Nobody panics when things go according to plan, even if the plan is horrifying. If tomorrow I tell the press that like a gang banger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics because it’s all part of the plan. But when I say that one, little old mayor will die, well then everyone loses their minds!

-- The Joker

This. A thousand times this.

Nobody cares about any deaths overseas because the media doesn't tell us to be sad about it.

nobody cares as much*

Of course when an event is closer to home people are more upset. I bet a good amount of people reading this thread have been to boston, I also bet that no one reading this thread has been to northern pakistan. It's human nature to react more to something you can relate to.

I'm in California. Swivle that radius down to Central America. Nobody gives a fuck about Guatemala.

Who's Guatemela? An actor? Musician?

P.S. Yeah, no one gives a shit.

I'm sorry to admit we're a tiny minority... But we actually care. That's why we're here. I can't speak for everybody in this subreddit, but I'm here because of the injustice our government has imposed on the rest of the world through the most ruthless and systematic destruction of democratically elected governments in the history of the world.

Most people don't realize that slaves make their clothes and tires and gadgets and farm their food, and they wonder why they can't find a job.

Almost nobody realizes that THIS ALL HAPPENED BY DESIGN. Our government knew that our manufacturing jobs would be outsourced as soon as all of these free trade agreements were signed.

Back in the day we had tariffs to protect the industries and workers in our country. I don't know what happened, but if I were to guess I'd say some threshold was crossed a long time ago where the largest corporations were able to wrest the control of our government (and hence our military) out of the public's hands.

Now corporations are international and they manipulate our elections and nobody knows the difference.

I think it probably happened with Kennedy's assassination, but it could have been before and nobody knew it. Maybe before the Korean War?

Anyway, things seem to be accelerating. More and more brazen actions are taken and more power is seized all the time by our government. It's not a democracy anymore, it's not a republic anymore. It's a corporatocracy where the highest bidder controls the narrative and the elections and the government.

We're so fucked.

I edited this post after I re-read it, because i fucked up some points I wanted to make.

it's true, then let me rephrase it. People have grown numb to what happens overseas. Those are still human lives (Men, women, and children) that are being lost and a lot of them by our hand, but I agree. When it's closer to home it's a little more....real

It's sad that you consider deaths of certain people more real than others.

most people don't give a shit, and some don't care as much*

The same day this happened, 20 car bombs went off in Iraq. Over 30 people were killed and 200+ injured. Thats 10 times the amount of dead, but let us mourn the 3 Americans. As a human being this saddens me.

Do you think the Boston Bombings were a way of taking the medias attention away from the car bombs in Iraq? Im just thinking out loud here

i think so.

No

How about this?

8/10 would recommend

I tried arguing with a bunch of people here and they now believe for some reason that I am comparing tragedies when its different because it is a war zone... and apparently that makes me worse than Westboro Baptist Church for bringing it up.

You held your own well in that argument. That is the proper way to debate people. Calmly state facts and watch them just get furious. The madder they are the more retarded their argument gets out in the open. That westboro comment was fifty shades of bullshit.

As if an Iraqi mother who loses her kid had a choice about whether she'd be "in a war zone" and it should make a difference regarding her loss.

Thanks for dealing with the idiocy in that thread and fighting the good fight.

The same reason one feels more grief for the loss of a loved one close to them than that of a stranger they happen to read about in the obituaries.

Exactly, connectivity.

The posts about Iraq v Boston on Reddit, on FB are pure bullshit. There was an attack in Somalia which killed 30 yesterday. We mustn't care about Africa. Couldn't possibly be that the first bomb fatality on US soil since 1996 took place, and it might be big news.

This doesn't explain why there is a public outcry from almost every other nation. What connection do they have to Americans?? It just makes it seems like 1 American life > than 1 Middle Eastern life.

American dominated media explains it.

We are allowed to feel grief... I have no problem with that. I only speak out about the deaths outside America because in some of these cases, we are the terrorists. I feel like if people spoke out as they do for Boston victims, then our foreign policy would be much different.

Why do you care if your mom dies? She's only one person, and plenty of moms die everyday that you aren't sad about.

So you knew these people right? Because people here act like they do.

99% of the people here know these people just as much as they know the people in Syria. I will direct you to the top comment here, it is the sad truth, and its causing us to waste a lot of time.

It is because Americans and the media can identify with (predominantly) white middle class people being killed and injured. It is harder to identify with someone from a country around the world who is brown, doesn't speak your language and the government and media tell you are your enemy or at least an unnamed civilian.

This is where a good news media would put the tragedies in context, instead of just nonstopping tragedy and crying mothers (or barely covering it at all in the case of Iraqi/Afghanistan civilians). When was the last time you heard the name of a civilian killed in Iraq? What color was their skin?

My mom died and left me a lot of money, tbh it's made me a lot happier than she would have. Not to mention the old age care seniors require.

Your a bad person

This happened every day for years in Northern Ireland, there was a hell of a lot less coverage on it.

Happened a lot in London too, though I suppose those events predate the modern 24 hr news cycle.

No idea why your getting downvoted. Yes I suppose they do predate the standards in communication today. I'm sure that there are worse events going on in other countries though that could do with a bit of coverage on this scale.

To be honest, people in Iraq and Afghanistan have to worry every day about terrorists blowing up marketplaces. Then look at Syria where towns and villages are warzones, with jets dropping bombs randomly on civilians in rebel controlled cities.

The fact that this is (probably) the biggest/most successful terrorist attack on the US since 9/11 is pretty amazing. We've been sheltered from the horrible realities that people in countries torn apart by war experience every single day.

That's exactly it - you've been lucky because no one seems to want to fuck with you.

It's not like the drones, drug sniffing dogs, camera surveillance, police and military presence, etc. have actually made anyone safer, or foiled anyones plans. It's all just stealing your freedom and feeding profits to war mongers, while not actually making anyone safer.

Just look what this clown did with a handful of black powder and a pressure cooker, and imagine what a sophisticated and well funded attack would look like.

It was a bullshit sucker punch perpetrated by a coward. The same could be said for every drone strike the United States has ever executed.

Israel??

This is small scale, I have to imagine it's the actions of an individual or a small group of individuals.

because it's closer to me

Don't worry now the government will ensure that the war on terror will be closer to you then ever.

Pasky homegrown terrorists! we should drone strike their asses!

I agree with your overall point wholeheartedly, but "we" aren't killing anyone. The US government is doing the killing.

Our taxes are paying for it. If the people protested and spoke out as much as they do for Boston, there might have been some change.

Media sensationalism is your true answer. I am born and raised in Boston, and the blasts were about two blocks from my place of work. It gives you an eerie feeling - one that sticks with me even today. My boss is from Dorchester where that 8 year old died. His friend is that boys father.

These are real people, and they have been personified by mass media. Media doesn't follow deaths in Iraq nearly as much.

3 Dead people, what's the big deal?

ಠ_ಠ

the same reason alot of americans care more about kim kardashian's pussy depth than their own rights

ahh, my friend, I see you've already pointed out the real problem here..

ask people:

1) When did Lindsey Lohan last get out of jail/rehab

2) How many times has Lindsey Lohan been to jail/rehab

3) What is the depth of Kim Kardashian's fockhole

4) How many "sovereign" nations have been droned by the U.S.

3/4 is a fail, 1/4 is a pass with flying colors, you tell me which they need to get right.

Can you take the test yourself? I'd like to see if you pass or fail.

to be honest?

I'd probably fail because it appears there's a new country every week being droned. I'd be awfully close though, I sort of ripped this off from a video I saw.

I was more suggesting you'd get one of the celeb questions wrong, but fair enough!

Simply put, because the people dying in drone strikes are not Americans. It's just the ignorance in this country that has concluded that American lives are more important than any other lives in the world.

I'd think that it is fairly normal to hold ones own countrymen to be of higher importance than people on the other side of the world. The problem that I have is that they are valued at zero or even less than zero.

Why is it normal? Why is nationalism normal?

Well setting aside the last few hundred years it is still the typical manner in which large powers organize. You might be living under a feudal lord if the organizational structure broke down and a nation was too large to manage. Often there are different languages as well and that even intensifies the differences.

Nations are common as fuck. Perhaps you care to offer lines about how we can do better and that it isn't the best way to live, we could be tribal or whatever?

Nah. Your snarkiness belies your actual interest in my thoughts on the matter. Cheers.

Your trite and compact question demonstrates that you are most interested in gauging me for a setup to your educational lesson that you were not honest enough to front load. So you put out a feeler. Having already partipated in alternate sides of the how humans should live conversation I thought that I would preempt your trivial ruse.

Because humans are programmed to identify more with people who are closer to them and more like them.

For the most productive discussion and opening statements, your tone could be improved as the OP!

As for your point, it's a worry, isn't it? The mainstream media is there to warp peoples perception of the worlds affairs (not even needing to delve in to a rabbit hole of any type here, we simply know how much major news is omitted from getting much coverage, if any, in the US)

One observation worth noting though is that the people themselves can ultimately be what in the end determines what kind of news we hear over time. theoretically, people could have simply been disinterested in news not directly concerning their immediate homeland, over time, that homestead issues were specifically prioritized over more global variants.

now, this does nothing to explain the obfuscation and lack of coverage altogether on some very serious events (ie: sadr city). the bigger issue here is quite simple: death is both completely marginalized and ignored, and exploited at the same time. why is this?

the huge loss of life suffered all the time around the world is caused by stuff we could work to prevent. yet it's not really on the agenda for those in power. that brings us up to this finger pointing step we have now, really trying to find out who's fighting for the other man, and who's fighting for themselves still

it's a very simple mindset, a global consciousness shift. it's inevitable, but we're continuing to feel the blood that is shed by it in turn for its welcoming grasp. like the caress of an incapacitating intoxicant slowly washing over your body, our manifestation of it is our planetary strife before it obtains true global link

Do we get as much media coverage of the drone strikes? Videos of bodies being exploded?

Proximity

Exactly. It works on a smaller scale, too. If your neighbor gets hurt, you're probably not going to be as worked up as you would if the exact same thing happened to your wife.

It's because they're different. I don't frequent this sub very often, so I don't really know what the /r/conspiracy general consensus is on drone attacks (just a guess, I'm sure you don't like them), so just bear with me while I look at this from a purely objective point of view.

• Drone strikes in fact are highly controversial and receive a lot of press. In general however, regardless of your views on them, drone attacks are always on positively identified terrorist targets. Naturally, there will be innocent people in the area, and that sucks. However, the point is, is that they're known terrorist sites and the logistics just warrant a drone strike more than say, a ground assault. Not only that, but the US has admitted to them being from us, unlike terrorism where the initiators often go into hiding. Again, not saying whether this is right or wrong, just looking at it from a logical standpoint.
• In regards to the Boston Bombing, it's generally regarded as terrorism more so than the drone strikes because the bombs were seemingly intended solely for innocent civilians, and they were secretly dropped and detonated unlike when the US conducts a drone attack, in which we all know that it's the US.

Obviously, this is open to debate and if anyone disagrees or whatnot, feel free to comment and open a discussion.

Exactly this. The difference is the intent. The death of innocents is always tragic. However try arguing this on here and you will get downvoted to oblivion.

Why? Because many Americans completely absorb whatever the TV throws at them. Americans think that they are directly effected by stuff they see on TV, if the TV tells them so. Lots of comments on the Boston bombing are about the events effecting "someone we know" even though the commenter could be over a thousand miles away (and still be in the US).

Of course that mindset discounts the value of human life (by ranking one life over another) but it seems pretty common in the main subreddit comments on Boston right now.

You can blame the media most likely. How often are we inundated On the news about drone strikes?

There is a concept in philosophy, "Moral Proximity." Here's an excellent description of it, though the term should be pretty straightforward anyway:

Moral proximity does not refer to geography, though that can be part of the equation. Moral proximity refers to how connected we are to someone by virtue of familiarity, kinship, space or time. Therefore, in terms of moral proximity I am closer to my brothers and sisters at University Baptist just down the road from us in East Lansing than I am to First Baptist in Tuscaloosa (I’m assuming there’s a First Baptist there). But physical distance is not the only consideration. In terms of moral proximity, I am closer to my brother-in-law who lives in Australia than to a stranger I haven’t met who lives on the other side of Lansing.

The rationale is almost explicitly empathetic. You can feel more empathy more easily for someone who you are proximate to than for someone who are not. Just straight up, we can all say, here in America, even if we haven't been to Boston, I could have been there. We can all say, that could have been my city, my family at the finish line, my friends laying in the street.

That's why it's scarier. Few of us can empathize with those in Pakistan. We can with those in Boston. That doesn't make it more or less of a tragedy, it's just how people work.

Because America doesn't get to hear in Media ,over and over about the other thousands who got killed by drones

Short answer, because they are over their, and we are over here..

bed bath and beyond, fuk ya

I care way more about my toaster starting on fire in my kitchen than a house burning down 100 miles away. One is a lot more likely to affect me. Both are bad, but one is closer to me.

The point of the situation was to get everyone hyped about it. They didn't need 55 dead with 200 wounded like in Iraq, Monday, April 15. the main plan was take minimal lives. then execute plan B - Media overload as usual with these types of situations.

the government is trying to cause panic in the people, its working but they will never awkknowlege the deaths of millions f other people, whats worse is that people out here are saying its terroists, iraqis and other middle eastern people. Who are we going to go to war with for this one, lets blame North Korea

this is what I rant about on FB..... lets look and see who did THIS one THIS time shall we?? We then spin a wheel and it lands on some poor coutry that will soon have around 1million dead or displaced. Murca

Apparently people don't mind people getting slaughtered if they are on the other side of an imaginary line.

3 undeserving people died horrifically and 100+ others were injured for nothing. I know worse things happen but and we don't know who is at fault but don't take away from the lives lost. All for nothing, whether it's a false flag, Muslim extremist, or lone act of cowardice everyone has the right to be upset about. This is isn't something we should ever be comfortable with and I agree we should emphasize the horrors that happen elsewhere as well as domestically but people dying for nothing is something we should never accept no matter the circumstance.

IMHO it's because it's over there and not here.

Because their not americans.

Because human life is not created equal, unfortunately. Fetuses and white American citizens take precedence over all other human life.

/r/MURICA is gonna rape this post....

I don't think it's so much about the body count as it is that we saw this happen - practically live on television. It was entirely unexpected and so raw. The fear and panicked screams, the people rushing back and forth to get away or to offer aid - it was in real time and elicited an adrenaline fueled emotional reaction in a way that scenes of buildings that have already been bombed and footage of cloth draped corpses in a row just doesn't. The bombed buildings and news of "50 Dead in Suicide Bomb" being reported a day after it happens on the other side of the world creates a different sort of emotional response - sympathy, sure, but also we are very disconnected from it and so it isn't as emergent as the Boston situation.

what a fucking circlejerk this sub has become...

I said this in another post. It's easy.

War zone =/= Marathon

"Whats the big deal?" See you in Hell.

I would suggest that many, perhaps most people, have a shallow and rather naive knowledge base of what their government is doing on a regular basis. Also, I doubt any corporate funded media outlet in North America would air clips of women, children and old men being blown to bits by US drones presented by reporters who are "neutral" in their political views. Our collective ignorance is the biggest problem for the 99%.

because they have dark skin and they are not christians and they do not speak English and they are not rich/royalty.

What you are forgetting is there are usually 25,000+  people from all over the world who participate in the Boston marathon that has been going on for over a 100 years. At one point there were over 38,000 attendees, Plus there are usually 500,000+ spectators who come to watch this marathon. This could have been much much worse and it was already bad enough.  This is also part of 6 World Marathon Majors.   This to me is the almost the equivalent of someone trying to blow up the Olympics.  This event is for promoting good will and having fun. If this were to happen in any of the other countries that host any of the 6 marathons I am pretty damn sure you would be seeing it over here in the news.   So this isn't just about 3 dead, this is basically an attack on the 525,000+ humans from around the world who participated who were there.

Because they are not american

This whole thread is so fucking edgy. Both were bad. People care about both. Shut the fuck up you stupid teenage neckbeard faggots.

Great contribution to the conversation. Believe it or not, people want to discuss the news and it's impact, and this is a thread for doing just that.

He's right though. I'm sick of people trying to minimize one tragedy by pointing to other ones somewhere else.

I'm not saying he's right or wrong, but his comment isn't conversation, it's an insult that doesn't contribute. Reddiquette and all that

I'm sorry If I offended anyone but I stand by what I said. I hate how many times I saw this on facebook/reddit. Stop trying to be so edgy and counter culture by belittling this. Both were bad. This made more news because it's the first time since 1996 we were bombed. The ones in the middle east happen all the time. While not as shocking, It still is a tragedy.

We're in like 10 wars. Why is everyone so shocked that we'd get bombed?

Once again, we have NOT been bombed since then. That's why people are fucking shocked.

It's only 'edgy' because your ego can't handle that it's correct. 3 dead and 100 injured is in no way comparable to the 'collateral damage' done by our drone strikes every single day. One gets international media attention, and the other is ignored.

Do you really expect our shit media to report that? It's thier fault the public dosn't hear about it. Do you thknk other countries report on their news when they kill people with collateral damage? No, they don't.

*think

Also, I fully understand that the drone killings happen. I'm saying that people comparing the two attacks shouldn't because both caused great pain for their nation and both matter a great deal. When something happens in our own back yard, it scares people and is thus talked about more. My ego has nothing to do with it

Contrary to popular belief Drones do not go on kill missions on a daily basis. They are usually used for surveillance as the routine. Although Drones strikes are more frequent than they ever have been, even under Bush, they usually only cross into Pakistan when there is a ‘high value target’ ISAF wants dead.

WTC7, 2001

I said bombed. Those were planes. The world trade center bombings happened in 96.

lol and I am talking about the 4th building that was destroyed that day,.... wasn't hit by a plane. here you go...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrnmbUDeHus

This building fell cleaner than most controlled demolitions. Whats even more scary is what it contained.

That was never proved and is purely speculation. I guess you're on the right sub reddit.

[deleted]

This is going to be downvoted as fuck, but does that surprise you? We're at war. It happened in Nam, it happens now to. It's wrong, but it's not new.

[deleted]

Not nearly enough!

"3 dead people, what's the big deal?"

One person being dead is a big deal you edgy fuck.

God I hate how stupid and easy to manipulate people are.

Hey bubba wait a minute there. Stop generalizing everyone into a lump sum for manipulation. Just because the media is hyping such doesn't mean that the majority are on that bandwagon.

Because we are fucking dumb.

This is the most biased rant and question I've ever heard of. Why? Because the drones strikes and death tolls together are NEVER brought up until some shooting or tragedy happens in the U.S. and people start mourning.

Meaning you, the OP and others who do this, do not care for those people in the Middle East either until moments such as this when it fuels your bias. Sure, you and others may rant about drones all the time but there's never any actual mention of the victims or names or death counts.

Way to go on exploiting the deaths of those in the Middle East and at home to serve your own biased views.

Oh, and while we're on the topic of people needlessly dying around the world.. What about the people in Africa getting burned or killed for being gay or accused of being a witch? I'm speaking of people getting shoved into fires and burned alive and all this is encouraged by the visiting churches from America.

What about the tribes in South Africa getting wiped out by drug Warlords, private militias, and mercenaries hired by companies in order for their land to be taken over? Or how mercenaries hired by Mars Inc. KILL workers who harvest and process cocoa because they actually want some minimum work benefits and quality? The very chocolate that goes into candy bars and m&m's. Why is that never brought up?

You want to point out the travesties and massacres around the world every time America mourns for the loss of their own? Then stop being hypocritical and focus more on just the victims of drone strikes. ..Or don't, because it doesn't serve your agenda.

This guy shouldn't be getting downvoted, this is productive discussion in response to such an aggressive initial thread starter. That post doesn't even discount any alleged suspicion of conspiring and what-have-you. He's just saying to not be hypocritical, and to make sure that if we're going to be very vigilant about how exactly people mourn, we should be sure we mourn for everyone equally. This is a really hefty thing to ask, and as is being covered elsewhere in the thread, it's about how personally connected people really were. You're right, a lot of people are ignorant about many things, but it's changing. Ideally, we would have equal empathy for everyone else's suffering regardless of their or its' relation to us.

Thank you!

The big deal is people arent used to things going boom in their backyard and seeing people lose their limbs in live and living color. The big deal is people arent used to seeing warzone like scenarios on a sunny afternoon in the US. The difference is we really arent used to seeing blood and gore at all except in the movies and in video games, all for pretend and profit. When we see what little we see of real actual blood and gore that has been sanitized for us, it is far away, happening to someone else, not to "us" and not down the street, and definitely not in our neighborhood to our friends.

I hate how easily we are manipulated too.

LOL angry much? People are surprised, its just not something we are used to seeing so its shocking and provoking. Right or wrong, thats just the way its been. http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/1cgc19/boston_marathon_what_takes_me_aback_are_how/

"....thousands of innocents we kill in drone strikes..." FTFY

There's a difference between senseless murder and accidental collateral damage through military action in defending national security from armed terrorist groups that have flown planes into buildings on our soil.

Why the fuck do you think we mourned 9/11, but not the thousands that die in car crashes every year. Because there's a fucking difference.

Fucking cunt. What if one of those people were your wife or husband or brother or sister or worse your fucking child. Would it be a big deal then? Man you people on this sub are fucking twisted.

And theres a fucking difference between falling out of a tub to being fucking ripped apart in a bomb blast.

It's because the media reports this like crazy, but it doesn't report the people the U.S. bombs everyday, other than to say 3 dead in Pakistan. If they showed photos of the dead kids and did articles about them people would start to get pissed and want the U.S. to stop bombing.

I'd care more if you stop thinking that drones are the problem when dropping bombs is what actually kills people.

Using the "d" word isn't going to change the morality of the weapons themselves.

THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I keep on wondering THIS!

3 dead people, what's the big deal?

That is a big deal, but a bigger deal is the death of 40 people at the same day in Iraq caused by bomb explosions, and what sad about it is no one huge western media or politician payed attention as they did for the three deaths in Boston.

Because fuck you, that's why.

[deleted]

[deleted]

Dangerous to the rest of the world, not to us.

because people in countries we blow up arnt as important as people over here, right?

I've been trying to figure out this same thing.

[deleted]

Nothing to figure out . You assume the media is a reflection of society, it is not. Media is a manufactured perspective most likely giving 80% coverage to 20% of the dumbs***s . Please do not let the media divide us, we are better than that . David Icke has identified your enemy it is Rothchild Zionism. If you want to refute me on that them fine , but at some point you cannot organize and attack if you do not know your enemy. Link not provided on purpose.

I believe our common enemies are lies and their illusions, that even if most people think of them as unavoidable, we can overcome them. Everyone can improve their quality of life directly by fighting them. Just look at how people you know condemn themselves regularly with wrong beliefs. Not good enough for x or y, have no choice but to do z, etc... Do you think that a sane person would really use their whole time on this earth to try to manipulate the world ? I don't think so, I think if we worked on our own sanity we'd be enjoying life. In the same way, most of us have nothing to do on these forums.

I thought David Icke identified our enemy as Satanist Reptilian Shapeshifters?

Satanist Reptilian Shapeshifters == the joos.

The media is flipping out. Give it two weeks and the avg american will forget or won't care.

Well American lives are more important than dirty muslin lives. Because freedom.

Don't forget all the abortions.

I believe that's called "infusing the issue"

[deleted]

Drone strikes kill plenty of innocents too. Not to mention they were doing double taps to kill the people that came to HELP the wounded.

Yep, while there's a point to drone strikes (and there's still a lot of controversy over them), bombings like this are only done to instill fear into people, and they totally work.

Also, this reminds everyone of the fact that you could die. Any day now, any second....

Because no one gives a fuck with terrorists and their offspring are murdered in some bum fucked backwards shit hole. If Allah is so great he'd protect them...oh wait.

Because the media is telling you who to care about.

Same with the Trayvon case. It should be a nothing story but the media told you to care about it so now you do.

Exactly this. The difference is the intent. The death of innocents is always tragic. However try arguing this on here and you will get downvoted to oblivion.

This is small scale, I have to imagine it's the actions of an individual or a small group of individuals.

to be honest?

I'd probably fail because it appears there's a new country every week being droned. I'd be awfully close though, I sort of ripped this off from a video I saw.

Do you think the Boston Bombings were a way of taking the medias attention away from the car bombs in Iraq? Im just thinking out loud here