[Nettime-bold] Living with Fear

["Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net>]

There is a proliferation of an alphabet soup of new security forces in 
NYC - different uniforms, acronyms, some of them armed, some of 
them armed with automatic weapons, indeed - Europe had that in 
seventies - I remember when I was a kid visiting my mom in 
Germany, on Frankfurt airport there were always security forces 
with automatic weapons. They were not in the U-Bahn, though.

Better example yet may be Croatia, when it was splitting from what 
was then Yugoslavia, because, unlike in Germany, the fear from 
the threat there penetrated much deeper. Perhaps, because the 
threat was greater. And with the fear came the surveillance, the 
men in uniforms with automatic weapons on the streets, the 
immense desire for retributive justice. 

I am really not surprised why the U.S. enjoys support by the post-
communist bloc in NATO. What I am surprised is why is the threat 
in the US percieved to be so grave? Iraqi Republican Guard can 
never do as extensive damage to the U.S. territory as Yugoslav 
Army could to Croatia. I doubt they would ever reach farther than 
Oman. 

But then, U.S. citizens are pathologically obssessed with safety, 
and they got hit really hard (kind of someone slugs you with a 
baseball bat right over your nose when you are running), so they 
are stunned, anesthetized, and as far as elected representatives 
go, complacent. 

There should be more snow days, though, and that's the good 
news. Good news, because it is paradise for snowboarding here in 
Vermont, and, also, because snow seems to paralyze the 
government. So, they won't be able to decide to go to war when it's 
snowing heavily. And the North-East averages the most snowfall in 
March. 

There is something horribly wrong with this war, if so many are 
already against it, and it did not even start yet. To contemplate 
the risk of loss of innocent life in Iraq, ostensibly to protect 
innocent life in the U.S. from an 'unspecified threat'?! 

And it is completely reasonable to fear that armed men in the 
streets, justified by the threat of terrorism, may be quickly used 
one day to surpress a peaceful protest. That has been done in the 
history of the U.S. 

The U.S. is getting many new restrictions, familiar to the folks that 
are hailing from behind the 'iron curtain' - like, for example, the 
'curtain' was just raised again on February 14, when state police 
and immigration agents had set up roadblocks near the 
Lacolle/Champlain port of entry to Canada on I-87N, to stop 
Pakistanis from fleeing the U.S. and seeking refuge in Canada.

The U.S. society is getting more militarized with all the unintended
consequences for the future generations. Teenage guys in a gym in 
New York city debate about whether they should travel only by 
cab, since subways are unsafe. Pre-teenage girls in a gondola at 
Killington speculate what would happen if the wire that carries 
gondola had been sabotaged.

So, let us all pray for a lot of snow to fall in the next couple of 
months.

ivo


_______________________________________________
Nettime-bold mailing list
Nettime-bold@nettime.org
http://amsterdam.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-bold