This is exactly right. We are sheep to accept it. The economic cost in terms of direct resources squandered and lost time is massive. The policy doesn’t stop terrorism, it expresses our condition of being terrorized.
Never lose sight of the fact that money squandered is money earned. The key is who is on the earning end of the continuum. We know who is footing the bill.
As for security arrangements looking like the theater of the absurd, don't lose sight of the fact that that sterling example of prosecutorial excellence, Michael Chertoff, is the man in charge. Just how many terrorist convictions was Mr. Chertoff able to secure in his last position as Asst AG?
As for Americans themselves, I suppose that it’s less than realistic to expect street protests or airport sit-ins from citizen fliers, and maybe we shouldn’t expect too much from a press and media that have had no trouble letting countless other injustices slip to the wayside. And rather than rethink our policies, the best we’ve come up with is a way to skirt them — for a fee, naturally — via schemes like Registered Traveler. Americans can now pay to have their personal information put on file just to avoid the hassle of airport security. As cynical as George Orwell ever was, I doubt he imagined the idea of citizens offering up money for their own subjugation.
George Orwell is not what I am reminded of, either, but Thomas Pynchon's novel Vineland. As one review noted:
But what is perhaps most interesting, finally, about Mr. Pynchon's new novel is what is different about it. What is interesting is the willingness with which he addresses, directly, the political development of the United States, and the slow (but not total) steamrollering of a radical tradition many generations and decades older than flower power. There is a marvelously telling moment when Brock Vond's brainchild, his school for subversion in which lefties are re-educated and turned into tools of the state, is closed down because in Reagan's America the young think like that to begin with, they don't need re-education.
There are whole books devoted to this. The phenomena even has a name "terrorism theater".
The object is to keeping people in a state of heightened fear by focusing the efforts in those areas which are most visible, rather than those which are more effective.
While the TSA is searching the tennis shoes of granny, the container ships are still uninspected and the chemical plants under defended.
Do you know where your closest chemical storage site is? Do you know what kinds of chemicals it stores? Does your local civil government? Do they know what to do in the case of an accident?
Never lose sight of the fact that money squandered is money earned. The key is who is on the earning end of the continuum. We know who is footing the bill.
ReplyDeleteAs for security arrangements looking like the theater of the absurd, don't lose sight of the fact that that sterling example of prosecutorial excellence, Michael Chertoff, is the man in charge.
Just how many terrorist convictions was Mr. Chertoff able to secure in his last position as Asst AG?
Patrick Smith wrote:
ReplyDeleteAs for Americans themselves, I suppose that it’s less than realistic to expect street protests or airport sit-ins from citizen fliers, and maybe we shouldn’t expect too much from a press and media that have had no trouble letting countless other injustices slip to the wayside. And rather than rethink our policies, the best we’ve come up with is a way to skirt them — for a fee, naturally — via schemes like Registered Traveler. Americans can now pay to have their personal information put on file just to avoid the hassle of airport security. As cynical as George Orwell ever was, I doubt he imagined the idea of citizens offering up money for their own subjugation.
George Orwell is not what I am reminded of, either, but Thomas Pynchon's novel Vineland. As one review noted:
But what is perhaps most interesting, finally, about Mr. Pynchon's new novel is what is different about it. What is interesting is the willingness with which he addresses, directly, the political development of the United States, and the slow (but not total) steamrollering of a radical tradition many generations and decades older than flower power. There is a marvelously telling moment when Brock Vond's brainchild, his school for subversion in which lefties are re-educated and turned into tools of the state, is closed down because in Reagan's America the young think like that to begin with, they don't need re-education.
There are whole books devoted to this. The phenomena even has a name "terrorism theater".
ReplyDeleteThe object is to keeping people in a state of heightened fear by focusing the efforts in those areas which are most visible, rather than those which are more effective.
While the TSA is searching the tennis shoes of granny, the container ships are still uninspected and the chemical plants under defended.
Do you know where your closest chemical storage site is? Do you know what kinds of chemicals it stores? Does your local civil government? Do they know what to do in the case of an accident?
Which has the higher risk?