Homeland Insecurity

Last August, I took my husband to the National Institute of Health in Bethesda for a chemotherapy treatment.  He had warned me of the serious security measures that were in place.  He wasn't exaggerating.  We each had to show ID, then get out of the car and walk into a building that was equipped with the kind of scanners set up at airports these days.  While I ran myself and my purse through the scanners, my car was being checked out for bombs.  Having passed inspection, I was given a one-day photo ID and we were sent on to the hospital.

It was a beautiful, warm day, and I decided to explore the area, and walk to downtown Bethesda for lunch.  I walked out the other side of the compound (for it truly was a compound), past a manned guard booth, and out the gate.  As I so often do, I misjudged distance, and what I thought would be a one-half hour walk turned into over an hour, each way, in the Maryland heat.

So, nearly three hours after I left, I walked through the gate looking like someone who had crossed the desert and was hoping the end was truly in sight and not a mirage.  The same gentleman was at the guard post, and he indeed stopped me.  Apparently, not too many people walked out the gate, and he remembered me.  And yet my one-day pass proved inadequate ID, he also made me show him my driver's license.  And then told me I needed to go around to the front of the complex and go through the full security process again....

The look I must have given him seemed to convince him a) that I wasn't much of a threat, and b) had I to walk around to the front I might have ended up being admitted as a patient, bad public relations for NIH if nothing else.

As I pondered this strange experience, and later talked to my husband about it, we wondered if there was some top-secret highly dangerous research going on that would require these extreme measures.

But no.

In Pay Any Price, by James Risen, he talks about what he calls the "war on normalcy" that has been going on since 9/11.  It is of course a tremendous boondoggle, costing us billions of dollars, in the name of national security.  What all these security corporations have sold to our fear-mongering politicians is the ability to continue to win elections by instilling terror in the populace.  And what we have gotten in return is a nation that trembles in its boots, although we have had far fewer terrorist attacks than we had in the 60's and 70's on our soil.

What have we lost?  Our airports, once the place for reunions of families and friends, are now war zones.  There was once a time when people could walk to the gate to see their loved ones off.  Hell, there was once a time when you could bring a bottle of your own water onto a plane.  I am told that if you are over 75, you are exempt from taking your shoes off as you go through screening, but that's only until the feared jihadis put a 76-year-old on board.

On December 26, at a wonderful, small local movie theater, I was astounded to learn that they were checking bags.  Granted, the woman who was charged with this ridiculous task conducted the most embarrassed and cursory search I've ever undergone.  But still....  And then I realized that this was the big, bad opening of The Interview, a totally goofy, mediocre comedy that had recently struck fear into the hearts of Americans, worried that Kim Jong Un's warriors would be storming our theaters.

What else have we lost?  In Charleston, when I first moved here, I was enthralled by the First Night festivities.  Locals and tourists walking the streets downtown, with what seemed like hundreds of free and inexpensive performances in churches and theaters.  My daughter played the fiddle with Na Fidleiri, and we wandered in and out of other performances throughout the night.  I thought it just couldn't get any better than this.

Then, after 9/11, First Night disappeared, pretty much without a peep.  I have looked it up, yearningly, from time to time, and what it has come down to is a few hours of performances -- "family entertainment" and specifically "non-alcoholic" -- on Marion Square.  And lots of advertisements for restaurants.  A tragic loss, in the name of protecting us from terrorism.

Seems we have terrorized ourselves these past fourteen years.  In the name of security, we have taken away community, and warmth, and freedom to walk the streets, the airports, the theaters of our country.

And, need I add, the real terror really lies in the hypocritical freedom to carry weapons, weapons not to hunt, but to wage war on others in our communities, with no checks or controls.  So it hasn't been Al Qaeda that has terrorized our schools and theaters, it has been unbalanced individuals with access to assault weapons.  And those fear-mongerers whose purpose is to maintain their power of office refuse to legislate gun control.  But are happy to keep us from going about our lives as though life were normal.  Our insecurity is what keeps our politicians secure.

Fear (and Loathing) at the Airport

Sadly, I had to make a trip to the Charleston International Airport yesterday.  Sad, because I remember (not all that long ago), when we could walk to the gate to welcome travelers to Charleston, or to kiss them good-by when they leave.  I stopped flying when the full-body scanners were installed, and when it was rumored that they had been removed, I found that I was just as happy staying away.  I like not having to take my shoes off to get on a train, and I don't have to pay to park my car.  Oh, and nobody takes a picture of my license plate as I leave the parking lot.

The Charleston International Airport is a puffed-up name for a very sweet, small airport.  But after 9/11, they may as well have named it (and all other airports in the US) the Bin Laden International.  He has certainly left a legacy.  After 9/11 the searches became more extensive and ridiculous.  If you were dropping off a passenger at the curb, you were no longer allowed even five minutes to use the restroom much less help carry bags to the airline check-in.  Only passengers are now allowed past the now ubiquitous security check-points.  Which over the years have taken up more and more space.

Our security system here in the US may cover a whole lot of space, but the net has awfully big holes.  Which is why there have continued to be acts of violence in and around airports, the latest being at LAX on November 1.  Crazy killers can still get guns, because nobody knows they're crazy enough to kill until it happens.

But don't get me started on guns.  My point is that, since the LAX shooting, the question is not, why do we still make it easy for people to carry guns, but how much more security can we cram into the airports.

Increased airport security appears to be the answer to just about any question you might ask regarding air travel.  So since the idiot tried to set off a bomb in his shoes, we have all been forced to take off our shoes before we board an airplane.  And when another idiot tried to detonate a bomb in his underwear, the solution was to give the TSA the right to gaze at our naked bodies.  And don't forget, you're only allowed to take 3 oz. of liquids, and be sure to leave your water bottle at home.

Do you feel safer now?  Because I sure don't -- even though the miniscule Charleston County Airport (please don't make me call it "International"...) is crawling with ever more security.  In fact, when I got there yesterday I found that in the past year, the security checkpoint area had quadrupled.  There were more security people this afternoon than passengers.  People in wheelchairs were made to take off their shoes.  And some old folk who could barely lift their arms had to stick them up for the scanners.

I was there to pick up my husband, who required wheelchair assistance.  Except that there weren't enough porters to help with the passengers requiring assistance.  So eventually the young lady wheeled him to baggage claim and then said she had to leave to go help someone else.  Fortunately the two large suitcases for Stephan's three week visit came through before she got away, so we didn't have to wrestle them off the carousel and out to the sidewalk with the wheelchair.  She got us out to the sidewalk and ran off for her next handicapped traveler.

When I brought my car around and hesitated, waiting for a spot to open up at the curb I was instantly approached by airport police, whose job it is to protect us from people sitting in their car in front of the airport.  When I pointed to the old guy in the wheelchair, he motioned me over to a space and then quickly bicycled off in search of other parking malefactors.  And, because there is more airport security than there are skycaps, my 75-year-old husband had to get out of the wheelchair and help me haul the two suitcases into the car. 

You know, this is Charleston.  If I had needed help on the street someone would have come up and given me a hand.  But over at the Charleston County Airport, crawling with people who are employed there, they are too busy looking for trouble that doesn't exist than to actually help out.

What a way to welcome a traveler to Charleston.

Osama bin Laden is grinning in his watery grave.

Fear Feeding Fear Feeding Terrorism Feeding Fear

My son, in Boston, is safe tonight.  But when one of us is attacked, aren't we all?

It is the NRA, in the name of the weapons makers and sellers, that have for wealth and power instilled fear in the most fearful among us.

It is the idiots we have elected to Congress, who are afraid of taking a moral stand against weapons, for wealth and votes, who have refused to stand tall against those who raise arms against us.

Because of this, terrorists feel free to wield bombs, as well as guns, against us.  And each time we are attacked, our enemies in the NRA and in Congress feed the fear.

They claim that we need weapons to defend ourselves from our government.  And this is what weakens us, and makes us vulnerable to those who would use those weapons -- that we are afraid to give up -- against us.

I don't pledge allegiance to a flag, but I trust my country far more than those who are screaming -- screeching -- about the 2nd Amendment.  And I don't praise my god against your god, but I try to live under a set of morals that is universal.

As long as we fear, we are vulnerable.  As long as we fear, we will be led.  As long as we fear, we will not be acting for what is right, only for what will momentarily quell the fear but will only make us more vulnerable.

We need to elect politicians that will act for what is moral, and will not feed our fear for their gain.

Or we will continue to be attacked and afraid and attacked yet again.

A gun on every corner will not protect us from those carrying guns.  And when we are afraid, those with weapons will always find a way to attack.

Score One for Big Brother

In the Post and Courier yesterday, there was an article about a murder being caught on camera downtown.


Isn't that great?


Actually, both perpetrator and victim had been guilty of criminal acts, including assault, in the past.


Do we really need to be spied upon when we already have the information to catch the bad guys, just because we are unable to prevent known criminal activity from escalating?


This is a case of 9/11 all over again, where all the warnings were in place, that Bin Laden and al Quaeda was planning an attack on American shores, that foreign nationals were learning to fly planes but not to land them, that those foreign nationals had in fact entered or remained in the country illegally.


Yet we allow ourselves to be frisked without cause not only in airports but on the streets, to be videotaped in our day to day lives, under the pretense of being kept safe.


Actually, it doesn't keep us safe, it just helps identify the people who have harmed us after the fact.