Wombaticus Rex wrote:I have been disgusted at the tone of the editorials in favor of this -- "Shut Up and Submit" or "Get Over Yourself" -- wow. Really naked aggression and bullying.
The only nuanced editorializing I've seen on this has been in that Nation article i posted in the Kochs Get TSA-Rubdown Job thread. This looks like classic Overton Window nonsense. Libertarians have siezed on this as a means to promote a privatization agenda--they don't want to eliminate the pat-downs, they want to outsource them, which shows who they really support. Retardofascists are latching onto the breast-groping, sack-checking nonsense to promote racial profiling. They all got their way when a Republican was in charge--it's illegal to carry water on your person in an airport, all shoes contain lethal weapons, belts are now dangerous explosives devices, jackets need to be searched even when they don't set off metal detectors, etc., etc. Now a so-called "opponent" has adopted their "center"-right policies, and they've seized on that as a point of contention--porn scanners should be banned, then turned over to private interests. TSA rub-downs will continue, but now it will be illegal to be black on an airplane. Etc. etc.
This is the strategy that ?Colby? outlined for the Republicans: oppose all Democratic policies at all times by all means, essentially holding things hostage except when there's a Repub. majority or admin.
I'm not a politician. I don't know how to respond to crap like that. I would suggest a massive campaign, "Scanners don't stop terrorists", which would be aimed at letting the public realize that a porn-scanner isn't anything but a gov't hand-out to a manufacturer, and that if we really cared about security we'd beef up uniform and plainclothes patrols and intelligence at airports, that we'd assign cops to monitoring legally-established threats through present law, not buy scanners and grab asses.
Let me give another example or two.
I don't like Obama. I wish someone else was president.. But the Wash. Post just printed an editorial demanding that he promise not to seek a second term, b/c otherwise Congress will be in gridlock, etc., etc., and the nation will fall apart, but if he just resigns now, it'll all be better, and the Tea Party bills will save the economy, etc., etc... So, do I support these guys? No. That's thinly-veiled racist extortion, among many other things.
Or Obamacare. I think Obamacare is a corporate handout with no graces good enough to save it. It shifts costs to the near-poor and working class. It's more expensive and ineffecient than single-payer care, more expensive and inefficient than medicaid for all, and more expensive and inefficient than doing nothing. It's terrible.There are a handful of good things about it, particularly the pre-existing conditions issue. But Repubs have been agitating that they want to repeal the bill. Do I support that? Hell no. Keep it in place.
Now, the obvious solution is just to take advantage of all the Koch money poured into this issue to promote a true civil liberties right-to-decency campaign, but I have no illusions about my own level of influence over, say, Freedomworks. I'm not a Trotskyite or Spartacist, either, so I'm not sure I advocate "infiltration" of bourgie movements like this one.
Probably more to the point, I don't think that many people can afford to fly anymore. Not that I'm justifying the new rules--I'm pointing out that their relevance for the rest of us is rapidly declining, hence, this is a very unusual issue.
"they" are scuttling this country's infrastructure with a view to creating "secure" "burbclaves" ala Neal Stephenson's Snowcrash etc. They are bleeding us all dry and allocating the meager funds necessary to with as little "impact" is necessary, to completely reinvent the society they want.
Off topic, but I don't think it'll be "burbclaves," or, the burbclaves will be vacation communities. See, e.g., Moscow, the oligarch's playground. Look at gentrification in the US, and efforts to 'break' ethnic communities that are politically organized (the "ten thousand city halls", e.g., the Mexican population in Bushwick, which is now "East Williamsburg") etc. Urban waterfront warehouses have a remarkable ability to catch on fire, if you get what I mean.
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