YES! And in fact, terrorist usually think their propaganda of the deed will pull a large but relatively more moderate social or political movement into more militant action.
As in "a little spark will start a prairie fire..."
-cb
----- Original Message ----- From: "Carrol Cox" <cbcox at ilstu.edu> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Saturday, September 29, 2001 2:05 PM Subject: Re: Sociology and Explanations (Re: Hitchens responds to critics
>
>
> Doug Henwood wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > terrorists emerge from a
> > severly discontented population
> >
>
> This seems right. Terrorism is an extreme form of individualist
> politics, but with fairly rare exceptions I would think terrorists can't
> operate without a sense (accurate or deluded) that their "cause" echoes
> some sort of popular demand. McVeigh, I understand, did not really
> represent the militia, but the existence of the militia and other
> similar activity created the atmosphere that made him possible. And
> whatever the "psychological profile" of the Unabomber, his personal
> motivations would have taken some other form had no environmental
> movement existed.
>
> Carrol