Mickey Z
Cool Observer
Friday, July 29, 2005
Three ways to destroy a brain
Wasn’t there a time when British police did not carry guns? I always respected them for that, but I guess those days are over.
I believe I mentioned that my wife and I were heading to NYC and then Costa Rica this week...we had a great time in NYC (despite the increased police presence), but had to postpone our Costa Rica trip.
I was pretty surprised to hear (and then see) that New Yorkers are now being “randomly” searched in the subway stations. A friend of mine was searched twice in one day. I saw that you covered this topic in an earlier post, Mickey.
As we boarded the plane in San Juan to fly to NYC we were confronted by 4 or 5 immigration agents (fully armed) who asked each passenger their country of citizenship. I was asked and then let to walk right through. A couple of non-whites behind me were not so lucky. They were asked for proof and eventually led away.
If any bombs go off in the subway I’m guessing we will go into total lock down.
Anyway...I had a great time in New York, but it’s good to be home. Looks like I missed out on some lively conversation here.
Posted by James on from Puerto Rico 07/29 at 08:09 AMWelcome back, James. Let’s hope your comment above starts a new lively conversation.
Personally, I haven’t seen many cops on the subway and no bag-searching at all. However, as you surmise, we’re just one attack or even threat away from clampdown.
The subways have been heading that way for years. Phasing out tokens and token clerks, cracking down on the homeless and panhandlers and spray-painters. Sometimes I miss the graffitti-covered trains that didn’t always have AC and were free on New Year’s Eve and cost 35 or 50 cents.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 07/29 at 09:07 AMHey, James, glad you didn’t get harassed.
Mickey, I’ve been arguing with people about the searches and highlighting the false dichotomy between random searches—which are useless anyway—and allegedly allowing the evildoers to do whatever they want. In face to face conversations it’s much easier for some reason. Not because I have a commanding presence
But because when spoken aloud the premises supporting crackpot pseudo-security measures fall miserably flat. There’s no way an honest argument in support of them can be made. In print, or on scripted television debates, they do work. Television I can understand. It does turn off the brains of unwary people. I would think people would be too embarrassed to commit bogus arguements to print. Yet they’re proud to do just that. What’s worse, people are proud to accept them. They appear to think that seriously contemplating idiocies shows open mindedness.
Posted by Harry on from 07/29 at 09:35 AM“When spoken aloud the premises supporting crackpot pseudo-security measures fall miserably flat.”
That’s ingenious. I love it.
The Menezes story is heart-breaking for so many reasons, not least of which is how the BBC has been openly defending it. Their latest headline noted his visa may have run out. I live abroad and my residence permit regularly runs out and I have torenew and it’s a pain in the ass. Luckily, London police would never shoot me 7 times in the head and once in the neck (I’m white), but loads of my colleagues fit the description: innocent foreigner with dark skin on on a temporary visa.
I wrote a little about this on my blog if anyone’s interested:
http://www.keirneuringer.blogspot.comPosted by Keir on from The Hague 07/29 at 11:29 AMGreat input from Harry (as always) and Keir (whose blog I will link to soon). I’d like to point out the link between the first two stories in my initial post. We’re made to fear the terrorists AND the police here to protect (sic) us...while industry works behind the scenes to hide what we should really be afraid of.
We’re chasing the red cape instead of the matador again.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 07/29 at 12:14 PMHello Mickey - and Harry and Keir, and James - glad to hear you made it home safely -
Everything I’ve read about young Menezes seems to indicate that he was already down, jumped on and quite adequately controlled, *before* they pumped most of those bullets into his brain. As if, somehow, pinned to the floor of a subway car, he’d find a way to explode a bomb “with his mind.”
I read that the London cops who caught him and killed him were trained by the Mossad, that vicious middle-eastern branch of the CIA… I’m stunned and amazed!Some of the articles about the attack on science make it sound as if the government *wants* to stand up for truth and justice but it’s just overwhelmed by those evil corporations - as if they’re actually two seperate identities.
About the kids: That nypress link is not working for me, but since I’m getting old, maybe my “clicking” skills are deteriorating, so I’m not sure… However, anyone who attended public school in a factory town in the US already knows that it’s generally open season on children in this country. The people who ran the junior-senior high school I attended were transferred to Abu Gharib a couple years ago, to get things organized. Now, every day, before they begin torturing and tormenting the prisoners, they have a “first-period assembly.”
Posted by joe on from Oregon 07/29 at 01:11 PMThe NY Press site seems to be acting cranky, so here’s a related link: AIDS Experiments on Children
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 07/29 at 01:15 PMMan, that’s one creepy article, Mickey. This morning you’ve presented us with a piece about “law enforcement,” an attack on science, and psycho-medical attacks on children. In each and every case, what we’re seeing is: corporate morality and ethics, rigorously applied. Corporate morality = greater profits. Corporate ethics = greater profits. The only meaning anywhere, ever, for a corporation: greater profits. See, they’ve taken an immense, chaotic, confusing, multifacited universe, and reduced it to this single, simple requirement.
This is the true meaning of “e pluribus unum.”
Posted by joe on from Oregon 07/29 at 02:38 PMAs much as I agree with you, Joe, I’m still more impressed by Corporate America’s other proud accomplishment: convincing its victims that everything is fine and if something does go wrong, blame immigrants, welfare queens, drug addicts, liberals, and evildoers.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 07/29 at 02:47 PMThey’re outsourcing their training to the Israelis in part, I suspect, because the revulsion caused by their previous murderous rampages against the Irish made such training too tricky to do in their own country. But the Mossad training is nothing especially new. Just refinements of Fairbairn’s nasty commando tricks. The torture techniques they use in Iraq and Gitmo are the same basic ones as used by the Brits against the IRA.
The other reason for training abroad is corporate trendiness. Every CEO thinks he’s doing something original. They have no sense of history and follow the same fads with a very few new scams tacked on. The are less mature about fads than mall teens. Currently, it’s kewl to have your killers trained in Israel. There’s as much thoughtfulness to it as buying the latest, hottest yuppie mobile.
Posted by Harry on from 07/29 at 02:49 PMYou’re probably right, Mickey. Chris Floyd did a piece about this shooting a while back, the tag-line was: 5 shots to the head for a fashion mistake…
That’s a spooky assumption, Harry - but it “feels” right, eh? “Oh no, my boy! Are you *still* doing that? Oh, that is *so* Third Reich!”
Haven’t people been distressed by the random searches in the subways, Mickey? That stuff really pisses me off. I’ve not flown since 9-11, and I don’t know how I’d react. I remember, once, taking a train from Albany to, I think, Detroit. The train cut through Canada for a bit. As I recall, we didn’t even stop in Canada. In any case, when we arrived in the US, customs & immigration people boarded the train and demanded that I open my luggage. I said something like: “Hey, man, we didn’t even stop in Canada, did we?” The guy responded: “If you like, I’ll remove you, right now, from this train, and we can talk in a more official setting.” I responded: “We didn’t stop!” He said: “This is your last opportunity to do what I’ve told you to do, hippy-boy!”
So, I tied my hair back while he pawed through my stuff… I’m afraid I have a few such experiences where cowardly self-interest won the day…Posted by joe on from Oregon 07/29 at 04:33 PMDoes anyone have any sources for the claim that the “shoot to kill” policy in the UK is two years old? Or that their cops are Mossad-trained? I’d like to add this info to my blog but can’t back it up at the moment.
Posted by Keir on from The Hague 07/29 at 05:39 PMFor what it’s worth, you have no expectation of privacy on an airplane, international train, or a municipal subway car. At the point you pay a fare, you lose any right to keep your posessions private. If you walk, or take a private automobile, you have an altogether different expectation of privacy. In cases of mass transit, the state considers the onus of bag searches a legitimate tradeoff for the general security of the many passengers. This is a well-established Constitutional principle.
Now, you can argue that some policies, like subway searches, are ineffective, or that you SHOULD have an expectation of privacy on the subway. And I might strongly agree with you (at least, on the former point). But treating a bag search on a subway, airplane, or train as an outlandish thug tactic ignores, I think, certain . It’s all well and good to say that macrochanges--withdrawing from Iraq or Saudi Arabia, less support for Israel, and so forth--would be a more effective terror deterrent. But security threats aren’t confined to people with a particular set of political grievances; extremists come in all shapes, colors, and creeds. Nor does the fact that the federal government does many things to provoke terrorism mean that security for civilians isn’t a legitimate policy goal.
My point, I guess, is that conflating subway searches with something legitimately evil and shocking, like the Menezes shooting, is irresponsible at best and doesn’t cast activists in the best light.
Posted by The Infanta on from Sherman Oaks 07/29 at 06:03 PMThe last time that my daughter and her little baby made a trip from Montreal to Albany she was stopped at the border, had to show a passport,etc. Then about 100 miles farther south heading toward Albany there was a road block. All cars were stopped again. The government agent there was not very polite. My daughter had a baby stroller in the front seat and a sleeping baby in the car seat in back. The agent demanded to know what that “thing” in the front seat was. Most people would recognize a baby stroller when they see one. I guess that this border patrol agent looks at a baby stroller and sees a bomb. Reminds me of the line in that old song, “...paranoia runs deep...”. Joe, you are old enough to remember that song but I’m not too sure about Mickey....just teasing you, Mickey.
Posted by rosemarie on from 07/29 at 06:40 PMI’m presupposing here, I guess, Inf., that those searches will not be random but will in fact be absolutely based on the appearance of class. That is, a well-coiffed, white male with an obviously expensive suit and tie, carrying an unusually large though not preposterous leather briefcase, will not be stopped, though a twenty-something grunge guy with a pack will be, let’s say, selected for revue. The universal logic being, I suppose, that representatives of the Realm do not blow things up - at least not things close to home. Thus, I contend here, that extremists do not come in all shapes and sizes at all, officially.
Moreover, I contend that very serious, thoughtful people throughout the world have profound doubts about the events of 9-11 being caused by a group of middle-eastern noodniks with boxcutters. There are fascinating inconsistencies in some of the stories of the London bombings, as well. By this, I mean to say that it’s quite possible that rich white guys in expensive suits with bloated briefcases may be just the guys to stop and search, should authorities be serious about actually preventing these vicious crimes. Of course, such people generally ride in their own vehicles and aren’t subject to broader revue. All the greater reason, then, to find such a subway rider suspect…
I’d have to assert, finally, that my view of these terrorist attacks is that, whether or not they’ve been carried out by Elite minions or enraged Muslims, the State is far more interested in establishing their right to toy with and control ordinary citizens in any and every way possible, than they are in actually protecting those citizens from terrorism. There’s not much evidence, in my view, that the State is truly interested in the safety of the masses either in Iraq or in NYC or London. There is, however, considerable evidence that the legal system they’ve contrived, somehow finds a splendid and almost irrefutable logic which legitimizes almost everything they undertake.
The Menezes shooting, random subway searches of non-[well-to-do White Males] and legal systems designed to allow the State to impose its truly psychotic logic upon citizens whenever possible is all of the same beast: To assert otherwise is absolutely absurd and casts all of us forever into the role of indentured servitude.
Posted by joe on from Oregon 07/29 at 07:15 PMOh, Hi Rosemarie - I was arguing and forgot to hit the “refresh” button. Yes, I recall the song, all right - and “into my life it has crept.”
Sadly, of course, many of those border patrol people are probably poorly trained, underpaid, over-worked, and poorly treated by the governments which hire them. Well, what else would we expect, you know? Still, such confrontations can certainly be spooky…
Posted by joe on from Oregon 07/29 at 07:23 PMKeir, you might try e-mailng the author of the article:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/jul2005/mene-j27.shtmlPosted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 07/29 at 07:32 PMHi Keir -
I intended to respond to your post but I was sidetracked for a bit. I’ve searched around for the article I read about Mossad and British Cops, but I’m unable to locate it. I found, however, an article containing much of the same information here:
http://iraqwar.mirror-world.ru/article/57915Hey, do you enjoy living in the Hague? I spent quite a bit of time in Amsterdam and in Amstelveen(sp?), in 1976. I suppose much has changed since then, but I was very, very impressed by the Dutch, generally. (Not always!!) I’ve often thought about returning, though not to stay. (I recall that an apartment the size of my garage was considered huge, and that people sat on waiting lists for two or three years dreaming about the day when they’d be able to live in such spacious digs.) A incredibly dense population. I found it a truly fascinating place.
Anyway, I’ll search a bit more for the other link.
-joePosted by joe on from Oregon 07/29 at 08:24 PMKeir -
The article to which I was referring (way) above, was also written by Michel Chossudovsky, a Canadian Professor who writes for another site. The info is pretty much the same.Mickey - here’s a delightful quote from a link found on the page I cited for Keir:
“Israel is the Harvard of antiterrorism,” - U.S. Capitol Police Chief Terrance W. Gainer.
US Police Departments have been sending reps to Israel to study with the Big Boys, and Israel, out of the goodness of their hearts, has been sending people here and to England…
-joePosted by joe on from Oregon 07/29 at 10:54 PMThanks for the sources.
Infanta: some of what you say is astute ("you can argue that some policies, like subway searches, are ineffective, or that you SHOULD have an expectation of privacy on the subway” and the bit about “macrochanges"). But as for the State having a constitutional right to search people on public transportation, I believe that’s wrong in principal and in fact. Public transportation belongs to the citizenry and as such is (or should be) subject to the will of the people.
We absolutely *should* conflate subway searches with the police murdering people on public transportation; they are both symptoms of a power-hungry and unaccountable State.
Joe: big question you ask me. I like living; The Hague is where I do it. A lot has changed since 1976. I was born, for one thing (in Brooklyn). I wish I could tell you more about The Netherlands...maybe in the future!
Posted by Keir on from The Hague 07/30 at 05:40 AMThanks, Joe. I will find a home for that classic quote.
Keir: I’d love to hear how one goes from the People’s Republic of Brooklyn to the Land of War Crimes Tribunals.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 07/30 at 07:05 AMMickey,
via Krakow, Poland. Obviously. (More info in installments...)
Posted by Keir on from the Land of War Crimes Tribunals 07/30 at 07:56 AMKrakow? Of course…
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 07/30 at 08:06 AM“I like living; The Hague is where I do it.”
I really like this sentence and now is when I’ve decided to steal it.
Very tasty. Thanks, Keir.When I was in Amsterdam, my friend and I asked a woman for directions to the Van Gogh Museum. She answered us in odd, halting, but generally good English. I praised her use of our splendid language and she replied: “Oh, thank you. I… am… from Chicago. She’d been there about 11 years, and rarely spoke English.
I met a Canadian from Toronto who had been walking and hitching around Western Europe for 7 years. His English was very, very hard to understand. He said he’d “just gotten used to not speaking, at all.”
I would have loved to converse with him, at length…
Posted by joe on from Oregon 07/30 at 03:40 PM
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