On the Politics of Fear and Futility

Fear mongering will not work. Fear is like pain. It goes away. You don't elect a president to calm the fear of the masses promulgated by fear itself. The country is safe. If San Bernardino was indeed the "worst terrorist act on American Soil since 9/11" (CNN), then we are safe. Every single GOP candidate in last night's debate of 12/15/2015, worked the fear angle. I wish I could count the number of times ISIS was mentioned. ISIS is our enemy? Really? Our enemy is fear itself and as the quote taught us it's all we have to fear.

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest there won't be another 9/11-sized attack on this country for some time to come. These small jabs will hit us here and there. They will get swiftly resolved by law enforcement and the perps will either die or get locked up. Period. The anguish of death is about the same as it is for the constant deadly attacks on masses of people gathered in schools, malls, churches, theaters, or parties, carried out by singularities of no particular persusaion with no real organization behind them. If there is a solution to these sporadic deadly events taking out a few to a few dozen people at worst, then let's work to find one. Let's not incorporate a false mindset feeding xenophobia and ethnocentric motives.

Terrorism, as bad as it is in 9/11 dimensions is largely contained and rearing it's ugly head more in fear promotion than in actual implementation through hard facts that just don't match the magnitude of a real terror attack. Last night's GOP debate painted a nation in fear and trembling longing to be made safe against a rag-tag bunch of free radicals peddling their product mostly through the internet and yes, a few well-placed beheadings. They connect to the various incidents we face through cheering and empathy more than direct machinations. They are being taken down the right way. Systematically using remote resources of war' drones, Fighter jets, special forces and assets comprised of boots worn by citizens of the Arabic nations where ISIS lives.

We are a nation of strength, endurance and courage which has met the worst enemies in history and come out on top. We are a strong nation which has met fear and spit in its eye more than once. There is no reason to politize something that only exists because repetitious memes and speeches create the mirage which reveals fear as nothing les than deception poised to win votes in the absence of anything concrete enough to elect any single one of these desparate hopefuls..

If last night's debate shows us the best the GOP has to offer, then there is no choice but to vote DNC which will most likely be Hillary Clinton who has not pandered to the fleeting and misleading presence of fear made worse by statements made linking criminal attacks like San Bernardino to real assaults like 9/11. We may have to live with skirmishes and cowardly attacks of a deadly but small scale until the concerted world effort against ISIS gains momentum against the barbaric idea of Jihad and Caliphate-building based on the implementation of fear.

TSA Nightmare?

Let's attentuate the potential of alarm here. Just what IS a "terrorist watch-list"? Are only terrorists on it? Maybe their family members who object to the terrorism? Maybe unwitting accomplices caught in the web? WHO is on this list and why?

Is the kid that found my unopened jar of peanut butter in my carry-on bag at FLL last year sneering at me for having it, a potential terrorist? He sure looked like it. Imagine. The nerve of me to bring on such a device obviously loaded with shrapnel and a timing device all obscured by sticky peanut biutter?

What about the guy that later wanded me down in the same airport a month later after setting off a "BAG ALERT!" because of a small pair of mustache scissors I forgot to pack in my suitcase instead, barking orders at me like I was a suspect, not a paying passenger trying to get home to my family in Phoenix? Of course, a complete emptying of my bag failed to discover any machetes or hypodermic needles filled with cyanide and I was released from the stares of the entire crew of TSA who were more angry they didn't discover a terrorist than if they would have.

Thousands of these "workers" with a task to perform; to keep the skies safe; to root out terrorists before they board, infiltrated by one or two who might look the other way in a planned terrorist attack scenario? NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

Oh Well... we fly, most of us, because we have to. The stepped-up pace of our existence; the conditioned urgency to get where we're going on the same day even if it's 3/4 the way around the world, has mandated a higher tolerance of the probability involved. If one flight out of 100,000 takes on a bomb or a device, we would still fly. Same if it was 1,000,000 safe flights before one was "armed" with a terrorist weapon because somebody on the TSA staff had a third cousin who was fifth in line at a wedding of a terrorist's brother.

Because of my age and slight obesity (290lbs when I should be 225 lbs), I don't get the calls anymore to come work for the entertainment industry on ships or hotels. 29 years was a good run with no sicknesses costing a $10,000 airlift courtesy of the USCG (payable by my employer). No heart attacks, no striokes, and now, still healthy for my age, I fall victim to the numbers game. The probability of me becoming a liability after nearly 30 years of being an asset.

I would gladly play the numbers game against a terrorist act by flying in a plane to yet another destination somewhere in the world, checked by a young TSA staffer who would jump for joy at the discovery of a jar of mayonnaise I may have packed to make onion dip with the garlic sauce from the meal on the plane. Verbally assaulted by another TSA staffer-wander who thinks I am there to blow myself up rather than just pass through, find my seat and force my overweight frame into the tiny economy seat my work contract allows.

I would endure the stares, the suspicions, and the rude treatment of any TSA staffer who is going to spend his entire paycheck before he gets home to count his savings, taking it out on hundreds of thousands of travelers playing the same numbers game, if it meant I had a few more months of successive income playing in a hotel or on a ship as opposed to scrambling around, watching my gas, counting my pennies, minding my dollars, and putting that over-priced jar of jelly back on the shelf at Walmart.

Why not just issue a terrorist watch list with photos to every passenger when they enter the airport? Huh? Would that help? I'd go along with that too if I could only get about an inch more of butt-room to keep from contacting that beautiful young girl scrunched next to me ready to stab me if I bump her one more time. Thank God they took her eyelash scissors at the TSA check!