Hip. Hip. Hooray.

Editor,

In "1984," "Brazil," and some other books and movies, talking heads on TV's inform the public constantly that terrorists have committed an atrocity or were discovered plotting one or have been killed or jailed or made to reveal a vital secret.

All of these reports in these novels and movies may or may not be true, but their constant focus on terrorists, constant attribution of heinous acts and heinous plots to terrorists, blurs the line finally between terrorism and dissent; and it defines the mental landscape within which an entire population understands itself.

That it is to the advantage of the ruling class that a whole country can be so easily distracted from the crimes of the ruling class is the point.

People cheering in the streets about a death reveals just how abstract death has become in the minds of millions of people. Death is a construct that is used to manipulate a population politically. The reality of death and therefore the reality of one's own death and the reality of one's own life is impossible for the masses to comprehend.

The death of the oceans, the death of the land, the death of thousands upon thousands of species, the death of the planet, the death of humanity is beyond the comprehension of an entire population. It is words. It is a dream. It isn't real. It doesn't mean anything.

Yes, a killer won't be killing anymore. That is a good thing. But I find it impossible to rejoice about death. Death is what human society as it organized today makes: death of living things we are lulled into not noticing, death of people we are desensitized into not mattering, and death we are celebrating like a medieval garroting.

Hip. Hip. Hooray.