The Fear Inaugural
Now that the hoopla is over, I think it's time to ask: didn't they go overboard on security for the Inaugural?
Traditionally, the most moving and powerful thing about the Inaugural is that it is the peaceful assumption of power in a world where too often power is taken at the point of a gun. An ordinary man, one among equals, who was chosen by a constitutionally-governed system of free voting, swears to take on awesome responsibility, and, in exchange, is allowed to occupy an office of awesome power. It ought to stand as a moment that symbolizes (rather than talks about) the best about the American people, our democracy, and our freedom.
So it really bothers me that George W. Bush surrounded himself with so many guns, helicopters, warplanes, fences and police. It degraded and cheapened the event, and made him look like the tinpot dictator of a banana republic, who needed to be surrounded by armed thugs for his "inauguración." Snipers on rooftops? In America? Doesn't that bother people?
Is it wrong for me to think they went overboard on security for the Inaugural? The enormous, multi-agency, multi-million dollar effort, with sharpshooters on rooftops, thousands of police and military, constant overflights by helicopters, automatic video cameras on lampposts, something like 100 blocks of the city off-limits, counterfeit-proof documents and more, cost several times what Bush's first inaugural cost. And I'm wondering, why?
Yeah, yeah, 9/11. Everyone says that. But really, has the actual threat increased all that much? Or is the administration's fear what has really increased? That, and perhaps, their desire to enforce control?
9/11 was shocking, and for most of us unexpected, but we've since learned that there were warning signs. Signs that, as Tom Ridge admitted this week, were not present for this Inaugural. If we don't trust our ability to have a reasonably good idea about threat levels, and stop those threats before they get to the point where we need a rooftop sniper, then what the heck have they been doing for the last three years? We should be far better at detecting and thwarting planned attacks than we were on 9/11. Isn't that what we've been parceling away our privacy and liberty for? Patriot Act? Homeland Security? Isn't all that so we don't have to have troops in our streets?
A reasonably intelligent person can spin a thousand potential threat scenarios in a few minutes. One has to make choices not just to minimize the risk, but to balance it against the benefits. We don't devote effort to protecting the President from being hit by a meteorite, though that would kill him just as dead. We can imagine that happening, too, but it wouldn't be reasonable to mobilize against it.
So I ask myself, was this security effort really reasonable? Obviously we've come a long way from the days when people were invited in to the White House afterwards, but this level of effort smacks of an incipient police state. The military takeover of our capital seems like a big cost for us to pay, in dollars and in liberties; what is the risk we're balancing against?
It was supposed to be an inaugural, not a coronation. The President is one equal among many, not the physical embodiment of God's authority descended through royalty. He is NOT the state (despite what Cheney and Bork would have us believe.) Even if some clever plot had managed to go undetected, got past a security cordon equivalent to past inaugurals, and the worst happened, the Republic would go on. Remember: the rulers of America are the people, not those they elect to do their business in Washington. I'm afraid the nation is on the verge of completely forgetting that.
We managed to make it through an era where nuclear missiles could have rained down on Washington at a moment's notice without all this security. Reagan, GHW Bush, and Clinton, and W all got inaugurated just fine with less security, and there were madmen and terrorists a-plenty then, too. They just hadn't yet taken advantage of an administration too arrogant to pay attention, and blown down a Manhattan landmark. But that doesn't justify over-correction.
I'm reminded of the joke about the "elephant repellent": do you see any elephants? No? Then it's working! Does this massive security effort really keep anyone safer? Or is it just "terrorist repellent?"
One step at a time, we're becoming accustomed to armed surveillance and the curtailment of our liberties, justified by some vague "security" reasoning. That reasoning is never even fully explained; explaining it would itself threaten national security, or so we are supposed to believe. Meanwhile, the reviewing stands went half-empty, while hundreds of regular, law-abiding, non-threat-bearing American citizens were being herded too slowly through chutes and holding pens, like cattle, for the privilege of seeing the parade.
Ah, but somehow the plutocrats, the $250,000 donors got to see the President just fine. Speaking of cattle, did they check Bevo for "potential bioweapon bacteria?" A smart terrorist, the right virus, some chewed cud, and you've "hooked a lotta horns." Probably not. If you're rich and Texan, you're inside the bubble.
It's just the commoners they need to be afraid of.
Traditionally, the most moving and powerful thing about the Inaugural is that it is the peaceful assumption of power in a world where too often power is taken at the point of a gun. An ordinary man, one among equals, who was chosen by a constitutionally-governed system of free voting, swears to take on awesome responsibility, and, in exchange, is allowed to occupy an office of awesome power. It ought to stand as a moment that symbolizes (rather than talks about) the best about the American people, our democracy, and our freedom.
So it really bothers me that George W. Bush surrounded himself with so many guns, helicopters, warplanes, fences and police. It degraded and cheapened the event, and made him look like the tinpot dictator of a banana republic, who needed to be surrounded by armed thugs for his "inauguración." Snipers on rooftops? In America? Doesn't that bother people?
Is it wrong for me to think they went overboard on security for the Inaugural? The enormous, multi-agency, multi-million dollar effort, with sharpshooters on rooftops, thousands of police and military, constant overflights by helicopters, automatic video cameras on lampposts, something like 100 blocks of the city off-limits, counterfeit-proof documents and more, cost several times what Bush's first inaugural cost. And I'm wondering, why?
Yeah, yeah, 9/11. Everyone says that. But really, has the actual threat increased all that much? Or is the administration's fear what has really increased? That, and perhaps, their desire to enforce control?
9/11 was shocking, and for most of us unexpected, but we've since learned that there were warning signs. Signs that, as Tom Ridge admitted this week, were not present for this Inaugural. If we don't trust our ability to have a reasonably good idea about threat levels, and stop those threats before they get to the point where we need a rooftop sniper, then what the heck have they been doing for the last three years? We should be far better at detecting and thwarting planned attacks than we were on 9/11. Isn't that what we've been parceling away our privacy and liberty for? Patriot Act? Homeland Security? Isn't all that so we don't have to have troops in our streets?
A reasonably intelligent person can spin a thousand potential threat scenarios in a few minutes. One has to make choices not just to minimize the risk, but to balance it against the benefits. We don't devote effort to protecting the President from being hit by a meteorite, though that would kill him just as dead. We can imagine that happening, too, but it wouldn't be reasonable to mobilize against it.
So I ask myself, was this security effort really reasonable? Obviously we've come a long way from the days when people were invited in to the White House afterwards, but this level of effort smacks of an incipient police state. The military takeover of our capital seems like a big cost for us to pay, in dollars and in liberties; what is the risk we're balancing against?
It was supposed to be an inaugural, not a coronation. The President is one equal among many, not the physical embodiment of God's authority descended through royalty. He is NOT the state (despite what Cheney and Bork would have us believe.) Even if some clever plot had managed to go undetected, got past a security cordon equivalent to past inaugurals, and the worst happened, the Republic would go on. Remember: the rulers of America are the people, not those they elect to do their business in Washington. I'm afraid the nation is on the verge of completely forgetting that.
We managed to make it through an era where nuclear missiles could have rained down on Washington at a moment's notice without all this security. Reagan, GHW Bush, and Clinton, and W all got inaugurated just fine with less security, and there were madmen and terrorists a-plenty then, too. They just hadn't yet taken advantage of an administration too arrogant to pay attention, and blown down a Manhattan landmark. But that doesn't justify over-correction.
I'm reminded of the joke about the "elephant repellent": do you see any elephants? No? Then it's working! Does this massive security effort really keep anyone safer? Or is it just "terrorist repellent?"
One step at a time, we're becoming accustomed to armed surveillance and the curtailment of our liberties, justified by some vague "security" reasoning. That reasoning is never even fully explained; explaining it would itself threaten national security, or so we are supposed to believe. Meanwhile, the reviewing stands went half-empty, while hundreds of regular, law-abiding, non-threat-bearing American citizens were being herded too slowly through chutes and holding pens, like cattle, for the privilege of seeing the parade.
Ah, but somehow the plutocrats, the $250,000 donors got to see the President just fine. Speaking of cattle, did they check Bevo for "potential bioweapon bacteria?" A smart terrorist, the right virus, some chewed cud, and you've "hooked a lotta horns." Probably not. If you're rich and Texan, you're inside the bubble.
It's just the commoners they need to be afraid of.
posted by Paul at 5:03 PM |
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