I'M JUST SPEECHLESS...

Uh... I guess I did something stupid by actually reading the article but it seems like it is saying that the popularity of portraying witches is some kind of combination with the new-found interest in the supernatural and terrorist paranoia. It makes for nice allegories and storytelling. The neighbours could be terrorists/witches/communists, we need to keep an eye on them.

Which makes sense since all fiction is a reflection of the now anyway. So that's as good a take as any.

...As it relates to pop culture. The article even compares different portrayals of witches and what things they represent. And the terrorist comparison is the one where they compare the horrors of the Salem witch trials with the overzealousness that terrorists are being pursued.

I mean they are not comparing ACTUAL witches to anyone. They are only comparing fictional portrayals of witches in popular media and speculating what they represent.

To me that seems to be exactly what it says. The first part:

Baker, a history professor at Salem State University, argues that it could have its roots in the post-9/11 panic over terrorism and what could be seen as a Salem-like erosion of civil rights in the name of security — or, more recently, in the revelations that the National Security Agency seems to be spying on ordinary citizens as stealthily as neighbors spied on neighbors in colonial Salem.

is all about the paranoia that has followed all of this terrorism stuff. It might be I am missing something due to English not being my first language or poor reading comprehension skills on the whole but to me this seems pretty clear-cut to be what I was talking about.

The second part

Witches, like terrorists, “threaten to wipe out everything you believe in. If they could, they would overthrow your government, overturn your faith, and destroy your society,” Baker writes.

also seems true to me. It's obvious that the man is referring to the witches as a construct of the Christian church and the traidional view on witches. being god-hating, devilworshipping badasses that can curse people into oblivion and generally cause havoc.

He is not referring to neo-pagan wiccan hippies who light candles once in a while and talk about animal spirits and dress wierdly and shit. (which is explicitly stated later in the article when it says "witches, unlike terrorists, are not real")

And he is not saying this as it would be his personal belief. He says it as this is the classical take on a witch. This is what a witch is.

Going in, I thought the article would touch upon the idea that people still choose to live in a state of mass-hysterical fear of 'the other', marginalizing innocent women or non-whites by marking them as witches or terrorists respectively.

But this article seemed a little rambling, uninformed and confused.

I'm with Shinan, it does seem to be about witch hunt, but probably poorly worded or dumbed down for the audience appreciation.
What a stupid article idea, though. Witches are popular because tween shows have a different role for female characters than victim or bad ass vampire chick... I don't think it has anything to do with social events. The rising popularity in mystic/magic creatures is a reoccurring phenomenon that bubbles to the surface time and again, without really going away. Right now, after Harry Potter and Twilight raving successes; of course the media potato heads will be churning out tween twilight-alike fictions.
Time magazine, why you is so silly?

hobby gamedev site user mines for cheap indignation by citing pop culture article as symptom of some endemic societal deficiency

im speechless