Article: Shakedown in Tallytown

You may have heard that the TNA (Transportation Nazi Administration) has "liberalized" air travel restrictions [1] about carrying liquids on planes. Recently I had the privilege to observe these measures first-hand. As I was dropping off the wife for a flight at Tallahassee's airport, we approached the security checkpoint where the Transportation Nazi shaking down passengers for contraband was holding up a small jar of hand cream and said loudly to the diminutive white-haired granny in front us - "Do you want to check this with your baggage or do you want me to confiscate it?" So this is what it's come to in in the dystopia aka as George Bu$h's Amerika?

You've probably not read or seen any dissent about travel restrictions since 911. Not surprising since our local and national corporate TV mediawhores have only ever shown cooperative symps bleating about how they're fine with whatever authorities need to do to "make us safer".

For the record, I do dissent. This used to be a relatively "free" society with citizens allowed to go about their daily lives without government intrusions into basic RIGHTS and LIBERTIES. Such as unfettered travel, as example.

A year ago this week I had my own very personal introduction to the new restrictions since Congress and Dear Misleader Bush imposed the Fatherland Security Act, thus spawning the TNA (Transportation Nazi Administration). Whilst traveling home from marching with a half million fellow dissenters in DC [2] last Sept. 25th, I was concerned about passing my camera's flash card through the x-ray machine as Dulles Airport.

So I pulled the card from the camera and engaged the Transportation Nazis working the checkpoint by questioning what to do with the memory card. This activity won me a free ticket to the search and shakedown area clearly demarked by tape on the floor in front of all other travelers. Where I was wanded and admonished for my cavalier attitude concerning air travel. Didn't I know that two months ago a bomb was found in someone's carry-on in Oklahoma City?

At that point discretion won out over valor as I suspected I was one inappropriate remark away from being dragged into a back room to be rubber-hosed and water-boarded.

The point being, these intrusions into the freedom to travel without government intimidation are more about instilling fear and control than to make us safer. How does shaking down a grandfather for a camera card, or a grandmother of her hand cream make us any safer? Short answer, it doesn't!

I refuse to live in fear. No matter what the fascist state imposes. And I won't shut-up either. After observing the shakedown in Tallytown recently my mind flooded with thought as I attempted to put what I just witnessed in context. Those thoughts quickly centered on my introduction to the writings of Noam Chomsky [3] five years ago.

At first reading, Chomsky's frequent referrals to systems of control seemed somewhat abstract as I hadn't ever seriously considered the prospect of corporate or government "systems of control" [4] here in the good ol' US of A. In my own personal experience and in observing the grandmother's shakedown in Tallytown lie real world examples.

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Links:
[1] click here
[2] http://info.detnews.com/weblog/index.cfm?blogid=5304
[3] http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&q=system%20of%20control%20Noam%20Chomsky
[4] http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=Noam+Chomsky+systems+of+control&btnG=Search