"London kept the dance halls open during the Blitz, but Boston shut Fenway because of a pipe bomb."

[HiPointDem]

Last edited Wed May 1, 2013, 06:34 AM - Edit history (1)

By the end of the week, I found myself wondering if a better society wouldn’t have kept Boston open and shuttered CNN. Did we really shut down an entire city to catch one wounded boy? Have we overextended the First Amendment in granting the press effective immunity from responsibility even as we become a nation intent on revoking the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth? There’s a temptation to read the scenes of deserted streets and paramilitary police as teasers for the sort of incipient totalitarianism, and maybe it is, but as an aficionado of conspiracy literature, I find that this analysis tends inevitably toward the conspiracist’s biggest flaw, which is to over-read intention and to presume that history has a narrative.

If you asked me to describe in one word a culture that dispatches the black helicopters and assault vehicles in response to a dyadic pair of wayward, violent youth, I’d say, decadent. London kept the dance halls open during the Blitz, but Boston shut Fenway because of a pipe bomb. There’s some truth to the claim that Americans are uniquely deferential to authority and prone to authoritarian solutions, but we’ve also become a culture that’s largely adopted the values of an aristocracy: we want perfect safety and perfect comfort, although we’ll complain mightily about the cost of service these days. For all the John McCains looking up from their thin soup to demand that we Torquemadize the surviving brother in order to discover whether or not this was all part of Cobra Commander’s plot, the predominant sentiment behind the desire to prevent the kid from “lawyering up” and fitting him for concrete boots instead seems to me to be that putting him to trial would just be such a bother, and so expensive.

For all the praetorian hoo-hah on display all day in Boston, the thing that broke the case was some dude going outside to burn a square once the cops gave everyone the all clear. What purpose, then, did the lockdown serve? Well, yinz ever hear of a little thing called The Society of Spectacle? A culture of universal surveillance is a karaoke civilization; the lockdown of Boston was demanded by its own image; CNN’s et al.’s fake reporting wasn’t just the result of an immense, confused official response, but also in a very real sense its cause. Not for nothing does the footage resemble an action flick. The line between reality and fantasy is blurring, yes, but which is really shading into the other?

And this, too, is why the subsequent investigation and trial seem so odd to so many Americans. It reeks of anticlimax. How many more goodbyes do we have to endure before Cate Blanchett and Ian McKellan pack the Bagginses off from Middle Earth? Isn’t there something better on? One reason Brave New World holds up better than 1984 is that Huxley had the good humor to pick a winner, not a boot stomping on a human face forever, but orgy-porgy; not violence and death as a threat, but violence and death as entertainment. Hey, do you guys wonder why something as basically dull as The Hunger Games is so extraordinarily popular. It’s not because it’s fantastical. It’s because it’s recognizable.

We can no more tolerate a plodding police investigation and boring trial than we can stand a sensibly edited fight scene in a movie. It isn’t by accident that the fools on cable news say that a story is “fast moving.” Civil libertarians will argue that we turned Boston into a kind of war zone, but no, we turned it into a soundstage, and we turned the population into extras for those emotional establishing shots of regular citizens gazing through plate glass as the Avengers zoom by. So, you know, look: Lindsey Graham isn’t the villain, here. Actually, he’s the nerd telling everyone to sit down during the credits ‘cause they’re gonna miss the post-credit villain reveal!

http://jacobbacharach.wordpress.com/2013/04/


i posted this partly because i liked the writing and partly to see whether people would actually read it, or just respond to the title....

[Fumesucker]

1. I had a relative who lived in London during the Blitz

With the V1 or Buzz Bomb you were fine as long as you could hear it, when the engine quit then you cringed and found something heavy to hide behind or underneath.

The V2 rocket on the other hand just made an enormous explosion and then a few moments later you heard the whistle of it falling, it was supersonic when it fell into the city, outran its own sound waves.

At night of course was when the bombers came and people fled to the Underground and the Tube to sleep.

As a society we are amazingly spoiled in some ways.

[malaise]

16. My mother was in London for the blitz

They even went to the movies.
This article is repeating what I said (to much criticism).

[Bucky]

36. But they also had black outs. That is, they took reasonable measures against harm

and of course they cooperated with the requests of authorities.

[randome]

37. Cooperation with the authorities is for traitors!

[thucythucy]

38. And gas rationing. And food rationing.

Can you just imagine what our libertarians would be saying if any government entity attempted to limit their use of cars, lawn mowers, weed wackers, leaf blowers, etc.? Police state! Worse than fascism!

Besides which, the Blitz went on for a full year. The Massachusetts "shelter in place" request by the authorities lasted a few hours.

So I think on the whole this is a pretty lame analogy.

[rppper]

23. England also had one of the....

Most advanced(@the time)radar early warning nets that gave them some time to meet the attack. The RAF was outnumbered by the Luftwaffe 5-1, but the radar gave them the advantage of knowing where they would be. The spitfires and radar decimated the Luftwaffe....it never really recovered after the Battle of Britain.

[ananda]

33. England also had a fantastic intelligence and decoding service.

Sometimes I think it was the ones at home who helped England more.

And of course the Russians deserve a lot of credit because if Stalin
hadn't been betrayed by Hitler, all of this would be moot.

[rppper]

62. The germans did not want us in the war...

A lesson from WWI....but it really came down to getting the convoys across...twice britan broke the inigma code....it stopped the U-Boatt attacks almost immediately

[alcibiades_mystery]

34. "A screaming comes across the sky..."

The V2 outrunning its sound is the initial plot premise for Pynchon's classic, Gravity's Rainbow (and that's its famous first line).

[dipsydoodle]

47. The main "Blitz" was actually concentrated aerial bombing by the Luftwaffe

over the entire period September 1940 - May 1941. That's as opposed to the use of V1's and V2's.
http://www.history.co.uk/explore-history/history-of-london/the-blitz-the-lightning-war-hits-London.html

The use of V1's and V2's here was towards the end of the war. A V1/buzzbomb/doodle bug took out two houses about 80 yards away from where a nipper you refer to as Dipsydoodle was living with his mother and grandparents.

Re. dancing - the 100 Club in Oxford Street for example , which is a jazz club , opened in 1942. That's under the pavement so only a direct hit would've harmed it. That's still open today.

A closer analogy to the Boston would be the period here in the eighties with the IRA bombs when yes we just got on with it anyway.

[oberliner]

2. Who are these people?

Everyone with a blog these days.

[HiPointDem]

7. so? you prefer we should only hear the blather of professional pundits? i find a lot of bloggers

way more interesting, myself.

[oberliner]

8. No I loathe them too

Even moreso.

It just seems like everyone has a blog these days.

[HiPointDem]

9. i don't. do you? this guy is actually a novelist, btw.

[oberliner]

12. Nope

But I do write novels!

[HiPointDem]

13. well then maybe you should start a blog!

[orpupilofnature57]

3. London was a forward area, Boston wasn't . n/t

[Fumesucker]

39. Everywhere is a forward area in the War On Terra

[orpupilofnature57]

70. But for you, and for me.....

the world is a ghetto .

[magical thyme]

4. closing dance halls wouldn't have helped catch Hitler.

Voluntarily shutting down Boston helped catch the bomber.

It doesn't matter that he ultimately was found by a citizen. Had Boston been business as usual it would have been far, far easier for him to have slipped out of Boston in the commuter rush. Instead, he was pinned down and unable to escape unnoticed.

[magical thyme]

17. no, spoken like a Bostoner

I lived in Mass for 26 years. I have yet to see any Bostoners bitching about the city being closed for a day. If I'd lived there now, I'd have been glad for a day off from work.

[HereSince1628]

26. Closing Boston didn't help catch the bomber...closing Watertown didn't either

What actually helped catch the bomber was the extra eyes of a civilian homeowner who noticed the cover on his stored boat was open and that there was blood present.


And that didn't happen until the police suggested it was ok to go back to living their lives.

[reformist2]

5. Boston sometimes thinks of itself as a small town. That's why the "police state" comparisons fail.

If a prisoner were loose in a small town, you can bet everyone would band together to find the guy and do whatever it took. When they suggested everyone stay in home that Friday, I can tell you almost everyone agreed, not because it was dangerous, but because we wanted to help the police find the guy.

Keep in mind, the vast majority of the police were concentrated in the small suburb of Watertown. It wasn't like there were police and national guard troops marching all over Boston.

[onenote]

6. Apple, meet orange

Interesting comparison. I had no idea the British were searching the streets of London for German airplanes.

[JoePhilly]

18. ^^^^ This ^^^^

[jberryhill]

43. Lol

But civil liberties were paramount in London during WWII, lol.

[treestar]

52. The Germans were certainly deserving of their civil liberties!

Innocent until proven guilty! Not a flight risk!

[dixiegrrrrl]

46. *snort*

[treestar]

51. [phone]

[Arctic Dave]

57. They were looking for spies though.

Germany had several "lookouts" landed in the UK.

[OneGrassRoot]

10. Are there Bostonians speaking out about this issue?

Last edited Wed May 1, 2013, 07:22 AM - Edit history (1)

I'm sure there are, I just haven't seen them.

I assume this blogger is a fellow Pittsburgh native, given his use of "yinz."

I mention this because I find it interesting that it's primarily those who do not live in Boston who are criticizing every aspect of what happened.

I don't perceive people in Boston as sheep whatsoever. They weren't, and aren't, cowering in fear. They voluntarily took measures that seemed to resolve the situation faster than if life had continued "business as usual" that Friday.

Their voices are the ones I value in this situation. Thus far, from what I've seen, their voices have been raised in unison in support of how BPD and other agencies handled things.

[OneGrassRoot]

11. I am K&Ring...

because, for me, the article was thought-provoking.

Thanks for posting.

[HiPointDem]

14. because you're one of the few who actually read it.

[Capt. Obvious]

22. I read it and gave it a rec

It was a good read.

[treestar]

53. I've yet to see an actual Bostonian have this concern

The Boston DUers included.

[smirkymonkey]

68. We have been arguing ourselves blue in the face about how this was not such a

big deal here, but nobody seems to be listening. We're done. They have been caught, killed. We are safe. It all happened very quickly. We cooperated, we weren't forced. We are tired of outsiders telling us how it should have been done.

[tblue37]

19. KnR. nt

[tblue37]

29. I visited his blog for general reading. He's good.

Thanks for the tip.

[no_hypocrisy]

20. Sometimes decisions to close like here are out of Fenway's hands.

Example: the insurance carrier for the baseball facility may advise closing in case there is in fact a pipe bomb and that bomb explodes, injuring even one person. That injured person has a liability case against Fenway for not closing when it had knowledge of a possible pipe bomb. Prevention of a potential disaster nowadays demands extreme caution as exhibited here, more for protection of assets than for safety of the public.

[randome]

21. "...one wounded boy..."

Who killed several people and severely wounded hundreds of others. Who was throwing bombs at the police.

More second-guessing and minimizing by someone who wasn't there.

"...dyadic pair of wayward, violent youth..." That's redundant so it's not even good writing.

LOL!

[winter is coming]

27. Yes, but it was important to tell us that it was a dyadic pair, and not a decadent threesome,

aka "alternative pair". And, of course, it's okay to be violent as long as you're not wayward.

[Union Scribe]

42. Yep, that language minimizes both the threat

he posed while loose and the carnage he helped inflict. I just don't get people who insist on doing that to make a point.

[mgcgulfcoast]

24. it was appalling

it was a gross over reaction in boston. other terrorists see this and think they can cause total panic with a minor attack.

[randome]

25. People killed, limbs blown off, hundreds injured. 'Minor attack'. Another non-Bostonian, I take it?

[treestar]

54. Other terrorists see they can get caught

And that the city will do all it can to take them alive.

[Buzz Clik]

28. A lot of morons post a lot of dumb stuff on the internet. And we get to read it here.

Last edited Wed May 1, 2013, 10:15 AM - Edit history (1)

Thanks.

[MannyGoldstein]

30. This Bostonian disagrees

People voluntarily stayed home to let the cops do their jobs.

They did their jobs, more or less.

They got the guy.

[thucythucy]

41. Manny, your posts often irk me,

especially since I so often agree with them. That is, you often take a more cynical view of our politics than I'd like to acknowledge is accurate, which makes me feel uncomfortable, hence my state of irk-dom.

The fact that YOU are cool with the request to shelter in place (NOT a "lockdown," thank you very much) is very reassuring to me. As someone who lived in Boston for eighteen years (and had to move away, much to my regret) I'm proud of the way my adopted hometown came through this horror. And I'm glad you and I agree on this. I was afraid you'd take the BS "police state" position, and knowing your previous posts I figured you would be both articulate and witty, making it all the more difficult to counter.

Fortunately, we find ourselves on the same side for this one. Whew!

I look forward to seeing you at the next two minutes hate.

[MannyGoldstein]

56. Well...

[liberal N proud]

31. England had "Keep Calm and Carry On" - the US has Let the Fear Paralyze You.

This is what terrorist want, is to instill fear in a population.

[wercal]

32. I read it all and I like the writing..

...And it is thought provoking. Some reactions here act like its a toggle switch....and even a minor feeling of uneasiness about the police and media response puts a tin foil cap on your head. I think the author did a good job without coming off as an anti government loon.

[Paladin]

35. K&R. Good points, well written. (nt)

[mythology]

40. The author is rather self-indulgent and doesn't make a valid comparison

I read the article and as somebody who lives in Boston, he can go piss up a rope. He can say it was just a pair of wayward youth now because the two have been caught/killed. It's a little different to say that when they were having shoot outs with police and killing/maiming people. The author is no better than Nate Bell calling the people of Boston cowering liberals.

As previously noted, the German bombers were in planes and the battle was being fought in the skies. I will wager that they didn't keep the dance halls in Poland open when Germany was invading because that an on the ground situation. Additionally the Blitz lasted nearly 37 weeks and the situation in Boston lasted less than a week, with one day on more or less full voluntary lockdown and the day of the bombing many places being closed. But Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were largely normal while the police did their jobs.

From reading the posting, I get the feeling that the author is sort of a real life Ignatius J Reilly the way he tries mock popular culture and people for liking it, but the author isn't actually funny.

[Progressive dog]

44. A good opinion piece would not base opinion on lies

Last edited Wed May 1, 2013, 12:03 PM - Edit history (1)

"Did we really shut down an entire city to catch one wounded boy?"
No We didn't and neither did the Boston police, FBI, or anyone else.

"Black helicopters and assault vehicles"
Armored cars are assault vehicles (I guess Ron Paul calling them tanks was a bit too much) and helicopters are painted conspiracy black.

"What purpose, then, did the lockdown serve?"
Again with the lies. There was no lockdown. This is a LIE.

[Blue_Tires]

45. Didn't make it past "...overextended the First Amendment..."

[Baitball Blogger]

48. The Boston situation was resolved within a week.

The voluntary seclusion took less than a day.

When you think something is going to be nipped in the bud you will resort to different tactics than you would if it's a long-term situation. We are not comparing apples to apples.

Right-wingers just don't reason very well. i.e. George Bush thought he would end the Iraq War in the first hour of a surprise shock and awe strike. If you recall, he struck before Saddam's deadline was up. But it didn't work that way. Nobody remembers that a minister would later cryingly confess that they were told that nobody would die.

The assholes in the administration were working out of plan from that point on.

I bet none of this is covered in the Bush Library.

[LuvNewcastle]

49. Did he coin the word "Torquemadize?"

My spell-check doesn't like it. Anyway, I think it's a good and very useful word, especially these days.

[treestar]

50. Entirely different scenarios

London was under attack by a military power. They needed to be encouraged to keep their chins up. And there was some shutting down and kids were sent out into the country.

The Boston shut down was because it could be effective. No one knew the "boy" was wounded (not using that term in order to make him sound not dangerous, he is an adult and can be called a man - interesting choice there). He had set a bomb and been in two shoot outs with police - let's not pretend he was harmless.

[JoePhilly]

55. Pretty sure that the air raid sirens caused voluntary lockdown all across London.

[cheyanne]

58. Straw man comparison

Blitz did not have bomber loose on the streets of London.

[frylock]

65. just german spies

[RZM]

59. Lame analogy. Keeping the dance halls open was about morale

It says nothing about being a police state. The Leningrad symphony played a concert during the German blockade of the city. And this was in a country that was a totalitarian police state even before the war.

I'm pretty sure that there were a lot more controls placed on people in wartime Britain than there are on US citizens in 2013.

[AnneD]

60. I have been saying this since we got Homeland Security.....

We are no longer land of the free and home of the brave....but a nation of spoiled candy asses. And no, you do not require a gun to be brave.

[jberryhill]

61. Children were under mandatory evacuation

Does this look like a dance hall to you:



Do these kids look like they are under "voluntary lockdown":



Most of the posts here dispute the circumstances, but the FACTS in the OP are crackers.

[City of Mills]

63. Look, it's Captain Hindsight to the rescue!

Ooh, another Monday morning quarterback . The city was locked down because one or more people were running around Watertown throwing homemade bombs after murdering a man earlier in the day, and killing and maiming many people only days earlier. Yeah, total overreaction.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

64. The terrorists win when the people cringe in fear..that's the point of terrorism.

[whatchamacallit]

66. Sadly you're wasting your breath

DU Woodchucks would find daily body cavity searches and barcode tattoos acceptable.

[LeftInTX]

67. I think a short term city shut down is OK with a lot of people

If this had been a long term thing, then morale would go down.

I think fear and war-mongering by the neocons is getting very old. They want us to relive 9/11 every day.

[MADem]

69. What a stupid comparison. How long did the Blitz last and what did it involve?

The blitz lasted longer than half a day.

The cops made a "request" of the citizens to get the hell off the streets to make it easier to catch a guy in a fixed area, and suspended public transport to make it hard for him to get away.

And it wasn't "a" pipe bomb--those little fuckers had quite the arsenal of IEDs and they intended to use them.

This writer is not only an idiot, he's an ass who can't make an analogy to save his stupid, pompous life. Fucking know-it-all who doesn't know itshay. His most recent post, with the "gay in the adolescent insult sense of the word" comment tells me all I need to know about this putz.

He's "too clever by half," as they say.

I hate self-important "comparisons" that call a watermelon a blueberry and expect people to buy off on it. He's a blatherer, and his blathering is tiresome and dull.

[lunatica]

71. Second guessing everything just to be critical is awesome!