Thursday, February 01, 2007
Police Paranoia in Two Cities
Bush came to NYC yesterday, visiting the Stock Exchange where he made an uncharacteristically candid speech about the realities of income inequality before leaving via the heliport that's essentially downstairs from my office. (I always wonder what he thinks about New York. If asked, he'd probably offer some just-folks opinion about the sinful ways of the big city and the notorious assholes who live in it, but he got more money from the Upper East Side than any other ZIP code, and if I were such a kingly president, I'd be sort of impressed with this corner of my domain).
Anyway, his brief stopover naturally precipitated legions of law enforcement doing all sorts of odd things that in the aggregate theoretically lead up to greater security for our leader, and, maybe, the rest of us. A few streets were closed, some to vehicular traffic, others altogether. (For example, you couldn't walk down Wall Street towards the Exchange, unless you were exiting the subway. That'll fool those towelheads.) South Street and the tip of the FDR Drive were blocked off except for the presidential convoy, because a podunk place like Manhattan doesn't need its major ring road artery on a weekday. The plazas on either side of my building were sealed, and everyone was trapped in our forty-story tower for ninety minutes--during lunch. And of course there were snipers on the roof, helicopters all over, NYPD divers in the river (that's got to SUCK), sirens everywhere, barricades left and right, and men with Uzis (at least, that's what I think they were) patrolling the streets. I wonder how long it'll be until chemical masks and riot gear are standard operating procedure.
These steroidal theatrics are intended primarily to terrify. Whether it be the NYPD, the Secret Service, the Armed Forces, the FBI, or a combination of them all, the sum is a phenomenon designed to maximize the visibility of the American government's grip on the situation. Many a cheery warmonger of our decade says or said things like, "Until Sept. 11, Americans didn't have to worry about things like terrorism." Taking that at face value (because tearing stupidity apart is a bore by now), one thing you might add is that "Americans never had to worry about seeing or feeling the full brunt of our military capabilities." Obviously, yesterday's mass inconvenience because the NYPD doesn't want to revisit Dallas 1963 only blocks from the WTC site doesn't nearly approach what the Iraqis (or, for that matter, the citizens of 60 other countries at least) have experienced, but I think the taboo has been violated.
Similarly, in Boston, a marketing tactic for "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" led the BPD to freak out over some Lite Brites that had been deployed in nine other cities without a fuss. The mayor and state attorney general clamored for blood, but not only were no laws broken, this hysteria has not--as one might hope--led to any reappraisal of just how easy it is to trigger a wasteful overreaction like calling out the bomb squad and shutting down a section of the Charles River. Nor was it limited to the BPD. Fox News (duh) questioned whether or not it was a "terrorist dry run." I mean, please.
There is at least a component of these anti-terror operas which seeks to deter homegrown would-be terrorists or anti-American foreigners germinating in our midst. I really don't know what to think about that, because there's no merit to a city appearing lazy or inept in its response. Again, however, it's inevitable that there will be a ratcheting up of a new normality, in which ordinary citizens can expect both their civil liberties and plain old time and energy to be checked at the door out of deference to security concerns.
As we passively permit law enforcement to ever-swallow greater concentric circles of cities, paralyzing everything within their self-assigned geographical purview with the ugly plumage of counterterrorism, the more we can naturally expect paranoia to take hold in all quarters, eroding some of the simpler pleasures of urban living and producing our own expensive and predictable false alarms that then demand blood to justify the fantastical expense.
Anyway, his brief stopover naturally precipitated legions of law enforcement doing all sorts of odd things that in the aggregate theoretically lead up to greater security for our leader, and, maybe, the rest of us. A few streets were closed, some to vehicular traffic, others altogether. (For example, you couldn't walk down Wall Street towards the Exchange, unless you were exiting the subway. That'll fool those towelheads.) South Street and the tip of the FDR Drive were blocked off except for the presidential convoy, because a podunk place like Manhattan doesn't need its major ring road artery on a weekday. The plazas on either side of my building were sealed, and everyone was trapped in our forty-story tower for ninety minutes--during lunch. And of course there were snipers on the roof, helicopters all over, NYPD divers in the river (that's got to SUCK), sirens everywhere, barricades left and right, and men with Uzis (at least, that's what I think they were) patrolling the streets. I wonder how long it'll be until chemical masks and riot gear are standard operating procedure.
These steroidal theatrics are intended primarily to terrify. Whether it be the NYPD, the Secret Service, the Armed Forces, the FBI, or a combination of them all, the sum is a phenomenon designed to maximize the visibility of the American government's grip on the situation. Many a cheery warmonger of our decade says or said things like, "Until Sept. 11, Americans didn't have to worry about things like terrorism." Taking that at face value (because tearing stupidity apart is a bore by now), one thing you might add is that "Americans never had to worry about seeing or feeling the full brunt of our military capabilities." Obviously, yesterday's mass inconvenience because the NYPD doesn't want to revisit Dallas 1963 only blocks from the WTC site doesn't nearly approach what the Iraqis (or, for that matter, the citizens of 60 other countries at least) have experienced, but I think the taboo has been violated.
Similarly, in Boston, a marketing tactic for "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" led the BPD to freak out over some Lite Brites that had been deployed in nine other cities without a fuss. The mayor and state attorney general clamored for blood, but not only were no laws broken, this hysteria has not--as one might hope--led to any reappraisal of just how easy it is to trigger a wasteful overreaction like calling out the bomb squad and shutting down a section of the Charles River. Nor was it limited to the BPD. Fox News (duh) questioned whether or not it was a "terrorist dry run." I mean, please.
There is at least a component of these anti-terror operas which seeks to deter homegrown would-be terrorists or anti-American foreigners germinating in our midst. I really don't know what to think about that, because there's no merit to a city appearing lazy or inept in its response. Again, however, it's inevitable that there will be a ratcheting up of a new normality, in which ordinary citizens can expect both their civil liberties and plain old time and energy to be checked at the door out of deference to security concerns.
As we passively permit law enforcement to ever-swallow greater concentric circles of cities, paralyzing everything within their self-assigned geographical purview with the ugly plumage of counterterrorism, the more we can naturally expect paranoia to take hold in all quarters, eroding some of the simpler pleasures of urban living and producing our own expensive and predictable false alarms that then demand blood to justify the fantastical expense.
