Remember the UK «red mercury» scare of 2004 ? Remember the fact that the three men arrested in September 2004 and accused of, inter alia, «having an article (a highly dangerous mercury based substance) for terrorism» were all acquitted in July 2006, after having been detained for nearly two years for a non-extant crime ? No ? But you are worried about dastardly terrorists coming over dangerous substances like «red mercury» ? Well, an article by Robert Matthews entitled The red peril that doesn’t even exist in today's The First Post provides a little background to those inchoate fears. Below, my reflections upon reading the article, as posted to StumbleUpon :
The important thing, of course, is not whether or not a peril exists, but whether the public - for the most part scientifically illiterate (like the vast majority of journalists) can be convinced that it exists. «Red mercury» (cf Wikipedia's instructive article*) is as good a red herring as any other. And even when court cases based on absurdities result in acquittals, the damage is done : unlike the headlines screaming of a «terrorist plot», the acquittals - which come years later (the men accused of «red mercury terrorism» were arrested in September 2004, but acquitted of a crime that didn't exist first in July 2006) - go unnoticed in the press, and in the meantime people have successfully been terrorised by the very governments which claim to protect them from «terrorism»....
*Acknowledgement : I have corrected several spelling errors found in this article, and may therewith be considered to be an interested party....
No comments:
Post a Comment