Nobody Asked Me

I’m still in England, and will be for another couple days. The news here is dominated by two huge stories, and though absolutely no one asked me for my opinion, I’m going to give it anyway.

The ghastly, pointless bombing in Boston has filled me with sorrow for the victims and their families, but mostly it’s pissed me off.  The perpetrators were feeble-witted jackasses who sacrificed lives for no other purpose than air time.  The bombings do not threaten the U.S., do not make us more or less safe than we were before, and will not affect American policy in any way.  Nobody’s cringing in terror, afraid where the bad guys might strike next.  All the bombers got out of their action was television time, plus mutilated bodies.

My guess is the perpetrators aren’t affiliated with any terrorist group.  Al-Quaeda would have claimed credit by now, and so would any other organized group.  It’s what they do.  Modern terrorists are media whores, they need modern media in order to function at all.

So my guess is the Boston bombing is down to a small group of more or less amateur terrorists, maybe a single person.  There may not be any political objective, or any motive more rational than that of George Metesky or the Beltway Snipers, but on the other hand there’s the fact that the attack happened on tax day, near the site of the Boston Tea Party, and around the anniversaries of Waco and the Oklahoma City bombings.  I suspect that may give us a clue as to the bomber’s political orientation.

But of course we don’t actually know anything, so maybe such speculation is out of place.  In the meantime, I suggest you all follow the sage advice of Bruce Schneier.

The other big story in the media here is the funeral of Margaret Thatcher, from which I plan to stay away.  (I don’t want a rubber bullet in my kidney, for one thing.)

Folks are outraged that people are celebrating Thatcher’s death, and that some plan to demonstrate during the funeral.  After all, that’s the sort of thing the deranged loons at Westboro Baptist Church do.

I’ll leave comments on Thatcher’s legacy to those more familiar with her milieu than I, but I will point out that in this case the protests are perfectly justified, if not perhaps in the best of taste.

Mrs. Thatcher didn’t want a state funeral, she wanted a private ceremony.  So did her family.  But the Cameron administration created this not-technically-a-state-funeral for their own political reasons, and since it’s become political theater, it’s also a legitimate venue for political protest.

Plus of course there are plenty of people on both ends of the political spectrum who want the protests to happen.  Leftists and anarchists want to prove that they exist, and rightists want the protests to happen so that they can have headlines in their newspapers reading FILTHY HIPPIE RIOT SPOILS SOLEMN FUNERAL.

Because, y’know, the level of political discourse here isn’t any better than it is at home.  Sadly.