“Whoever the coward was that committed this disgraceful act on our city will be found and prosecuted to the full extent of the law,” Bloomberg said.CNN via
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Said Mr. Bloomberg from behind the flexing walls of the most sophisticated and efficient security systems available to millionaires and their immediate families at this time.
In order for the cycle-bomber to avoid Bloomberg's stern accusation of cowardice he would have had to announce his presence and intent in the light of day.
Although, considering the penalties involved and the readiness of the US police-state apparatus to respond to such imminent threats as toothpaste and eye-drops, it does seem at least kind of brave, to go up against all that. On a bicycle.
And even slightly moral to do that, considering the Army has fucked up so many thousands of kids' lives - also killed a bunch, and maimed the shit out of a bunch more, or rather being in the Army and being sent to Iraq has. And a lot of the returned vets, even the ones with intact bodies, have deep soul trouble, because joining the Army and being sent to Iraq has fucked them up. Or, rather, being in the Army and being sent to Iraq and realizing you've been played has.
It would help a little right now for all of us to remember that these kids are not the equivalent of WWII vets, or even Viet Nam vets, though the pattern holds. The steady filtering down to the most expendable. The transition from the back rooms and register lanes of the big box stores to the mess hall table and the field shower and the war. From Wii and PS3 to guns and IED's. From a small circle of friends who might buy you a beer to a small circle of friends that might save your life. And outside that small circle people that hate and fear you, as opposed to people that merely don't respect you and mostly don't even recognize you as a human being.
The transition from dreams of a better car and a better job to dreams of just staying alive.
The gamble was always whether the scam would hold long enough that when the little expendables figured out enough of the details it wouldn't matter, because by then the big dominos would be toppling right down the line.
A lot of the kids who came back have made it as far as "war for Israel". Not that the cycle-bomber was necessarily one of them, unredressed grievances of all kinds among Iraq war vets are probably running about one-for-one. But the shift has happened. When I first started speaking to that, back in 2003, I pretty consistently got accused of anti-Semitism and thrown off moderated comment threads. I felt like Kenneth Patchens' "Little Man With Wooden Hair". It's not such a controversial idea now.
So how's this? It isn't measurable even in decades, what's been done here, how deep and thick the intrigue goes. Not even in centuries. And it spreads out to the edges of what all this is. Where theoretical physics comes looping back in toward religion, where spirit and body take leave of the illusion of separation, where we really are.
20 or so Israelis have been killed by rocket fire since 2000.
7+ years, 20 bodies.
The Israelis have killed over 100 Palestinians in the last week, many of the dead were children. So, murder. So lies and theft and murder. In the name of what? Survival.
This is morality bent to serve, not served. An ethical landscape where honor and nobility are extinct, museum relics, fairy tales.
