"Older people seem most vulnerable to the 24/7 news fear-mongering. A week ago, a loved one called me up. He was almost breathless, saying that 283 Americans were nearly blown up by a terrorist. I pointed out that, while the thwarted attack could have been tragic, on that same day, 20,000 children around the world actually died because of bad water and no immunizations.
With the failed attempt to blow up a plane last week, blankets on laps and trips to the toilet are now suspect on flights. Egged on by our hysterical media, we're fixated on a risk we can never completely rid ourselves of. But that's not news: The Department of Homeland Security has kept our airports at code orange ('high risk') for the last three years straight.
The irony is that those most obsessed with the risk of terrorism are the ones empowering the terrorists... whose purpose, after all, is to frighten us. The people who need to travel the most are the ones whose worldview is shaped not by actually going places, but by 24/7 news coverage. And those news stations are peddling fear for profit. If it bleeds, it leads...and a thwarted terrorist attack at Christmas, if properly stoked and prodded, can turn into several days of huge ratings."
No comments:
Post a Comment