Quite adroitly in his essay titled ‘Boston — and what hasn’t happened since 9/11′Mr. Matt Miller lets the recollected writing of Mr. Richard Clark do his work of fear mongering for him, masquerading as awed speculation in the face of the bombings in Boston. All of it resembles the film genre of apocalyptic science fiction, set not in the future but in the very dangerous present of the ascendant American Empire and it’s collection of enemies. The reader is gripped in the scenarios that Mr. Miller recounts, but one eventually asks the question, following a repentant Scrooge’s inquiry to the Ghost of Christmas Future, something like, can this future be changed?

America’s Enemies have the money and organizational abilities that can confound,indeed neutralize, the most militarized and technically advanced nation in the world. Is the psychological strategy to imagine the worst case to inoculate ones self against the potential reality?

Do we as readers need to recall the bombings of Atlanta of 1996? And the investigation that followed, featuring the case of Mr. Richard Jewell? Certainly a high point in the annals of American Justice? Or are we history-less pawns of near hysterical pundit chatter?

Political Observer