Wednesday, April 24, 2013

How The Media Ignore The Real Meaning Of Boston

It didn't take long to happen.
In fact, it happened almost instantaneously.
In no time at all, the media morphed the story about the horrific terrorist bombings in Boston into a tale of Twitter posts, symbolic acts, candlelight processions and makeshift memorials. Before the blood had even dried, the balm was in place. That was Act One.
Act Two shifted to the humanization of the monstrous culprits. Here, the story focused on the road to alienation of  young Muslim men. They seemed so normal, we were told. They' were just like other "kids" their age. Somehow, we lost them. Somehow, they didn't feel quite welcomed. Somehow (who knows or cares how) they became radicalized. The brothers are presented almost as if they could have been anybody's kids and that this event could have happened anywhere at anytime or anyplace.
This is the mainstream media mantra right now.
Thankfully, there are a couple of exceptions to this inane buzz.
In the best column I've yet read about the bombings, finally someone has given us a badly-needed, prescient take on all this.
Here's part of what Bret Stephens has written in the Wall Street Journal:
. . . human carnage is beyond description, a fact known mainly to those—now including several hundred people in Boston—who have seen it for themselves. To see it is to understand it; to understand it is to have no real words for it. . . . we cannot begin to comprehend what happened in Boston until we think longer about the evil that has been done there. Before you go into constructive mode, reflect on what, and who, has been destroyed. Ask yourself: By whom? In whose name? For the sake of what?
Click here to read the full column.


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