Gotta love the Internet community for rapid response. Thanks, Chris Samuel, for this link to a War on Error campaign.
It’s kind of interesting to see the parallels here.
Dr Karl stops thinking too soon on several topics, trying for the short, dramatic, decisive answer instead of diligently seeking completeness — this matches so many “anti-terror” advisers perfectly (and no, I wouldn’t mind a bit if he wasn’t claiming authority).
Adam, in turn, parallels the media efforts to legitimise many of the sanctions we’re told are necessary to win the “War on Terror”. As if it can be won by further polarising the issues.
Finally, while the topics clearly run in parallel, the article doesn’t use the word “errorism” so I think James is still the discoverer of Errorism and Simon is its father.
The thing which freaks me out about the “War on Terror” is that it so closely parallels Tomás de Torquemada’s rhetoric, and also that of the little artist with the toothbrush moustache who started World War II. Both were probably better-intended (at least to start with) than many of those pushing the current “War” — on either side. At the moment, we’re seeing the odd individual getting caught in the gears. Sooner or later the enforcers will work their way up to whole social classes without distinction, and in parallel the handful of jihadists on the other side will get even less discriminate in their targets and methods. It will be interesting to see what happens to the Open Source community, which will be spread across the boundaries as relations between Oceania and Eastasia decay.
Comments