At the Airport
It’s not hard to walk into an airport and immediately feel as though you’ve, somehow, entered a police state. You pretty well have.
Last night Erin and I went to the Salt Lake International Airport to pick up her mom. She came in to town for a few days to spend time with Erin and get some one-on-one time in preparation for the wedding in August. Six (well, five-plus) months just doesn’t seem like enough time to plan everything that has to be planned before the whole sealing and wedding ceremony, the ring ceremony, receptions, parties, travel, etc. It’s just… well… I’m just window dressing – get to do what I am told.
The point is that her mom came into town and we went to the airport to pick her up; then I took them to a hotel, changed cars, and came home. All said and done, I was in bed by about 1 a.m. (I think), and Erin and her mom went and found a dress that (I understand) they liked enough to buy. Welcome to the wonderful world of engagements, marriage, and… I can’t come up with an and….
Anyway, we were in the airport, the Delta side, and the first thing you see, coming off of short term parking, is the baggage x-ray machine that everyone has to put their bags through. No choice. They ask, “Any guns, yadda, yadda, or yadda in your bags?” and then toss it on a conveyer belt that runs it through a rather large machine designed to (I would think) elicit a sense of peace, calmness, or at the very least understanding in the governments attempts (foolish) to make American’s calm about traveling, a feeling of safe.
And yet, I seem to be spending time in airports AND I seem to not feel any better about traveling now than prior to my experiences with travel post September 11th. You see, I don’t feel as though a group of old, infirm, and over-weight (I was going to say obese and fat) employees really help to protect me. The process of getting through lines to get on an airplane is ludicrous. The aspect to air travel that I kind of enjoyed, hanging out and waiting for planes to arrive, watching families say goodbye, or just shopping in the wide variety of stores you can only seem to find at airports, has almost completely died.
On top of which, I don’t feel safer traveling.
I said to Erin last night that if you took a poll of 2000 traveling American’s about whether or not they actually felt safer with all of the changes that have taken place in airports; the large majority of respondents would answer in the negative. People don’t feel safer and it is apparent when you deal with airports, security, the feeling of humiliation that you go through when trying to get past the security checkpoints; and I’d imagine it only gets worse when Homeland Security places National Guard units in the airports clearly sporting large automatic weapons, wearing Kevlar, and marching around as though they are on parade.
The problem with airports, today, is that we’ve allowed politicians to get their grubby paws too far into the transportation sector that it is impossible to allow for comfortable travel; as such, airlines are consolidating, they offer fewer services, and, in the end, alternative airline services and transportation services have risen in popularity enough that there is, off and on, talk of adding explosive and metal detectors to bus and train lines.
You’ve got to be kidding?
I mean, we know that I don’t like G.W. and he got my vote for two reasons: 1) Nader wasn’t on the ballot in New Hampshire; and 2) I couldn’t fathom John Kerry or Al Gore doing the job as both are/were activist candidates. The point, however, is that we have a president who, when he feels threatened, pulls out the terror-watch and tells America that we are safer with him as president, safer with the transportation reform, safer the way we are now than we were before September 11th.
Pardon this (and if you are sensitive to swearing don’t read what immediate follows) but that is a load of shit.
Seriously? We are safer? There is no substantive evidence of that. The government is asking us to take their word for it and yet, when polled, most American’s don’t trust politicians. They trust their politician; but they don’t trust politicians in general. I mean, come on!!! This is a problem. This is a real issue. We’ve given a lot up for the guise of security and safety and in reality all we’ve gotten for it is a lot more problems and a ton of hassle that is unnecessary.
You cannot tell me that we are safer or more secure now than we were before September 11th. I don’t buy. I don’t believe it. I don’t think most anyone else does either. And the outcome is that we are not dealing with the ramifications and aftermath of a situation that was devastating and disastrous but, at the same time, didn’t warrant the changes that have taken place in traveling America.
The reason I am pointing this out is really more economic. I don’t want airlines to combine. That’s bad for the nation and bad for travel. But, more than that, I do want to see a good increase in America as a destination place for world travelers. The however in this, though, is that America is being avoided by business and vacation travelers. Apparently, as a part of new security measures it is harder and harder (and more demeaning) to go through the Visa process and, as such, people are avoiding the United States.
Moreover, if you are someone of male Arab decent, apparently the Department of Homeland Security pulls you out of line and grills you for hours about your intentions on United States soil even though you’ve already degradate yourself in the Visa process in order to come to the United States (read MSNBC.com’s Newsweek article).
The problem with travel today is twofold: 1) We don’t feel safer because we’re not; and 2) If it is necessary to have these measures to get into and out of the boarding areas for planes, it should be so innocuous as to be practically invisible to passengers and guests of airline travelers.
What needs to happen is ALL of the changes under G.W. need to be rescinded. Homeland Security needs to be repurposed (if we choose to keep it; but as it is a part of a bureaucracy it won’t be going away). Air travel and visa applications need to become easier to navigate and invite visitors to the nation while allowing passengers and guests onto the causeways where airplanes actually take off and land. And, any necessary security measures need to be so easy to navigate, and without causing undue stress on the people passing through them, while maximizing feelings of humanity, that passengers don’t feel stressed out because of the need to travel through (or even just to) airports.
We need some serious change here, folks. Not in a few years. Not once we’ve further destroyed the national integrity and economic stability of the Middle East, we need it now. If this president (or the current candidates) aren’t willing or capable of putting forward measures of change that will accommodate this, then they need to be fired, refused, turned down, and someone else needs to be brought on board to take over the control and direction of this country.
Moreover, we need to pull out of Iraq and encourage Iraq’s neighbors to take a more active hand in rebuilding the country. Does this mean that Iran might be actively involved? Yes. Does it mean that more people might die? Yes. But what it also means is that we allow the people best suited to deal with the nation, as a whole, to deal with the nation. We also shouldn’t be afraid of losing Iraq as a nation, being broken into parts for ethnic majorities or annexed by stronger countries; AND we need to get our oil-glutinous president away from influencing change in how oil is produced or distributed from that area of the world (oil is the only reason we went there, and yet, we don’t get it at a decent price, and the cost-at-the-pumps has only gotten higher even if it has come down in the past couple of months).
It really is time for substantive change. Either open the airports back up or get fired. That should be the growing motto of the American People. We need to be tired of the threats that our leaders claim are happening. We need to move forward. We need our voices to be heard; and right now, they’re not.