Terror

I don't post much about the war industry, mostly because I know nothing will change until that pathetic weasel leaves office (and even then, American industry is too much dependent on military spending for things to change quickly), but I'd like to direct your attention to Bruce Schneier's article 'Refuse to be Terrorized':

The people terrorists kill are not the targets; they are collateral damage. And blowing up planes, trains, markets or buses is not the goal; those are just tactics.

The real targets of terrorism are the rest of us: the billions of us who are not killed but are terrorized because of the killing. The real point of terrorism is not the act itself, but our reaction to the act.

And we're doing exactly what the terrorists want.

And:

But our job is to remain steadfast in the face of terror, to refuse to be terrorized. Our job is to not panic every time two Muslims stand together checking their watches.

Our job is to think critically and rationally, and to ignore the cacophony of other interests trying to use terrorism to advance political careers or increase a television show's viewership.

The surest defense against terrorism is to refuse to be terrorized. Our job is to recognize that terrorism is just one of the risks we face, and not a particularly common one at that. And our job is to fight those politicians who use fear as an excuse to take away our liberties and promote security theater that wastes money and doesn't make us any safer.

Words that more people need to read and really understand. Not just about terrorism either, the larger lesson is that irrational behavior by individuals is bad for everyone and usually caused by unchecked emotional reactions.