The "L" Word

No, not the ones you're thinking of, but a really dirty one.

And that word is "lockdown."

Last week, the Trouserville Team was on vacation in London when the Boston Marathon bombings occurred. Through the miracle of Wi-Fi, we could check in on the headlines, and follow events as they unfolded. 

Yes, the crimes were heinous. 

No, I won't rant about the media's continuing misuse of the word tragedy, or their penchant for piety, or their nauseating self-congratulation. Anyone who spent more than one minute looking at Channel 5 or 7 or any other number, doesn't need me to point out the ridiculous quality of the coverage. 

I will refrain from making jokes about the fact that Dunkin Donuts stayed open at the request of the authorities.  

What disturbed me most, maybe because I was viewing the events at a distance, was the appalling spectacle of the lockdown. There it was on the screen, displayed in bright red, my town, landlocked by the other towns locked down around it,  "towns" including the entire city of Boston.

Hello, America, let's get some perspective. It had to have been pretty clear to the authorities that a 7-11 robbery, a point blank killing, and a carjacking in which the jackee was released unharmed was not the work of a well-organized terrorist cell, and that they were dealing with, at most, "grass roots militants," in other words, amateur-hour punk-ass creeps.

Sure, it is just common sense to warn citizens in a town where an armed manhunt is taking place that they should keep their doors locked and stay off the streets, streets where they would be as likely to be run over by a lawman in hot pursuit as taken hostage by a desperado.  I'd like to say that most people would have enough sense to figure this out for themselves, but in  a time where anyone with a cellphone considers themselves a photojournalist, and a huge portion of the population seems to want nothing more than to see themselves on the news, they just might need a reminder.

But are our authorities really such scaredy-cats that they need to place the citizenry for miles around in "lockdown"?  Don't think so.  Which leads to the question, so just what are they trying to accomplish?

Well, for one, encouraging fear and panic in the population is a wonderful instrument for social and political control.  For another, making mountains out of molehills is a terrific way to justify increased budgets for gadgetry, guns, and law enforcement staff. And let's not forget the excellent opportunities for windbaggery and personal aggrandizement which these events provide to politicians, prelates, and other nincompoops.

None of this melodrama has anything to do with making us really safer, and, by the way, we are pretty safe in this country especially compared to a lot of rat-hole places on earth.  In fact,  let's try a little thought experiment.  If all this went down in some other place, what would you make of  the spectacle of authorities who allow the citizenry to be held hostage to a panicked teenager who apparently wasn't even competent enough to blow his own head off? 



For an excellent essay on "the week that was," head over to the Pink Slip blog.


UPDATE April 23:  In the interest of responsible bloggerism, Trouserville wishes to issue a correction.  Although relying on what I thought were reputable and accurate news sources, (okay, okay, us old folk are occasionally snookered) the Bombin' Beagle Brothers did not, in fact, rob the 7-11, although I believe the "authorities" thought so for a while until someone said "Duh, the robbers don't look anything like the bombers."