It's Nobel Stupdity Week. (aka comparing tragedies)

[El Sitherino]

Originally Posted by lukeiamyourdad

2- Ghetto violence everywhere around the world is very different then terrorism which is what the two situations being compare have in common, the only thing they have in common as a matter of facts. The poor, unfortunately, live with this fear and can somehow survive in it. Against terrorist fear, it's a different situation. I guess the only way I can elaborate on this before I think more about it is how ghetto violence doesn't cause as much collateral damage as terrorism does, knowing that a terror bombing actually wants to get as many as possible. I guess the randomness, the idea of dying without any kind of warning whatsoever makes it more powerful to the people.

Gang war is in fact no different than "terrorist" attacks. They're one in the same, people spreading fear to a group of people. Gangs in ghettos are basically urban terrorists. Drive-bys may not be a bombing but they're a very random and destructive event. Many times the intended target isn't even the most damaged. Anyone that's ever been in a drive-by is always alert for the possibility that at any given moment someone in a car may decide to suddenly unleash a barrage of ammunition at anything standing in it's way.
People ignore these things because it's just a bunch of "dumb ******s and spics, etc." shooting eachother up. But the truth of the matters is it's no different than a bunch of "micks and abs" bombing some building.

People die, people get hurt, and most often in large amounts.

[lukeiamyourdad]

Originally Posted by El Sitherino

Gang war is in fact no different than "terrorist" attacks. They're one in the same, people spreading fear to a group of people. Gangs in ghettos are basically urban terrorists. Drive-bys may not be a bombing but they're a very random and destructive event. Many times the intended target isn't even the most damaged. Anyone that's ever been in a drive-by is always alert for the possibility that at any given moment someone in a car may decide to suddenly unleash a barrage of ammunition at anything standing in it's way.
People ignore these things because it's just a bunch of "dumb ******s and spics, etc." shooting eachother up.

I know this is a bit late, but I wanted to take some time to reflect on the matter and I still consider the two events very different.

I admit that I didn't think about drive-bys but even so, there are key differences between a terrorist bombing and gang war event. One has a goal of maximizing collateral while the drive-by might not.

I also wanted to mention how terrorism affects anyone regardless of social status. Although it is a particularity of western countries and not a worldwide absolute. Terrorism does target the middle and rich classes of society while gang violence might never affect those people.

Originally Posted by El Sitherino

But the truth of the matters is it's no different than a bunch of "micks and abs" bombing some building.

People die, people get hurt, and most often in large amounts.

If you strip something down to its basic, any comparison can be made. Another great difference is the inclusion of an ideological and/or national conflict. There's no real conflict of ideas in gang violence. Whether there's an actual conflict between, in this case, Islam and Liberal democracy, I don't think so, but it is used and a radical idea of Islam does help recruit and motivate terrorists. In the case of the IRA, there's also conflicting ideologies involved. As such, fear generated by terrorism is as much physical one as an intellectual one. That gives it more weight on people's psyche.

It also attacks symbols and there's a emotional attachment from the people to these symbols which gives it yet another layer of effect.


Again, I'm not saying that one is a bigger tragedy then another, just that the impact of one is far greater on the general populace then the other. I think that gang violence is a much more important matter to deal with in the United States simply because it has claimed much more innocent lives and it underlines great social inequities in the country, but a terrorist attack seems to have affected America at a much greater level.