(Burn Fresno) – With terrorism on the minds of many Americans since the attack on the World Trade Center (There had been somewhat of a lull in terrorism within the US since the Unabomber and the Atlanta Olympics bombing) and solidified by the constant mention of terror and terrorism in the media, there has been a rise in movies and television shows about terrorism in recent years in order to cash in on the current events of the time.
The people most easily influenced by these forms of media are young people, and many young people in America have a bad taste in their mouth when it comes to government and “the man”, especially since many grew up during a time when America was prospering the most and have now lived through the housing market crash and the economy receding in general.
Older people, on the other hand, tend to be more apathetic to the fact that almost every facet of our government is corrupt or abused in some way. This has been going on for a long time, as these “older people” were the young people of the 60′s.
Since those times (and somewhat before) young people have been using drugs to “stick it to the man”, whether “the man” be their parents, the government, police officers, their teacher, or their employer. It’s common among especially males in their more rebellious teenage years.
While this is still very prevalent today (and very much on the rise with the current state of prescription medications in America, as well as marijuana legalization being a major topic these days), the “bad guys” of television, movie, and video game entertainment have experienced a paradigm shift from South American drug dealers and the occasional Russian Terrorist to becoming Middle Eastern Terrorists a large percentage of the time.
Hence, terrorism is glorified as the side of the battle that isn’t our own government, which is appealing to many of these young kids who pick up their queues from the media in many cases. And I believe this may have been the case in the recent Times Square attempted bombing by Faisal Shahzad.
This is someone who spent years of his life becoming a naturalized US Citizen, building a family, and earning multiple degrees (which included an MBA). He lost his house in the financial crisis and was ashamed of it (confirmed by the fact that he told his neighbors they were moving to Kansas), and after having put so much time, effort, and faith into becoming a citizen most likely felt betrayed by the government and the major financial institutions that caused our current economic state.
He then most likely pondered how he could get back at the country that he felt betrayed by and hastily constructed a plan to car bomb Times Square and flee the country. His choice here could have been driven by a number of factors, but the two most likely are that terrorism is the first thing he thought of because of the constant media exposure it gets and his cultural heritage and being from Pakistan, where such an attack is much more commonplace.
Then there’s the fact that the bomb was constructed in such a way that it looked as if someone had watched too many movies while attempting to build it. Non explosive fertilizer and alarm clocks? Where have I seen such craziness before? Oh yeah, on television, in movies, and in video games.
The glorification of terrorism needs to stop, or we’re going to end up with many more similar cases.
Terrorism is the worst path someone in a distressful situation could possibly go down (selling drugs and things like suicide don’t even compare), so we need to work on getting this option out of peoples’ minds. And when I say “we”, I mean the media (both left and right wing).
