Fri, September 10, 2004
Interestingly put—5:43 PM
How Terrorism Works [Design By Fire]
(Ack! Design again!)
The "terror" in "terrorism" depends largely on publicity. If nobody finds out about your terrorist attack, then you haven't terrified anyone and advanced the awareness of your cause, you've just murdered some people. So, al Qaeda could not be successful in spreading terror without the assistance of the DHS, the White House, and the broadcast media.
Are these groups intentionally complicit? No, even I'm not going to say that. They each push terror for their own selfish reasons – but until we can responsibly filter their messages of terror and find a way to assimilate them into our lives without allowing ourselves to be controlled by fear... the terrorists will, quite literally, have won.
(Not that this is what Andrei's saying exactly. But his impressively spare graphical representation got me thinking.)
