|
Check
out Grumpy's IBin Laughin Humour Page
To read past columns
visit The Grumpy Files
Watch it! The Bogeyman Will Get You
Every generation it seems has a favoured, or not-favoured
(depending how you look at it), bogeyman that parents use
to try to keep their little beasties in line.
In the Dark Ages the British would get on their knees and
pray to be delivered from the fury of the Norsemen and you
can bet your house that non-behaving oiks hooning about the
thatched cottages would have been very quickly drawn into
the line with a "behave, or the Vikings will get you."
Between 1800 and 1815 British kids were warned that if they
didn't behave Napoleon Bonaparte, or Boney, would come to
get them. Even after he was beaten and exiled to St Helena
the threat still stood firm, because hadn't he escaped and
returned once before.
During WW2 it was the mass-murdering, pint-sized krautie
with the really stupid-looking moustache. Yes, that's it,
old Hitler. Mind you, that warped loon and his simpering brown-nosers
weren't to be crossed lightly - unless you could fight back,
of course, and then they soiled themselves.
During the late 1940s, the 50s, the 60s, the 70s and the
80s the evil scary thing, for we in the West, was the fear
of rampaging hordes racing to convert us from the path of
right to the dark and freedomless pit of Communism.
In today's world, the bogeyman is terrorism.
Unfortunately, with mass media doing its utmost to unthinkingly
regurgitate the latest sensational news-breaking occurrence,
the actual level of threat seems pretty small indeed.
Call me old, call me silly, but let's look at it sensibly.
Despite the hundreds of thousands of TV hours devoted to
relaying the latest atrocities, or the bazillions of trees
felled to allow quality newspapers to be printed (and then
left unwrapped on the porch), just how many major incidents
have there been?
Bugger all.
We've had one spectacular one - the World Trade Centre being
the terrorist king-hit of all time - and we Australians have
suffered through the Bali bombing, but other than that it
is an attack here, a small attack there and tiny almost-attack
over yonder.
Lots of little incidents that the politicians of all nations
are letting the media turn into part of a world threat. Why?
Well, let me hazard a cynical guess and it comes down to
being able to get away with things under a cover of fighting
terrorism that they wouldn't even dream of in a "normal" world.
Let's face it - we all still go to work, our kids to school,
we go to the cricket, footy, the pub, shows, movies, have
parties and … so we should. Do we constantly worry about terrorism?
One would suggest only - when we look at TV or try to read
a newspaper.
Now, I'm not quite sure how I got to this point other than
using it to highlight a rather amusing little terrorism-related
incident.
As members of the US's Coalition of the Willing - Denmark,
land of the Little Mermaid and Vikings - sent a small force
to help deal with naughty old Soddem Hussein.
Now this got Denmark off-side with Al-Qaeda and its supposedly
clever terrorist animals and scumsuckers. So what did these
dangerous threats to the Western world do?
Well, they told Norwegian authorities they were going
to bomb the crap out of them.
Just goes to show that despite the fact terrorists can hold
a world to ransom with bugger all effort - so long as they
have a moronic media to feed - they still can't find their
way around a map, let alone a globe!
Grumpy
Old Coot has a warped view of life, check him out
If there is something that has really got up your nose,
let Grumpy Old Coot know at grumpy@webwombat.com
|
