Virtual Stripteases, Media Failures, Potential Child Abuse and How the Terrorists Won and Will Keep on Winning

As a matter of fact, terrorists should be the least of those fears. Giving in to those fears does nothing but capitalize on a fact most of us already know but don’t want to admit aloud: they’ve won.

Fridays on CJAD, Tommy Schnurmacher has a segment on his show called “The Single Ladies”, usually during the last half hour of the show; Two of the usual suspects are Tatiana, the ‘star’ real estate agent and Tommy’s  producer, Laura Casella, a junior lightweight from the right.  Tommy, one word of advice; leave grown-up talk for grown-ups please; having them on, talking over each other like gossipy teen-agers is hardly dignified for serious discussion. Please Tommy, if you want to discuss airport security, have people that are more qualified to talk about the subject; such as people who have travelled to and from Israel in the last few years;  a witness to terrorism or an expert on terrorism. In other words, no one who’s sole qualification is having drank Bush’s  and now Baird’s kool-aid.

Laura and Tatiana just can’t seem to understand why Canadians would be outraged at the idea of a body scan. To paraphrase Laura, ‘just a quick pic deleted in 5 seconds’.  You want some underpaid, undertrained rent-a-cop gawking at your body. How do you know you don’t fall on a bad one who not only won’t delete it, but adds it to his/her porn collection? For those who didn’t know what they will see and didn’t watch this Morning’s Question Period, Here is what these rent-a-cops will be eye-balling:

Image courtesy of Natural News

Looks pretty anatomically correct to me.    Self-respect and human dignity are not applicable? Are you really willing to be stripped of your dignity and for what? Sorry, I think there is more dignity to going to be filmed in a porn peep show; pole dancing in front of oglers at the strip joint;  at least they’re paid for their trouble.

Yes, most Canadians seemed to be in favour of those scans. Those who drank the kool-aid Corporate media is feeding us. The  question asked was if they preferred it to being frisked. Of course the answer would be a resounding ‘yes’. Now, put this question forward:  Would you prefer to not have to be touched and be seen naked. The answer of course would be resounding No. It’s a no brainer. Especially if one stopped to take a look at what those rent-a-cops would be gawking at.  No, don’t count on them not being saved on some data base. They are in favor only because the likes of the corporate media spoon feeding us that we must submit or we will get bombed.

Well, Laura,  did you know that John Baird mentioned to Jane Taber on Question Period this morning that children under 18 will be frisked?  You don’t see anything wrong with it? Traumatizing a child for the sake of airport security. It’s bad enough with the new hand luggage restrictions, toys that occupy an otherwise restless child would be banned. Again, rent-a-cops aren’t the most professional and have those same character flaws; what if some poor kid is unlucky enough to be padded down by some  pedophile?

Did you or anyone else for that matter check up on studies about radiation exposure particularly to frequent flyers? Before submitting to lighting our naked butts like Christmas trees; shouldn’t there be a study about the potential harm of the radiation exposure?

By their own admission (governments and manufacturers), these scans don’t pick up powders, liquids or plastics. In otherwards, once someone got their jollies looking at the scan of his Birthday suit, the underwear bomber still wouldn’t have been detected.

John Baird also points out that people will be able to bring a purse or laptop or blackberry. Well, bombs can be made from laptops and blackberries.

What about travellers with babies? For those who are parents, you  know all too well that an afternoon play date for your baby with  the neighbour’s children requires a huge bag for just a few hours; diapers, formula, bottles, extra clothes, toys, some food if they’re old enough, etc. etc. Think Parents, that big bag you would insist on packing for your baby for just a few hours locally would no longer be allowed as hand luggage. Nor would many of its’ contents as they’re pretty much all powder, liquid and plastic. I can see parents making alternate plans before taking their babies or toddlers on board a plane.

Speaking of parents, do they really want to deal with a restless child for hours because they can’t have their crayons and gameboys?

What would be next? Drug mules have proven  to hide condoms or balloons filled with drugs and /or other contraband in body cavities such as the rectum. Does this mean rectal searches become the order of the day? Wanna risk permanent health problems because of some rent-a-cop with zero medical training? Some of them swallow it; are we going to induce vomiting?  Sounds disgusting and yes, undignified; it is indeed.

How about those with the prosthesis? Internal (pacemakers, hip replacement, screws to hold joints together, etc) or external (false teeth, artificial limbs).  It has been said that these items have set off detectors.

Another new rule is no one is allowed to go to the bathroom an hour before landing.  Great! Another potential health hazzard and certain discomfort. How is forcing somebody to endure a full bladder going to help us feel more safe? How does that deter a terrorist? Or perhaps diapers for all would become in vogue?

Folks, let’s get some perspective here.  A few brief points:

• Air travel is still considered one of the safest ways to travel
• Terrorists do bomb and cause mayhem in places other than air planes like public transit during Rush hour, yet, do we subject ourselves to virtual strip searches or restrictions on the bags and packages we may be carrying?
• Everybody seems to forget about the potential dangers of ground travel; nobody remembers that beheading of Tim Maclean on a Greyhound bus?

Then, we hear Laura or Tatiana (so hard to tell; they keep shrieking over each other) that “The Israelis are Laughing at us!” Let’s talk about that shall we?

I had heard that Israel, a known target to pretty much most of the Middle-East has not had one incident on an El-Al plane or at Ben Gurion Airport in 40 years. Here is why.  Profiling, lists, extensive questioning, signalling suspicious behavior like paying cash for airline tickets, travelling far away with no suicase or even a hand bag; no change of clothes;  Extensive questioning for some who sends off the slightest of alarm bells.

I did not read anything about underwear scans or anything as creepy and ghoulish. The idea of profiling makes me cringe, but, personally, I’d rather submit to a bag inspection and extensive questioning and background check by trained agents rather than being groped or doing a virtual striptease for government porn before some rent-a-cop.

Just to be sure, I got in touch with an old classmate from elementary school over the week-end; now a wife and mother of three girls living in Israel and travels fairly often to Canada & the U.S. In addition to not being well versed about the new body scans, she says that only very special cases may be subject to a body scan at Ben Gurion.  She admits the checks can be a pain, but over all,  in any given airport, she feels safest at Ben Gurion; with no mass virtual stripteases. They’re not rent-a-cops, but trained professionals who know exactly what to look for and how to zero in on it with efficiency.

Before the official announcement of these body scans,  Dan Delmar, who was subbing on CJAD  very intelligently pointed out that good security is not confiscating colouring books, crayons and gameboys from restless children and making everybody suffer through an exploding bladder. He says, quite rightly, that good security is something the general population don’t see or feel. Undercover (well trained; not rent-a-cop; Hell, El-Al and Ben Gurion Airport have trained secret agents dealing with this detail) agents around the airport and on board the plane posing as travellers or even flight attendants. It was the first and will probably be the only intelligent discussion about Airport security we’ll hear in the corporate media.  Good, intelligent, balanced talk show hosts like Dan Delmar usually only fill in. That is too bad, I hope CJAD would consider giving Dan his own show some day.  He is one of the few who is balanced. Even his callers sound less psychotic & more reasonable.

One of Dan’s callers also pointed out that the terrorists have won and they will continue winning.  So true! After all, isn’t a terrorist’s goal to keep their targets afraid? There is also mental terror. These clowns know their enemy so well. The United States as a whole basically lives in hate and fear of anything different or whatever they perceive to be a threat on their materialism and capitalist greed. They have gotten today’s corporate media to serve that McCarthy Kool-Aid at every turn; convincing us that if we don’t comply to human indignities and /or potential health risks (short and long term).  No Laura, I wouldn’t necessarily say the Israelis are laughing at us as much as those bushwhackers on monkey bars (paraphrasing Michael Moore).

They have won  because they have not been brought to justice.  With all the intelligence at our disposal, why haven’t these thugs responsible for 9/11 or any other subsequent Al-Qaeda related incident been caught and tried before some tribunal and then sentenced appropriately? They will continue winning as long as they’re still at large.  Contrary to the rantings of yahoos like General McChrystal and Georgie and his cowboy speech following 9/11, reminiscant of John Wayne, more troops and bleeding financial & human resources in Afghanistan will not accomplish this.

In fact, these wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are provoking these terrorists further.  Then again, would the U.S. ever be happy during peace? I’m starting to wonder if they need constant conflict to keep their juices going. Did life get boring when the Cold war ended? One must wonder.

Ric Salutin, one of the few responsible, balanced columnists at the Grope and Fail wrote a very intelligent piece. Read it; I highly recommend it. The basic theme is:

A mom at her kid’s karate class this week said: “They keep applying Band-Aids, but it doesn’t stop the bleeding.”

No, it certainly wouldn’t. What Salutin meant was that instead of feverishly trying come up with newfangled ways of security at the expense of human rights and dignities; it’s time for change in foreign policy.

This is what’s so irritating: The security issue seems to drain scarce public discourse resources from that other topic, foreign policy. You’d think both could be talked about at once but apparently not. We hear more on security and less on the sources of the problem. Why are they angry in Yemen? Because U.S. drones invaded their space and menaced innocent people, once in 2002 and again (shhh, it’s supposed to be secret) last month. They didn’t like the 2003 invasion of Iraq either. The first attack on the U.S. embassy in Yemen came right after that, long before the one planned recently.

It’s not an obscure subject. The U.S.’s 9/11 commission said chief planner Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was motivated by American Mideast policy. Osama bin Laden said he reached his decision to strike the U.S. while watching its ships bombard Beirut in 1983. The supply of terror will remain endless if you keep replenishing it with invasion, war and other such policies.

I am not excusing these terrorist acts; I don’t think Ric Salutin is neither or anyone else like minded.  However, we shouldn’t be provoking them neither. In fact, it is time to at least attempt to make peace.

Yes, for the time being, find better methods of security that we don’t see or feel. However, work at foreign policy. Accept governments that were democratically elected by its’ own citizens instead of discounting them as enemy terrorists, like Hamas. This ‘tough guy’  attitude of ‘We won’t talk to terrorists’  just doesn’t wash anymore.

After all,  years of IRA  & Sinn Fein terror came to end in Ireland and the Great Britain. NowSinn Fein  is a legitimate  party of the government of Ireland.

Until we end those wars in Iraq (U.S.) & Afghanistan, until we change foreign policy and until we stop scrambling for new fangled airport security measures which will cause more harm to innocent people than good,  until the media stops spoonfeeding us the anti-Islam McCarthyist mantra, and until we bring these thugs to justice; these terrorists are the ones yucking it up at the rest of the world’s expense.

Perhaps flying should be boycotted. There is no reason compelling enough to subject one’s self to indignity, gov’t porn and potential health risks. With today’s technology and communication; things like skype, video conferencing and such; one can still conduct business overseas without leaving home.  a few weeks of sun just isn’t worth that kind of trouble neither.

Perhaps when commercial airlines start losing business, they can start lobbying governments to get rid of body scans and such and replace with less invasive yet more efficient security measures. After all, with capitalism, the threat of losing dollars grabs everyone’s attention.