What "TSA" Stands For
Butler Schaffer writes on Lew Rockwell that it's "Total Submission Authority":
Its function has absolutely nothing to do with combating "terrorism." There are no more "terrorists" running loose in this country than there were "bogeymen" with which I used to scare my little sisters when we were children. One need only read Viktor Frankl's book, Man's Search for Meaning to discover that, like Frankl's Nazi concentration camp experiences, the TSA's role is to degrade and dehumanize people; to remind us that the state can humiliate us to any degree it chooses whenever it chooses, and that those who resist will be punished and put on secret lists for some undefined future use.
As I write in my op-ed on the TSA, this is obedience training for the American public, a show pony of "security." Shaffer writes about being a private function recently, where there was a bag check of all entrants. Shaffer asked the inspector, "How many weapons, explosives, etc., has this company discovered this way?"
His answer:
"Not a one."
via Lisa Simeone
To use Victor Frankl's book as a way to compare the TSA to the German Holocaust machine is beyond disgusting.
Eric at April 19, 2012 8:40 AM
> To use Victor Frankl's book as a way to compare the TSA to the German Holocaust machine is beyond disgusting.
I agree.
Nazis killed civilians without due process using ovens.
The American security state uses drones.
TJIC at April 19, 2012 9:13 AM
The TSA is less about the intended humiliation of the traveling public than it is about the disconnectedness of the lifelong legislators in Washington from the citizenry at large.
No one sat down and said, "let's humiliate people." They decided a search process before boarding a plane would be a good security measure in the wake of terrorist attacks and, because they themselves don't have to submit to it, never understood what they had ordered.
Not having to submit to it, these lifelong legislators view citizens complaining about it as trouble-making and rabble-rousing.
Washington's lifetime legislators need to be submitted to every single law they inflict upon the rest of us ... and to the worst of the enforcement of those laws (home invasion raids, strip searches, asset forfeiture, etc.). If we are to remain a nation of laws, those laws must be inflicted upon all of us equally.
Conan the Grammarian at April 19, 2012 10:15 AM
Conan, a lot of that is certainly true. Elites rarely have to go through what the hoi polloi do.
The humiliation is just a (predictable) added bonus. Taking out my turntable again (for my broken record): Philip Zimbardo, Stanley Milgram, Solomon Asch. Click the link at my name for explanation (sorry, I'm getting lazy -- takes too long to type out all these things again and again).
Lisa Simeone at April 19, 2012 11:43 AM
P.S. Although John Pistole did set out to humiliate people. There's no way you can mandate groping and not have some sick, twisted side to you. He's a religious zealot, so maybe that's why. I don't claim to know what goes on in his head. But his actions speak for themselves.
As do the statements by TSA clerks who have admitted that the gropes are meant to be punitive. (You can see a list of people who attest to that in the post that's linked to my name.)
Ritual humiliation, especially sexual humiliation, has been used by authoritarians since the beginning of time.
Lisa Simeone at April 19, 2012 12:21 PM
Lisa, I think the Nazis' entire philosophy was based on that premise.
Conan the Grammarian at April 19, 2012 1:34 PM
>> Ritual humiliation, especially sexual humiliation, has been used by authoritarians since the beginning of time.
It is ridiculous, and literally hysterical to group a pat down, even an aggressive pat down, with sexual humiliations that have been perpetrated on both men and women throughout time. The video the other day on the blog of the older woman weeping as she was going through a pat down didn't show me a woman being publicly humiliated, just a woman who has no control over her own emotions.
Let's keep some perspective here.
Eric at April 19, 2012 1:45 PM
...didn't show me a woman being publicly humiliated, just a woman who has no control over her own emotions.
So it that was your wife, mother, or daughter, would you still feel the same way?
Perhaps you should be working for Fatherland security yourself.
DrCos at April 19, 2012 2:32 PM
"The video the other day on the blog of the older woman weeping as she was going through a pat down didn't show me a woman being publicly humiliated, just a woman who has no control over her own emotions.
Let's keep some perspective here."
This perspective shows me that you have no idea, not a clue, about anything in your un-noticed-by-you miserable life. The solution you imply is that when The Man exerts his Authority, the little woman had best just shut up and take it. Fuck her, huh?
In the process, you enable a mighty progression which will end with you spitting your own teeth, because you only have a personally-imagined immunity to the same thing, and worse, when they finally get to you.
Now, you might be excited at the idea of submitting to someone in uniform. Ahh! Oooh! Yess!
But it's 'way more likely that you're just an idiot who thinks that the agency who strip-searched Joe Foss three times for carrying his Medal of Honor is worth anything.
Radwaste at April 19, 2012 2:38 PM
"The video the other day on the blog of the older woman weeping as she was going through a pat down didn't show me a woman being publicly humiliated, just a woman who has no control over her own emotions.
Let's keep some perspective here."
WOW, this is the kind of feeble minded, shit for brains ignorant thinking that has all of us losing our constitutional rights at an accelerated pace.
Eric (you do also realize that your statement makes you a misogynistic ass bag as well) if you want to goose step down the road to ruin have at it comrade, there is no hope for the likes of you. Just leave me the hell out of it…
Ed at April 19, 2012 3:04 PM
Yes, DrCos, because I don't agree that these pat downs should be classified in the same arena as rape rooms you have rightly outed me as a Nazi.
And Foss was not "strip-searched". He was made to remove his boots, belt, hat and tie, yes for the ridiculous reason he had a nail file and souvenier bullet keychain. Foss himself said "I wasn't upset for myself. I was upset for the Medal of Honor, that they just didn't even know what it was."
As long as you argue with emotional intensity, do you think that makes it true? I'm surprised at you Radwaste, normally you are rational.
Eric at April 19, 2012 3:15 PM
I guess Eric doesn't like to check out links. Or use appropriate words instead of Orwellian euphemism. Oh, well. It takes all kinds, as they say, to make a world!
Lisa Simeone at April 19, 2012 3:26 PM
I checked out your links Lisa, it doesn't mean that I have to agree that the TSA is committing "ritual sexual humiliation". Ritual sexual humiliation is what you see in Sudan, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Rwanda, Greece, Yemen, China, Nepal, South Africa, Namibia, Yugoslavia, was widespread in Central America until recently... you know, rape, torture, possible execution, sometimes in front of your family or community. These aren't Orwellian terms, but real places with real victims who couldn't grab a Cinnabon after their ordeal.
My beef is with the collective wording.
Eric at April 19, 2012 3:54 PM
This Eric dude is a stitch!
He seems to argue along the lines of, "Well, they're raping people in Sudan! That's totally different!"
What a moron.
It starts somewhere. They don't just wake up one day and start raping each other. It has to go down an incremental path. One by one the abuse is ratcheted up. One day you'll realize that because there are far too many people in this country like you, far too easily believing that these are "protections".
There's no hidden agenda. It's just the natural progression when too many low-level people get too much power.
Silence Dogood at April 19, 2012 4:01 PM
Yes, DrCos, because I don't agree that these pat downs should be classified in the same arena as rape rooms you have rightly outed me as a Nazi.
Thanks for reading all that into my comment.
1. My implication is that you are heartless based on your comment about the woman 'not being in control of her emotions.' Apparently you have none to speak of?
2. I've been referring to this bullshit organization as Fatherland security for a while. The comparison between the Nazis would have to do with the 'traveling papers' and unwarranted searches these asshats have brought about.
Does that clear things up?
DrCos at April 19, 2012 4:05 PM
Eric, Eric, Eric..... dude, you just don't get it. The retaliation and humiliation that women endure at the hands of the TSA (I am speaking here of what I know based on dozens of personal experiences) is in many cases traumatic. It is ritualized trivialization and demolition of a woman's control over who sees and/or touches intimate parts of her body. It is especially severe in women who have been subjected to physical and/or sexual abuse. Just as rape is an expression of a man's control over a woman, TSA's intimate, inappropriate and unwanted touching is an expression of the government's control over it's "subjects". Totally wrong on every level. EVERY level.
1amWendy at April 19, 2012 4:54 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2012/04/19/what_tsa_stands.html#comment-3149332">comment from 1amWendyIt is beyond disgusting and EXTREMELY DANGEROUS that an employee of my government runs her hands through my hair (let alone all the rest that they do) entirely sans probable cause. My disgust and the bad memories of every time that was done to me remain with me and rise up with some frequency. The Frankl quote is entirely appropriate because we are well on our way to a police state and what are people doing but going quietly -- and ever-so-politely: "Bend over like this, Sir?"
Amy Alkon at April 19, 2012 5:39 PM
To compare the tsa to a totalitarian state is more than a reach. You wanna change things quit belly aching and do it at the polls or with a weapon. Lisa simeone is a whiny left wing loon, learn to ignore her. The fact that women are groped is really no different than men. You folks want a crusade? Overthrow this corrupt potus and congress
ronc at April 19, 2012 5:45 PM
Eric, face it, you suck, and for this reason: you have no idea that a TSA goon is performing no useful function. There's no benefit, not at all, and in blaming the woman for crying at the pointlessness of it all, you're just identifying yourself as the kind of useful idiot people who seek power crave.
Oh, I get it. The Medal of Honor winner, who pissed on death a hundred times while killing this country's enemies only had to remove some of his clothing.
That's all right then.
What a mound of meat you are. How many of the rest of us will you sell into slavery so you can feel safe?
Not doing that? Then say how.
Radwaste at April 19, 2012 7:20 PM
Please read the Short History Of Liberal/Democrats, Progressives, Communists In America.
This is a slow but steady progress from a capitalist, free-market, liberty loving system to a communist, socialistic, marxist system. It is the boiling the frog system.
While the right to travel is not explicitly mentioned in the U.S. Constitution it is not because it was assumed it didn't need to be mentioned. So I want to fly from Boise, Idaho to Phoenix, Arizona -- both open carry Gold star states. But to fly from one to another I have to be totally disarmed in between. Why?
Give up your civil liberties of you want to.
Jim P. at April 19, 2012 8:26 PM
Then pre-9/11 would she have been subjected to this?
September 11, 2001 did change something. It was the American public. Prior to that -- they had learned the model. The quite brave passengers of Flight 93 changed the rules, as the normal Americans that they were, and counter-attacked.
The American population does not want equality of outcome, they want equality of opportunity. The passengers of Flight 93 realized that their outcome was death, regardless of whether they sat there or attacked. They then decided that the equal death of innocents regardless of their action was not acceptable.
That is why there is a hole in the ground in Shanksville, PA instead of damage to some other pantheon of government in Mordor on the Potomac.
Please say that there is something wrong in my thinking. I'll post my usual rant in the next post. Eric -- please refute any and every thing in that post. I will enjoy picking them apart.
Jim P. at April 19, 2012 8:44 PM
For all you regular readers of the Goddess' blog you can skip past this post. I'm going to post my regular rant about not needing the TSA. For all you new readers, please read it carefully and refute any statement or misstatement. ;-)
=================================================
The TSA was not needed one hour and one minute after Tower II was hit!
The paradigm, the norm, the expected, what everyone was taught to do was to sit down, shut up and wait for the plane to land and the negotiations happen. That was the model from Entebbe onward.
The passengers on board did not really know what was about to happen on September 11, 2001 at 8:46:30 when Flight 11 struck Tower I.
Even the passengers on Flight 175 probably didn't realize what was about to happen when they struck Tower II at 9:03:02.
The Pentagon crash of Flight 77 at 9:37:46 may have been still a matter of ignorance.
At 10:03:11 on September 11, 2001, United Airlines Flight 93 crashed after the brave souls counter-attacked and caused the hijackers to crash the plane.
The time difference is 60 minutes and 9 seconds from Tower II being struck to the crash of Flight 93. The shoe bomber and panty bomber were taken down by fellow passengers as well. Recently, JetBlue's Flight 191 pilot was taken down by the passengers once he was out of the cockpit. Additionally how many times have you heard of passengers' concerns and diverted flights?
The TSA is and has always been a joke, no make that a total stupidity, that has wasted our country's fortune going down a rabbit hole.
If you don't believe me look at the 9/11 timeline.
There will never be another 9/11 style attack unless the attackers can arrange planes full of geriatrics, and even then it would be doubtful.
Jim P. at April 19, 2012 8:44 PM
Just for grins -- I realized I forgot to send my Fed "representatives" my view of the TSA.
I just sent my normal rant to both the Senator and U.S. Representative asking for the disbandment of the TSA.
I'll post back the answers.
Jim P. at April 19, 2012 9:07 PM
>> Oh, I get it. The Medal of Honor winner, who pissed on death a hundred times while killing this country's enemies only had to remove some of his clothing.
Jesus fucking Christ. He went from being "strip searched" to only "having to remove some of his clothing" and you still belabor this point??? Why not point out he was analy raped at gunpoint and concede he was told to sit over there while we sort this out?
I'm selling you into slavery? Did every fucking person in this country get their period while I was at work today?
>> This is a slow but steady progress from a capitalist, free-market, liberty loving system to a communist, socialistic, marxist system. It is the boiling the frog system.
Yes, you are sooooooo oppressed. We are all being lock stepped down the road to communism, socialism, facism, and whatever -ism your dictionary can come up with. Life was always so easy and unencumbered before 9/11.
>> The retaliation and humiliation that women endure at the hands of the TSA (I am speaking here of what I know based on dozens of personal experiences) is in many cases traumatic. It is ritualized trivialization and demolition of a woman's control over who sees and/or touches intimate parts of her body. It is especially severe in women who have been subjected to physical and/or sexual abuse.
So now only women are subject to patdowns? Can we get a waiver for all people who have been inappropriately touched, or just females?
Be honest here- who here has actually read Frankl's book? I did, many times, first in college, and it had a tremendous effect on my life. The line that hooked me was something to the effect of "and the best of us did not make it out of there", which referred to the will to survive at all costs while he was longing to glimpse his wife again at the camp across the barbed wire. The fight for survival trumped all else.
My point is that it is ridiculous to compare the horrors described in that book with the two or three minutes most of us will have to endure at the airport.
Eric at April 19, 2012 9:08 PM
I'm not comparing -- First they came for the communists,
of "and the best of us did not make it out of there", which referred to the will to survive at all costs while he was longing to glimpse his wife again at the camp across the barbed wire. The fight for survival trumped all else.
Thank you for the reference. Here is the paragraph:
I refuse to live to that standard. Granted I went to the USAF Survival School, I refuse to live to that standard.
I never want to give up my neighbors, friends, coworkers, or anyone else to get a bypass today from some fucking anonymous government official.
I don't care. When you come and ask about my friends -- they will get zip, zero, nothing.
And you still have not answered this simple question:
Then pre-9/11 would she have been subjected to this? Then she should have kept her emotions in check?
Jim P. at April 19, 2012 11:31 PM
Eric: Meh, Niemöller Schmiemöller.
Lisa Simeone at April 20, 2012 4:13 AM
I thought Islam had a copyright on that.
The TSA means they won. Think about it. In order to save ourselves from authoritarian unaccountable people we need to submit to authoritarian unaccountable people.
Vote them all out.
MarkD at April 20, 2012 4:54 AM
It takes all kinds, as they say, to make a world!
Respectfully disagree with you, Lisa. We just got all kinds.
Flynne at April 20, 2012 6:12 AM
> We just got all kinds.
♥
Crid at April 20, 2012 7:13 AM
It is ridiculous, and literally hysterical to group a pat down, even an aggressive pat down, with sexual humiliations that have been perpetrated on both men and women throughout time.
didn't show me a woman being publicly humiliated, just a woman who has no control over her own emotions.
Can we get a waiver for all people who have been inappropriately touched, or just females?
The declarative sentence of authority. The gendered word choices and belittling of the suffering of another human being about whom Eric knows absolutely nothing as "hysterical", as indicative of having "no control over her own emotions".
(An aside: one in six women in this country--and one in 33 men--has been raped. Cast your eyes along the length of any security line, and do the math. Rape, physical and sexual abuse, assault, and other violent crimes are both commonplace in our collective history and directly linked to various traumatic responses when an event--i.e. a stranger aggressively touching you on parts of your body--triggers them.)
And finally, the telling use of the word "females", as though referring not to fellow human beings, but rather, to a category, a classification. Things--things that are not me. The way a scientist might when writing up a meta-analysis of various primate studies.
My first reaction upon reading this thread was to rebut Eric's words and postures (which, incidentally, fit rather neatly into Dr. Hare's checklist), but I can see that Amy's readers are more than smart enough to have seen those words and postures for what they are. And him, for who he is.
"We don't see things as they are; we see them as we are." -- Anaïs Nin
Deborah Newell Tornello at April 20, 2012 8:16 AM
"Life was always so easy and unencumbered before 9/11."
Easy to make up things, isn't it?
While you ask whether others have read a book, certain of those others recognize that water does not boil instantly - that liberties are confiscated one at a time, with the acceptance and permission of people just like you, who simply don't notice; they were busy reading books.
-----
Eric, if we were sitting at a roadside café in Frankfurt in 1936, and I told you the Americans would bomb all of Europe into rubble, that tem=ns of millions would be dead and that the loud guy in the news making promises was going to kill millions more in gas chambers - and that all of this would be done in just 10 years - you'd have told me I don't have control of my emotions.
Every generation thinks it is too smart, too culturally advanced, to kill itself.
Hello, you. Have yourself some perspective!
Radwaste at April 20, 2012 9:08 AM
From my Senator:
Jim P. at April 20, 2012 8:36 PM
My point is that it is ridiculous to compare the horrors described in that book with the two or three minutes most of us will have to endure at the airport.
That's a fine point.
But it's a point.
On a line.
Which is made up of multiple points.
What you're failing to recognize which direction that line of points is going.
Unix-Jedi at April 21, 2012 6:27 AM
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