• BelieveRevolt [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    21 days ago

    Aww, that’s cute, he thinks it’s still 2002 and ”killing terrorists” is a thought terminating debate move instead of the empty rhetoric used to justify anything that everyone’s been seeing through for 20 years.

    • MolotovHalfEmpty [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      21 days ago

      About two years ago I was sat in the audience for a talk by a very earnest, experienced speaker addressing the challenges of aid work in various places across the globe and they (briefly) mentioned terrorism as one aspect of a compilation alongside war. And I swear my mind basically just skipped over it for a second as if rolling it’s eyes. It took a minute for me to conciously remind myself that in this instance it was being used correctly and earnestly. After an adult lifetime of it being a facile buzzword through The Troubles, followed by the West’s global profit-backed religious crusades, the word terrorism reflexively indicated that this wasn’t going to be a serious point by a serious person and I could skip the next part.

      I wonder for how many more, especially of the late Gen X to millennial to now generations, hear it the same way? Not as a thought terminating cliché, but an instant indicator that you’re desperately scaremongering and totally full of shit.