Get ready, get set, go… on an emotional roller coaster for the next few weeks while the Boston Horror is sorted out. Americans aren’t good at Terror. We were spared it for a good long while, as we heard about it in Lebanon and Ireland, and all those places that fall under the category ‘Other’. It’s trickling in here, now. We like to think that we’re a big glossy target that “lesser people” and “backward countries” hate, and that might be the case this time. But everything else is the case, too. Homegrown loonies, halfwitted inbreds, ego-driven creeds, counterculture crackpots, feverish revolutionaries and well-spoken demagogues are all “out there”- meaning “in here”. Some terror you can try to prepare for and some you can’t. That’s why it terrorizes us- it’s the Not Knowing. We don’t know where it’s coming from, nor why, nor from whom, nor when, nor especially what will happen next. That largely depends on who demands what happens next and whether they get what they demand… and the people making the most impassioned demands aren’t always using their forebrains and trying to outwit the terrorists, past or future. No, the most impassioned, demanding victims can be as irrational and impassioned and demanding as the terrorists themselves, and the terrorists like it that way. They’re calm right now, hiding and waiting to see what we’ll do. “They” (the culprits this time and the culprits previously and the wannabes) hope that we’ll do something stupid and hamstring ourselves. And we might. I hope not. We’ll see.
The best thing we can do is CONTINUE ON WITH OUR LIVES. The ones that did this want to disrupt us and drive us into hiding. If we do that, they win. And when they are caught, may it be a cold day in a warm nether region, in court.
We will not let them dictate how we live our lives. We will, however, remain observant and sound the alarm when we see suspicious activity. We caught the Lockerbie bomber, we caught the Oklahoma bombers, we caught those responsible for 9/11, and we will catch this coward. It’s easy to plant bombs and kill people remotely, try doing it face to face (chicken$**t bastard.)