Living with Fear
Ivo Skoric
ivo at reporters.net
Thu Feb 20 06:05:43 CET 2003
There is a proliferation of an alphabet soup of new security forces in
NYC - different uniforms, acronyms, some of them armed, some of
them armed with automatic weapons, indeed - Europe had that in
seventies - I remember when I was a kid visiting my mom in
Germany, on Frankfurt airport there were always security forces
with automatic weapons. They were not in the U-Bahn, though.
Better example yet may be Croatia, when it was splitting from what
was then Yugoslavia, because, unlike in Germany, the fear from
the threat there penetrated much deeper. Perhaps, because the
threat was greater. And with the fear came the surveillance, the
men in uniforms with automatic weapons on the streets, the
immense desire for retributive justice.
I am really not surprised why the U.S. enjoys support by the post-
communist bloc in NATO. What I am surprised is why is the threat
in the US percieved to be so grave? Iraqi Republican Guard can
never do as extensive damage to the U.S. territory as Yugoslav
Army could to Croatia. I doubt they would ever reach farther than
Oman.
But then, U.S. citizens are pathologically obssessed with safety,
and they got hit really hard (kind of someone slugs you with a
baseball bat right over your nose when you are running), so they
are stunned, anesthetized, and as far as elected representatives
go, complacent.
There should be more snow days, though, and that's the good
news. Good news, because it is paradise for snowboarding here in
Vermont, and, also, because snow seems to paralyze the
government. So, they won't be able to decide to go to war when it's
snowing heavily. And the North-East averages the most snowfall in
March.
There is something horribly wrong with this war, if so many are
already against it, and it did not even start yet. To contemplate
the risk of loss of innocent life in Iraq, ostensibly to protect
innocent life in the U.S. from an 'unspecified threat'?!
And it is completely reasonable to fear that armed men in the
streets, justified by the threat of terrorism, may be quickly used
one day to surpress a peaceful protest. That has been done in the
history of the U.S.
The U.S. is getting many new restrictions, familiar to the folks that
are hailing from behind the 'iron curtain' - like, for example, the
'curtain' was just raised again on February 14, when state police
and immigration agents had set up roadblocks near the
Lacolle/Champlain port of entry to Canada on I-87N, to stop
Pakistanis from fleeing the U.S. and seeking refuge in Canada.
The U.S. society is getting more militarized with all the unintended
consequences for the future generations. Teenage guys in a gym in
New York city debate about whether they should travel only by
cab, since subways are unsafe. Pre-teenage girls in a gondola at
Killington speculate what would happen if the wire that carries
gondola had been sabotaged.
So, let us all pray for a lot of snow to fall in the next couple of
months.
ivo
More information about the Syndicate
mailing list