So this week we've had a Big Huge Scare about bombs in cargo. And two comedians held the sanest rally for a long time in Washington (complete with some excellent banners).
The two are linked in my mind: Over there, in the land of black and white and who shouts wins, there appears to be a growing movement that's saying: "Wait, I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that. We'll need to think and act rationally to get past this". Over here, we've got the land of Swinging Cuts and We're All In This Together But Some Of You Are More In It Than Us. And the reverse side of that is: oh please cut them, but not me. Which goes all ways.
Far be it from me to question either the media or our beloved masters in power, but I know that if I was genuinely interested in defeating terrorism, I'd stop letting bastards and twerps terrorise me. Sure, bad things happen and bad people cause them. But we *found* these bombs, and I guarantee you it wasn't a lucky search - someone somewhere said something to someone who could do something about it. This is the way intelligence works in the real world - it's very very boring and we normally only ever find out about it when it goes wrong (which, being a human institution, it's bound to every now and again). This feels different: this feels like someone *else* has taken a deliberate decision to let the populace know just how much danger they're in, and how much they need more security blankets passing out. I note even now that our beloved Home Secretary has announced "a review" and I'm damn sure it won't come back with a "meh, bad things happen, we caught it, it's good enough" conclusion.
Oh no, not now. When the choice is between behaving rationally and refusing to be frightened or to cause others to become more fearfull, and shouting loudly at the top of our voices how terrible things are and how you must give more money and power to those trying to stop it, I know which way the wind is blowing.
On this side of the pond we've still got a way to go downhill into shouty polarising idiocy before we can think about rallying our Sanity.
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