Nick -
You are spot on again... too bad we'll be drinking your share of the
bourbon tonight!
I agree with everything you say about fascism. Yours not a rant.
Just an exact description of what is happening.
the very best kind of rant, the undeniable ones!
But I am NOT clear why nudity is the bottom line. (};-]) We are
absolutely passive until we find ourselves in the "showers" and are
asked to take our clothes off?
Actually I don't care so much about the presumed invasion of my body
space.... though the suckers get taken in everytime by the big salami I
tape into my trousers... you should *see* the looks on their faces!
So, let's imagine a scenario in which They say, "Ok. You're
correct! No Junkyard dogs at the TSA checkpoints. However, in
compensation, we are going to have to start reading your mail, like
the Israelis do." (I don't know if the Iraeli's do, but that is what
they are going to say.). Look, something is seriously amiss when
Olberman and Beck agree on something.
Hey, TSA no problem. Time to worry about Obamacare's recommendation
of universal colonoscopies. (By the way, how do you copy a colonos,
anyway?)
Shit... (just to be colorful) you've got me there!
PS: As a test of my position, I went to www.aclu.org
<http://www.aclu.org> to see if they were on board with this
hysteria. Ooops! They are! LOT of interesting stuff, there, none of
which supports my position.
You are a gem.
PPS: Did you hear or read the report that one can be exempt from BOTH
procedures on religious grounds by claiming to be a muslim woman?
Heck, I've always been a Muslim woman... or at least I really enjoy
playing one on the internet! Drives the NSA boys NUTS!
- Steve
*From:*friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com]
*On Behalf Of *Steve Smith
*Sent:* Sunday, November 21, 2010 4:00 AM
*To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
*Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] TSA, security technology, and opting out
Nick -
Nah, Steve. I am going to rain on this parade. Sorry.
I wondered what that splashing/drizzling was all about! Thanks a lot!
For years we all had our inseams measured without accusing tailors of
homophilia. There is nothing inherently undignified in the search
except that perception makes it so.
So, my barber who keeps dropping his comb into my lap *isn't* making a
pass at me? Shoots, I'll be needing to find another barber I guess!
And you might not be surprised, but I've never had a tailor handle my
junk while measuring my inseams... but then, that salesgirl at the
store where I buy my jeans is welcome to measure my inseams... but
every time I ask, she declines the opportunity.
All of this "keep your mitts off my junk" ("JUNK!" WHERE THE HELL DID
THAT COME FROM?) is a juvenile distraction from two EXTREMELY
important issues.
Are the back scatter scanners safe?
Is security based on high cost machinery (rather than intelligence)
effective.
It does give me pause that Michael Chertoff was, I understand, a
serious investor in the company that makes the machines. No I don't
have any proof.
I don't suppose I disagree that these are potentially important
issues. But I don't agree that submitting to escalating levels of
invasive and highly questionable measures based on induced hysteria is
a "good and necessary thing".
I'm still of the strong belief that one of the errant memes amok in
our culture is the meme of fascism. The meme that insists that the
good of the whole is entirely dependent on and subservient to the whim
of the bureaucracy in place (and expanding). It is my firmly held
opinion that the majority of the response to 9/11 has been an
opportunistic one, feeding those who would feed this particular meme.
Fascism positively loves fear!
I'm also completely in tune with the theme.... "just because you are
paranoid, doesn't mean they are *not* out to get you". Yes, the great
and wonderful America the Beautiful has ENEMIES and they "Hate our
Freedoms" (What?) and they *will* hijack our planes and fly them into
our tallest buildings if given the chance...
But I contend that there is also a rot within the souls of our own
people who "Hate our Freedoms" in an entirely different way. They
hate our freedom from fear, from administrative picayune control of
everything. Just go dump your wallet out on the table and look
through *that junk* and tell me that you are not being harried by a
dozen or more trivial systems which require you to step and fetch...
driver's license (aka Universal ID), Insurance card(s), credit cards,
Social Security Card, Loyalty Shopping Cards... the rest I'm not sure
I wanna know! Then go check the file cabinet, and the glove box of
your car... or your stack of unopened (my case) or recently opened
(more likely) mail. The quantity and complexity of the systems
designed around keeping YOU in line is amazing. Dial up a right wing
talk radio station and listen to the rhetoric in the *advertising* on
identity theft (guard), it is positively disgusting!
Yes, someone hates our freedoms, but I don't think it is the 12 year
old boys and girls spread across a great deal of the world strapping
bombs onto their chests to blow up our tanks (those not busy stepping
on our errant landmines)... *they* have something seriously sad going
on in *their* (short and likely miserable) lives as do our young men
and women stuck in the "stop-loss" war that is consuming their prime
years, but the threat is as much from within (all forms of paranoid
hysteria and the fascist systems and behaviour it can fuel) as from
without.
Ooops, I think I got off on a rant there! <grin>
- Steve
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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
