X-Message-Number: 27005
References: <>
From: David Stodolsky <>
Subject: Terrorism (was: )
Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2005 22:59:16 +0200

On 10 Sep 2005, at 16:55, Billy H.Seidel wrote:

>  There is NO other side to this story.  As I said before, "I don't  
> care about the politics or whatever reports you want to read about  
> who's fault this was,  Terrorism has got to stop. As a human race  
> we can not allow this to continue."
>
Unfortunately, the framing of the message is political. Clearly the  
people who flew those planes into the Pentagon and the WTC felt there  
was another side to the story. So did a substantial fraction of the  
World's population who indicated an understanding of their motives  
and who in some cases expressed support.

The term "terrorism" as it has come to be used, excludes actions by  
states and deaths due to structural violence. If there was an air  
crash killing 300 children, it would be news. If it happened twice in  
the same day, there would be demands for an investigation. However,  
there are a few hundred deaths of children due to malnutrition every  
half-hour, round the clock, every day of the year. This isn't news  
and World leaders can't get motivated to do much about it. According  
to the World Bank, more deaths resulted from the economic effects of  
the attack, than died in the attacks themselves.

Your chance of being killed by a terrorist action is below that of  
just about any activity, including walking across a street, driving a  
car, falling in the home, medical malpractice, etc. Probably the most  
interesting thing about terrorism is why it has been receiving such a  
great degree of press coverage. Prior to the invasion of Iraq,  
terrorism was at its lowest level in thirty years.

Check out the The National Index of Violence and Harm:

http://www.manchester.edu/links/violenceindex/


For ongoing news coverage in depth, try this site: The mag. is  
received by the Swedish Parliament and a lot of other places where  
perspective and hard facts are required:

http://www.thenation.com/



dss


David Stodolsky    Skype: davidstodolsky

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