Column by Lawrence M. Ludlow.
Exclusive to STR
For too many Americans, history “began” on 9/11. Sadly, the same goes for their superficial sense of morality. It begins and ends with their pudenda – what they do with their sexual organs and what they allow others to do with them. Imbued with a Puritanism that has infested their collective psyche since the cold beginnings of their arrival in the New World, Americans will tolerate virtually any level of theft and mass murder as long as it is stamped with the U.S. government’s seal of approval and corresponds to their own views on sexuality. And that brings us to John Tyner’s recent (November 13, 2010) encounter with the TSA goons that inhabit the monkey cage at San Diego International Airport – and the public display of outrage that the incident has triggered.
I know nothing about Mr. Tyner’s politics, but I do know something about chicken-hawk voters in San Diego and the media outlets that are now crowing the loudest about being groped and poked by wanna-be proctologists wearing government costumes. And this is what I have learned: the Islamophobes do not care how many innocent people are killed by the U.S. government in Afghanistan, Iraq, or Pakistan. For them, U.S. wars of aggression can go on endlessly as long as they do not have to see, experience, or otherwise be inconvenienced by the bloodshed and destruction. They see no connection between U.S. government aggression and blowback terrorism – including the attack on 9/11. They see no connection between U.S. interventionism and government insolvency. The words “War Is Big Government” trigger no thoughts in the minds of these “fiscal conservatives.” For them, there is no moral limit to the acceptable level of violence inflicted by the U.S. military on others. But oh...oh!...OH!...OHHH!!! the outrage that is unleashed if a TSA goon views their pudenda in an airport Porn-a-tron or massages their gonads in public! That’s going way too far in this heroic land of Amurrrica!
In San Diego, the chicken-hawk radio talk-show hosts on the Clear Channel station (KOGO) and similar outlets (KFMB) have been crowing for more bloodshed in the Middle East for years. They feature hosts such as Rush Limbaugh , Michael Savage , Sean Hannity , Glenn Beck , Mark Levin , Rick Roberts , Roger Hedgecock , Chip Franklin , and Dr. Laura . But now, mirabile dictu, they feign outrage over the latest airport indecencies. Go figure. And put a dollar-sign on those figures while you’re at it. The wet fingers of these talk-hosts are regularly inserted into the winds of public opinion to gauge the direction of their next broadcasts. And at the present moment, the Midnight Ride of Paul Revere is not about “the British march[ing] by land or sea” but “TSA paws on my buttocks and junk.”
How ironic it would be if the insane War on Terror were ended not by public outrage over mass murder but by anger over airport scans and molestation. Truth is stranger than fiction, and history is full of examples of the right thing being done for the wrong reason – so I would not be too surprised. Would you? And please don’t get me wrong. Just because I was raised a Roman Catholic does not mean I am more likely to accept the finger-pointers from the TSA. I’ll trust any priest with a 6-year-old before I would leave a kid alone in a room with a TSA, IRS, FBI, CIA, NSA, or DEA agent – not to mention congress-critters, Supreme Court justices, senators, or presidents. I empathize with Mr. Tyner’s disgust and the response of so many Americans to this latest intrusion by government employees, but I have to ask: Where have you been for the last nine years? In any case, thanks for the outrage, Mr. Tyner. I only wish you had attempted to fly out of San Diego a few days earlier – on Veterans Day. Maybe Americans would have seen the proper connection.