attack on US soil. It's their strategy.
Just something I'm thinking about tonight.
But there is so very little that can be done to stop a random attack, a random person just wandering in and killing people.
The next time I hear the Republicans crow that there hasn't been another terror attack, I'm probably going to think of this and think of that horrible attack on the school in the Russian city of Beslan.
Certainly steps have been taken that have aided in preventing attacks, but if terrorists really wanted to, the could commit Beslan after Beslan here in the US. There're really no measures to prevent that. For whatever reason, they don't want to.
It's not so much a success that there hasn't been another terror attack on US soil. It's their strategy.
Just something I'm thinking about tonight.
posted by mikevotes at
9:52 PM
5 Comments:
I think I follow you on this.
I have an issue with the lump term "terrorists" just like you can't lump "Westerner" into one notion. There is tension and complexity in all these terms to describe people engaging violence.
It has always seemed clear to me that terrorism is a symptom. Shootings in schools is a symptom of something. Increasing surveillence isn't a cure. Being in the world is necessarily "risky" - by our nature we our at constant risk of death at the hands of another. Terrorisms can't be solved by might and policing. As a high school student I'd much rather be "at risk" than be in a prison-school where every movement is surveilled. The idea of preventing attacks on schools and other public spaces encompasses a very long term arc. I'm not supposing I have a solution. Our exposure to ourselves as humans isn't what's new around here, is all.
By
Anonymous, at 12:25 AM
Wingnut talk radio host Mike Gallagher advocated this morning the arming of all teachers in order to prevent school shootings. So did the freak substituting for Darrell Ankarlo (Dallas KLIF).
See, the antidote to guns is more guns.
By
Motherlode, at 5:14 AM
Sandra,
First point is true, it's a loose terminology, or maybe I wasn't clear.
I agree that school shootings (and workplace shootings) are a sign of other problems, but I do think there is a difference between the student shootings, and someone wandering in off the street. I think they're different in their causes. Separately, "terrorism" will not be solved by barbed wire.
And, risk is something that does need balancing. I agree with you. Terror has been blown way out of all risk proportion for political purposes. I think that falls to two things. 1) it is a an outgrowth of the cultural "nesting" that we've seen taking place over the last 20-30 years. 2) an irrational racial/cultural fear of the other.
Motherlode, How in the world did the Republicans go from freaky side show entertainment to ruling power?
Mike
By
mikevotes, at 7:22 AM
My Dad sent me something on Suicide Killers which suggested that at the root of terrorism was the Islamic seperation of men and women. Essentially it argued that these frustrated young men are easily manipulated because they have no opportunity to express their affection to the opposite sex.
That may have some truth in it, but to say that Islam has a monopoly on this is insane.
When I read about the Amish shcool shooting, it brought it up.
Also, how about generations of puritans in America? Why didn't they all go nuts and start killing each other?
It is a disturbing trend that people in the states increasingly want to blame everyting on Islam itself: this is a dead-end road....literally.
By
Praguetwin, at 1:47 PM
That's an interesting theory. I'll have to chew on it.
Good point, school shooters are terrorists without a guiding ideology.
And something that you may not get (I don't know your US exposure) is the utter ubiquity of American exceptionalism.
Although it is puffed about publicly, there really is an unstated underlying cultural belief that this country is somehow special.
One of the ways this manifests is in this weird suburban angelica whereby all bad things are brought in, or are forign in some way because the "heart of America" is pure.
That's one of the reasons that all through modern US history, we have had countries and people we treat as villians. It's necessary for our self definition.
Mike
By
mikevotes, at 10:16 PM
Post a Comment
<< Home