I don’t know why I’m even still reading or talking about this, as it’s making my head explode, but I’ve been needling the Reverend TimmyMac over at his site, about the Boston incident and I felt the need to c&p my final thoughts on it here:

I have only read the most basic coverage of this (CNN, NYT, Seattle Times, MSN and few others) and I have tried to avoid what most anyone has to say except my friends who have blogs that I’m compelled to read. Based on my admittedly limited knowledge, here’s what I have to say:

I don’t care about viral marketing. I can agree it’s insidious and blah blah blah but in the rank of things I have to worry about given the current state of the world, it’s coming in pretty low. I haven’t seen anyone say the cops made a mistake per se, or criticizing them for not being hip enough. It’s really not the cop’s job to know too much about popular culture (though they should know some since they do basically deal with the populace). I think Boston’s Mayor has acted abysmally through this entire thing and suing Turner is like suing McDonalds for their coffee being too hot (which is to say, pure asshattery). Those guys should have been arrested, charged with vandalism and let go with a fine and they shouldn’t need legal counsel beyond a court appointed PD.

The entire thing was a gross depiction of everything that’s gone WRONG since 911. The city of Boston itself was victim to these ills and it wasn’t the fault of the kids who put up the billboards, or of Turner, or viral marketing. It was the fault of the culture of fear that we are being driven into like sheep. It was the fault of uninformed people trying to make decisions about what’s best for everyone, without critically assesing the situation, or previously engaging the population (in this case Boston, but in general the country) about how “safe” they feel they need to be kept by authorities and how many of our civil liberities are we going to give away for that safety.