It takes an Agora

It's always the children, always for the children, always through the children. But it's never really about a child. It doesn't really come into the governmental equation. Its usefulness to the State is limited to its belonging to a particular abstraction.

Such was the case with the child of the Monahan family, which went through purgatory at the hands of the airport Cheka four years ago. I'm not exaggerating when I say my hand are still trembling after reading the horrifying account, which just about shows the ingenuity power-adorned officials display in coming up with new ways of depriving of their dignity the victims of their protection. As if the injury and insult weren't enough, some officer-in-league decided to show in this letter just how unmitigated his gall and indifference are. Our nigh illiterate friend does have an uncanny aptitude towards irony as he prompts all to 'put down our newspapers full of bs, one sided stories and get an opinon of our own' just before implying that to be indignant over the embarrassment and emotional trauma that one's wife incurred because of the 'job' the screeners are 'doing' is to want another 9/11 to happen.
Our humble officer feels 'disgusted' because of the 'total lack of confidence' of Mr. Monahan's 'in the TSA'. That's interesting, cause I'm likewise disgusted at the lengths to which some people, the letter's author included, are willing to go in order to justify their colleagues' deeds and, more generally, the perverse rules that they are willing to obey as part of their employment.

I feel dirty trying to use Mr. Monahan's terrible experiences to make some kind of point, especially that they largely speak for themselves. I think that the behaviour of the Portland screeners shows just how alienated public officers are from the very people they are supposed to serve. They've stopped seeing people as people and started portraying them in categories, in faceless blobs: there's the 'officer' blob, the 'terrorist' blob and the 'potential terrorist' blob. That's how we are all supposed to think in the modern world, especially post-9/11. As blobbying becomes more prevalent, fear of one another becomes more acute and we're coming to a point where trust is too dangerous a feeling to harbour, a burden, a liability. Is this intentional on the part of the lawmakers and their lapdog corporate media? I don't know and I don't think it's really all that relevant any more. What matters is that the USA are fighting an enemy they can never defeat and whose hostility is probably fueled by the very struggle against it and that until that enemy is defeated - that is, never - society cannot function any more. Communities dissolve into tribes kept alive by some semblance of mutual trust - the officer tribe, the elderly tribe, the million mom tribe - whatever - and are pitted against each other in a carnival of hatred on display for our leaders. Though I'm not trying to jutify what the screeners were doing, I'm willing to say they're just as much victims of this new world chaos as everybody else is. It's just so much easier to be indifferent and blame it on the law, on the superiors, on the 'job'. And it's just the beginning of the road that we're facing. These tensions will not just dissipate - they will aggravate. And that's a scary thought.

All this fear and tension can be easily traced back to the State - its wars, its unjust laws, its conflicts and attritions. But some people would never let society organise itself spontaneously and voluntarily - ooo no! After all, a nation not moulded in their image would offend their delicate sensibilities. Their utopian schemes would be - gasp! - left unenforced on everybody else in the world. It reminds me of an article by Jerome Tuccille (I believe) in one Libertarian Forum issue about the "right-wing" and "left-wing" mindsets. The right-winger is concerned with abstract principles and rational ideas. The left-winger is concerned with actual people and how they fare in the world. Of course, nobody in their right mind would suggest that neocons have any kind of principles or that liberals actually care about the poor - this distinction is more of an archetypal one. It is worth noting, however, that the beliefs of statists are more often than not rooted in some kind of mental fantasy - "a world without the poor" "a world without terrorism" "it's for the children" etc. While libertarians has often been accused of looking only at abstract principles and utopian ideas, it is the statists themselves who are most often guilty of it. Hopefully liberts will be able to free themselves from this preconception and the MLL is a good step on the way.

It sure as hell takes a village to raise a child. But there are those who sow the seeds of aggression and fear in our midst. Let us get rid of them and make sure they don't threaten our village - our Agora - again.

[Technorati: agorism, libertarianism]