Hacker News Reader

Comment by silisili | Hacker News Reader

While I agree that's what it is, I don't get upset that it's not plastered as such in headlines.

I think the first time most Americans heard much or cared about terrorism was 9/11. The word has -very- strong emotional attachment - hatred, fear, anger, sadness, etc. In the interest of not causing nationwide panic, I can understand why they're just calling it vandalism.

Others may say we -should- be panicking, and I can't necessarily disagree, only explaining one possible reason media is hesitant to use that word.

View on HN

> I think the first time most Americans heard much or cared about terrorism was 9/11.

Not at all. During my lifetime, the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the Oklahoma City bombing, and the Unabomber's arrest were all prominent enough for me to remember when they happened. I still remember hearing my grandmother express concern about the Michigan Militia when she saw a belligerent guy wearing camo pants.

I'll add to that, the Atlanta Olympics bombing.

Good example, but for whatever reason I don't remember that as vividly.

Don't forget The Weather Underground back in the late 60s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_Underground

Oh, I'm not that old.

Neither am I, so I'm really confused on your point. Are you saying you know nothing about anything that happened before your time?

Oh, I thought I made that clear:

> all prominent enough for me to remember when they happened

I listed pre-9/11 examples of terrorism that I remember happening.

I think we need more information before we can proclaim it terrorism with certainty. If it was say teenagers with guns or something, that is probably not terrorism, that's stupidity. But I do think it wasn't an accident and was likely planned, attempted to stew disorder. But the world is complicated, people do things to try to blame the other side. There is actual right wing accelerationism, but we need a little more evidence before we can confidently say what this is in headlines.

I think you meant to reply up-thread. My comment didn't touch on the recent vandalism/sabotage/attacks.

So, I remember these events(vaguely), but not a lot of talk of terrorism specifically. Do you happen to recall if the media specifically labeled them terrorists at the time?

The 1993 WTC bombing was definitely labelled terrorism. I remember it as a bit of a shock, that Americans didn't realize people in the Middle East were really pissed at us about something. Oklahoma City was quickly labelled terrorism, many originally assumed it was Mid-East in origin again and were shocked that it was domestic terrorists. I don't remember the Unabomber incident much, but I do remember there was much attention given to his manifesto.

Also, there were many airplane hijackings in the 1970s. I don’t remember if they were called terrorism, though.

What’s really scary is that Mylar balloon clusters, like the ones at party stores or grocery stores, released at strategic spots at the same time, would take it all down. You can’t possibly guard against that or a few drones with cheap space blankets. Real nightmare fuel.

usually with terrorism there is an claim of responsibility, and an expression of aggrieviation. to my knowledge, no public display of responsible whos, and whys, have occured

> usually with terrorism there is an claim of responsibility

"In the past two decades, fewer than half of all terrorist attacks have been either claimed by their perpetrators or convincingly attributed by governments to specific terrorist groups."

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/02/01/why-do-t... (http://archive.today/mL4OE)

these are not always public, and are often not passed on to public when direct contact to actual is made.

--also the definition of terroism has been applied with a broader brush over the recent years [perhaps 10 years?]

> also the definition of terroism has been applied with a broader brush over the recent years [perhaps 10 years?]

What's your source for this? Events classified as "terrorist incidents" per year in the U.S. regularly exceeded 100 in the 1970s, but haven't exceeded 65 in 10 years ending 2017.¹

¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_States

“Terrorism” is just the 21st century rebranding of the 20th century’s “anarchism”. People used “anarchism” and “anarchist” frequently during the 20th century.

Anarchism has an actual political meaning, with lots of literature.

Terrorism isn't a consistent ideological position. People don't openly advocate for what they self describe as terrorist states, terrorist literature and philosophy, terrorist thinkers and political party. There's no terrorist bookstore, but here in SF I can go down to Haight St and find an anarchist bookstore ...

On the other hand I think terrorist is an appropriate description for a Timothy McVeigh or a Kaczynski. I would say those are more violent than most 19th-20th century political anarchists.

> People used “anarchism” and “anarchist” frequently during the 20th century.

Though anarchism was pretty much dead by the end of WWII, I think now they're just called Republicans.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com