Saturday, April 21, 2012

Say Hello to STASI for me...

I feel so much %#I@ING SAFER...

METRO launched a national BusSafe pilot program last Friday that saturated its system and resulted in quality arrests, making transit safer for passengers.
You wanna guess how many of those arrested passengers felt safer?
a synchronized, counter-terrorism exercise
What were the "quality arrests" for during this "synchronized, counter-terrorism exercise?" Since this was a TSA boondoggle, we should be justified in assuming that all those "quality arrests" were for terrorism. Seems like a lot of terrorists to be gathering in Houston all of a sudden, but who knows what those nefarious ragheads will do next, hey? Thank God for...wait...
Law officials performed random bag checks, conducted sweeps with our K-9 drug and bomb-detecting dogs, and assigned both uniformed and plainclothes officers at transit centers and rail platforms to detect and prevent criminal activity.
So...no terrorists, then. What a shock.

This VIPR thing gets under my skin in a way that the original TSA airport security theater really didn't. First, there were "security" checkpoints at airports for years before TSA came along, so everybody had gotten used to the sight, and although I used to fly a lot on business those days were pretty much done by 9/11. So from a purely personal viewpoint, though of course I love to hate TSA it never really impacted me very much. And of course VIPR is also unlikely to do so: Since the whole idea of VIPR is to put the fear of government into non-air travelers, they'll stick to high-visibility targets.

But I grew up indoctrinated with the notion that there are two main "tells" for a police state - the bad guys. One is torture: The good guys never torture people. America, of course, crossed that river several years ago.

The other is internal checkpoints. "Your papers, please" is a sign that you're living under SecPol, and no longer in the Land of the Free. The bad guys do that, the good guys would never dream of it.

Yet here we are.

3 comments:

Mayberry said...

My thoughts exactly...

gooch said...

I find it interesting that most folks when informed of the "collaboration" by the French Vichy government during WW II all seem to be dumbfounded as to why the French didn't resist any more than they did.
And now as you point out "Yet here we are."

The point is that no one wants to be the very first to die on the bayonets of the oppressors to Prove the existence of the Police State so no one does anything and the implementation continues apace.

I am fortunate to have seen the possibility early on and abandoned the metropolitan areas for the small towns and rural lifestyle.
Thus I am not confronted with the most egregious actions of the Police State [Stazi] so am not required to throw myself on those bayonets to awaken my fellow humans to the reality of the Police State.

Yet another reason to leave any large metropolitan area soonest if not now.

Like you I have quit flying [commercially] and purposely avoid the known road blocks set up by the Stazi as "Immigration and Importation Check Points".

Acknowledging the existence of the Police State is Important for sure BUT ...
What's to be done?
To remedy the situation for our progeny? Or do we, like the Vichy Government, put our heads down and keep silent to avoid gaining the tender attentions of the Stazi?

(Please see "The State vs The People" C. Wolfe & A. Zelman)
Not meant to be taken as preaching to the choir but for the edification of the uninitiated.

perlhaqr said...

I do wonder what happens if you tell one of these "random bag checks" to go fuck off.