Has the TSA literally helped Americans find their testicles? Have their over reaching, over reacting policies finally gone too far? These are questions that many in the media have been asking since the implementation of a policy of groping those hapless travelers who decide to opt out of going through the not so newly installed naked body scanners at airports across the nation. I ask, has the TSA finally stumbled upon the limit of what the American general public will tolerate? Is this what it takes for the common folk to finally wake up from the dream that was America, a bunch of robotic uniformed thugs taking nude pictures and feeling them up in public with everyone watching? Well, if that's the case I have to thank the TSA and offer the waking masses some coffee to get them going.
I decided a couple of years ago to stop flying and have driven several hundred miles when I've had to go places rather than fly. I simply wasn't going to put up with it. But that was no big deal. One guy who flies infrequently doesn't much matter to the airlines. Customer service seems to be a thing of the past, and no one really seems to care too much what one customer out of the millions of customers in this country thinks anyway. It did surprise me, however, when my seventy seven year old mother decided last year to drive down to Florida rather than fly. She has been known to travel back and forth between Florida and Illinois semi regularly, but she also decided not to fly anymore. Her reason was the same as mine, the Transportation Security Administration.
The people at the TSA, especially those on the front lines actually interacting with the traveling public, just don't seem to be the best examples of humanity to be found on the planet. I had heard numerous stories about the ridiculousness of their control freakiness, if that makes any sense, well before I had to decide whether to fly or drive. Sure, they may claim that they are just doing their jobs and following the orders of their superiors, but it sure seemed to me that they were taking things a little too far a little too often. It was almost as if they enjoyed their new found power so much that they weren't going to let some fellow human being assert his will or proclaim his natural rights without making him pay. It was almost as if such things were considered a direct attack on their "authority" and they couldn't stand being questioned. They were, after all, the protectors of the flying public, making sure those scary, scary terrorists were kept at bay. They were to be looked upon and honored as heroes. How dare anyone question their methods?
Then the body scanners came. There was only a few at first, but they were soon to be found in more and more places. Oh sure, they were controversial from the get go, but the traveling public was assured that the images weren't pornographic or stored and that this was a necessary evil to prevent nutty, suicidal extremists from stuffing their underwear with explosives and trying to emasculate themselves on international flights. I suppose whether or not the images can be considered pornographic depends on whether or not the person looking at the image is a pervert.
The naked body scanners just seemed to make the sky guards salivate even more. They seemed to love these machines, to love herding people through them. The traveling public, however, didn't take so kindly to the machines. The more they found out about them, the more they became concerned at what was happening behind the scenes. They found out that they'd been lied to, that the pictures were quite graphic, that the images were stored in a database, and that they were being dangerously radiated. Concerns arose that some TSA agents might not be the most trustworthy sort and that going through the radiation emitting devices might cause cancer. The more informed and concerned travelers began to "opt out" of the naked screening process.
This behavior, of course, could not be tolerated by many TSA agents. They don't seem to like their orders being disobeyed or their authority being questioned. Perhaps that's why some of them may have welcomed the newest "enhanced" pat downs. These are the pat downs that those who opt out of going through the body scanners have to undergo. These are the pat downs reported by many travelers as being not just too intrusive, but tantamount to sexual assault. Travelers who are unwilling to go through the naked body scanners have reported being groped by uniformed strangers supposedly there to serve and protect, including women having their breasts cupped and squeezed and their vaginas probed and men having their genitals painfully grabbed. Finally the abuses are being widely reported.
Now, I hear there are many who are opting out of the scan. There are many would be travelers feeling indignant about the enhanced groping, er, pat downs. There are many like myself who have declared they will no longer fly. There's even a website dedicated to the proposition that we will not fly anymore called wewontfly.com. They are sponsoring a national opt out day where they are trying to get as many people as possible to opt out of going through the naked body scanners. They also advocate educating the public as to the dangers and realities of the naked body scanners. This is an effort which really seems to be gathering steam and seems to have the establishment a little worried. I believe that the American public is finally realizing the power it has and how to exercise that power.
Could the American populace finally be waking up? Did the abusive TSA find the limit to our tolerance? Is the sexual humiliation inherent in there "security" procedures too much for most to take? Will enough of us finally realize that this is all just security theater, that none of this is necessary for our safety and has been implemented simply to train us to be obedient slaves cowering to authority? After all, if they can take naked pictures of you and store them for their amusement or grab your genitalia at their whim, is there nothing they can't get away with? And if you think that the groping is going to be limited to those who decide to opt out, you might want to think again. There is talk about making the enhanced pat downs mandatory AND doing away with the opt out option. That means that you'll either submit to having your naked picture taken and being groped by a uniformed stranger, or you won't be able to fly. Is that what it will take to make you stand up and say no?
One might wonder what will happen next. Now that the traveling public seems to have awakened to the abusiveness of the TSA, will it awaken to the other abuses our society has been enduring for years? I mean, sure, the TSA has been subjecting us to searches, demanding we remove our shoes and dump out our water, and now intruding upon our personal space (including our private areas) for some time, but that's nothing compared to the financial screwing we've been getting from the establishment elite, the Federal Reserve and their corporate buddies. Once this battle is won and the TSA either removes their machines and backs off on their groping policies or all airlines go out of business and there's no need for their services anymore, perhaps then we can move on to other important matters. Perhaps then we can exercise our power and call to account those who have stolen our wealth through fear and fraud. Perhaps then we can start to reclaim our freedom.
Now that so many know that they've been lied to about the naked body scanners, do you suppose they'll start to wonder what else they've been lied to about? Will they react to that realization with the same righteous indignation as seems to be happening with the TSA abuses? Will they start to realize that the establishment media has not been doing its job and that there hasn't been any investigative reporting worth crap in a long, long time? Will they start to dig deep into the alternative media and realize that the truth has been out there all along, that it's been covered up by government and the corporate establishment for decades rather than exposed because of greed and lust for power?
I don't know the answer to those questions, but I do hope so. I do hope that we can come to discover that the answer to our problems is not more power concentrated to the few, but rather more liberty given to the many. If this comes to pass then we should thank the TSA for being so abusive and corrupt, for that will have helped remind us that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The less centralized power there is to grab, the less likely such power will end up in the wrong hands.
My archived articles are available at szandorblestman.com. Please visit there to help support me and my efforts. I also have an ebook available entitled "The Ouijiers" by Matthew Wayne.
1 comment:
I got a real pleasure reading you.
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