Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post

roachboy · 01-06-2006, 08:18 AM

airport "security" is basically an expensive, useless bit of sustained agitprop from those lovely folk who brought you the "war on terror" in general. it is always the purview of groups who hold power to use infrastructure as a type of argument for the legitimacy of their politics. in this case, you get the material translation of the meaningless bushphrase "resoluteness"---you know, erect and prepared for something--the what is irrelevant--whether being erect and prepared in the context of a "war" that is not a war in any meaningful sense translates into actual prevention of anything is obviously an open question.
i suppose that you could follow the path ustwo takes above and try to correlate this theater of erectness you encounter at airports with the absence of attacks since 9/2001 on us soil--but you could equally easily correlate that with astrological data or the implications of microscopic changes in walking patterns unconsciously adopted by us citizens since 9/2001 as well.
that is the beauty of the arbitrary--you can use it as you like.
so once again this comes to a matter of dispositions: if you enjoy submission, as ustwo seems to, to folk in uniform (so long as the cause of the intrusion of folk in uniform into everyday lilfe is a republican) then you will be inclined to make sense of aerodrome "security" irritation as he does.

but you could also see it as follows: much of the "enhanced security" nonsense that one encounters when trying to get to your gate in an airport is run by private contractors who have benefitted greatly from this absurd "war on terror"---i suspect that even these companies understand at some level the absurdity of the situation--but they also understand the bottom line and have an evident interest in appearing to be increasing some function as time passes, if only to justify the continued expense. the expansion of types of "profiling" (stop those evil nervous people!) is a way to generate the illusion of progress in a situation whose arbitrariness otherwise does not admit of such notions. it's all about the cash. what it is not about is protection of anyone from anything--except in one case: these moves do protect private contractors who like their employees to wear uniforms from decreased cashflows.

01-06-2006, 08:18 AM	#31 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	airport "security" is basically an expensive, useless bit of sustained agitprop from those lovely folk who brought you the "war on terror" in general. it is always the purview of groups who hold power to use infrastructure as a type of argument for the legitimacy of their politics. in this case, you get the material translation of the meaningless bushphrase "resoluteness"---you know, erect and prepared for something--the what is irrelevant--whether being erect and prepared in the context of a "war" that is not a war in any meaningful sense translates into actual prevention of anything is obviously an open question. i suppose that you could follow the path ustwo takes above and try to correlate this theater of erectness you encounter at airports with the absence of attacks since 9/2001 on us soil--but you could equally easily correlate that with astrological data or the implications of microscopic changes in walking patterns unconsciously adopted by us citizens since 9/2001 as well. that is the beauty of the arbitrary--you can use it as you like. so once again this comes to a matter of dispositions: if you enjoy submission, as ustwo seems to, to folk in uniform (so long as the cause of the intrusion of folk in uniform into everyday lilfe is a republican) then you will be inclined to make sense of aerodrome "security" irritation as he does. but you could also see it as follows: much of the "enhanced security" nonsense that one encounters when trying to get to your gate in an airport is run by private contractors who have benefitted greatly from this absurd "war on terror"---i suspect that even these companies understand at some level the absurdity of the situation--but they also understand the bottom line and have an evident interest in appearing to be increasing some function as time passes, if only to justify the continued expense. the expansion of types of "profiling" (stop those evil nervous people!) is a way to generate the illusion of progress in a situation whose arbitrariness otherwise does not admit of such notions. it's all about the cash. what it is not about is protection of anyone from anything--except in one case: these moves do protect private contractors who like their employees to wear uniforms from decreased cashflows. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 01-06-2006 at 08:20 AM..