Written a couple of months back after dropping off a relative at the airport and binging on drugs and alcohol (and why isn't that statement redundant? The fun tricks of New Speak at work again kiddies!). Been thinking a lot about social and ontological terrorism as art. I am totally going to jail soon, aren't I?
The crowds lurch around me like actors in a bad zombie flick. Vacant stares, inane meaningless noise issuing from slackly open mouths, a herd like placidity as they calmly and unquestioningly move in shuffling lock step along the lines and passages clearly layed out for them.
None of them recognize this, however. No, they actually believe that what they are doing is not only right, but how it is meant to be, the only way it can be. Blindly obedient to ideas and patterns they've never even thought to question in the whole of their existances.
How do you beat an enemy so all pervasive it has become accepted as The Way Things Are?
A voice cuts across the PA system. I suspect it is supposed to be pleasant and female, something without real inflection or accent that can be easily digested by those who hear it without causing them to think about the speakers skin tone, religious background, political beliefs. A voice so meticulously bland, with just the right touch of human warmth to add that little extra bit of subliminal comfort, that the listener immediately accepts and forgets it, like a child listening and blindly accepting his mother's proclamations.
The effect seems to be only moderately ruined by the electronic interference inherent in the shitty speakers they're using.
"Attention passengers. We would like to remind you all once again that new regulations refuse the admittance of any liquids or gels onto your flights. Receptacles have been set out for you to empty any and all liquids you may still have on your person before preparing for security screening. We apologize for any inconvenience and thank you for your help in making your flight a safer one."
There is barely a response from the shuffling mumbling crowd. A few muttered imprecations, a few shaken heads in mock annoyance, a few brave souls who even raise a voice in protest, but even those latter fail to raise any kind of real complaint. They accepted the announcement long before it was made, even if they're still lazy or forgetful enough to have brought one of these new contraband items along with them.
Their fucking complacency makes me sick.
I watch as some of the zombies shuffle their way over to one of these designated receptacles. They pull out their bottles and containers and unceremoniously dump them down the hole in the top of the bin, then dispose of the now empty vessels in another one located conveniently next to it.
They have banned these liquids and gels for fear of terrorist attack. The terrorists were supposedly going to use two part liquid explosives smuggled in ordinary, everyday containers onto the planes. Once airborne, they would have combined these two liquids or gels and used ordinary, everyday electronics as a detonator to build their very own do it yourself bomb.
Ingenious, no?
No.
None of the zombies has taken any time at all to think about the ridiculousness of this idea, or the even more ridiculous response made to it. For example, any of the two part liquid explosives any bunch of home brewed, shoe string budgeted terrorists could get their hands on would not only be fairly low grade, but highly unstable. The kind of thing that would have the impact of a cheap firework and would in nine times out of ten either not detonate or blow up in their fucking faces.
No, these retards haven't thought of any of that. Chemistry is hard. Ask half of the idiots I went to high school with. Chemistry is hard and not really useful in a future career as a factory lobotomized button pusher or mid level office lemming. Who really needs to know about the basic structure of the universe and the world we live in? What useful purpose could anyone possibly have in possessing knowledge of how everything around them functions? Nope, clearly chemistry is something only useful for scientists and those faceless paragons of security who work for Authority.
Of course, you would think some of them, having seen and heard (but not read. Reading is for the same kind of people who actually need chemistry.) the news reports would make that tiniest of cognitive leaps and question the logic of dumping all of these contraband liquids into one receptacle. The one which happens to sit in the middle of the crowded airport they happen to be shuffling their unquestioning zombie asses through.
Nah, clearly if Authority has decided that this is the way these things should be disposed of, than it is the right way. Authority is there to protect us. Authority would never do anything that wasn't in our best interest. Authority knows best. Why? Stupid question. They're Authority.
I can't even let myself think about the political or social ramifications of this new security measure. I would have a fucking seizure trying to grasp how easily the zombies have accepted things. That or I would start screaming at them again. Trying to pierce their cow like complacency with threats verbal and physical. Fuck. I think I owe cows an apology. Even centuries of inbreeding couldn't make something this stupid.
Where do you hide anything? In plain sight. Especially if you know that the herd is conditioned to never question what is right in front of them. The slaughterhouse is always right in the midst of the stockyard.
I unclench my fists. Fingernails are starting to cut into the flesh of my palms. Blood in an airport is just asking for trouble these days. Time to go anyway. Much more of this and I will completely lose my shit.
I lift my jacket from the package I've left on the seat beside me and walk away. The asshole on the cellphone on the other side of it never even notices. I've been sitting next to him for twenty minutes. The entire time he has been having an overly loud conversation with someone on the other end concerning a business deal that he has already openly admitted, in a public place mind you, is not only illegal, but is garunteed to result in a law suit. Despite this, he is hugely proud of it. He has yelled into the receiver how the benefits will well outweigh any legal or moral improprieties.
From what I can gather, he seems to be involved in some kind of real estate venture. The game he is playing is going to result in a large parcel of former industrial property to be converted into cheap housing. The EPA and the company he works for both know that property is so full of contaminants even the roaches can't survive. This doesn't matter. By the time anything official can be done about the land, his company will have made a killing (the pessimistic side of me laughs at the double entendre the asshole next to me doesn't even realize he's made) and will be out of there before they can be held accountable in any way. He's even got a convenient set up to provide the firm plausible deniability.
And he openly speaks all of this, in a voice anyone within five yards of him can hear, in a crowded airport.
No one else notices. They are all too caught up in their own cell phone conversations or the deeply important drama of their own lives. A man openly plotting a crime that will harm the lives of hundreds, while everyone around him scurries to comply with laws intended to stop a hypothetical threat that those same laws were only passed to discourage after an attempt was alreay made to do it.
The law is about as preventative to crime as a seismograph is preventative of an earthquake.
The crowds lurch around me like actors in a bad zombie flick. Vacant stares, inane meaningless noise issuing from slackly open mouths, a herd like placidity as they calmly and unquestioningly move in shuffling lock step along the lines and passages clearly layed out for them.
None of them recognize this, however. No, they actually believe that what they are doing is not only right, but how it is meant to be, the only way it can be. Blindly obedient to ideas and patterns they've never even thought to question in the whole of their existances.
How do you beat an enemy so all pervasive it has become accepted as The Way Things Are?
A voice cuts across the PA system. I suspect it is supposed to be pleasant and female, something without real inflection or accent that can be easily digested by those who hear it without causing them to think about the speakers skin tone, religious background, political beliefs. A voice so meticulously bland, with just the right touch of human warmth to add that little extra bit of subliminal comfort, that the listener immediately accepts and forgets it, like a child listening and blindly accepting his mother's proclamations.
The effect seems to be only moderately ruined by the electronic interference inherent in the shitty speakers they're using.
"Attention passengers. We would like to remind you all once again that new regulations refuse the admittance of any liquids or gels onto your flights. Receptacles have been set out for you to empty any and all liquids you may still have on your person before preparing for security screening. We apologize for any inconvenience and thank you for your help in making your flight a safer one."
There is barely a response from the shuffling mumbling crowd. A few muttered imprecations, a few shaken heads in mock annoyance, a few brave souls who even raise a voice in protest, but even those latter fail to raise any kind of real complaint. They accepted the announcement long before it was made, even if they're still lazy or forgetful enough to have brought one of these new contraband items along with them.
Their fucking complacency makes me sick.
I watch as some of the zombies shuffle their way over to one of these designated receptacles. They pull out their bottles and containers and unceremoniously dump them down the hole in the top of the bin, then dispose of the now empty vessels in another one located conveniently next to it.
They have banned these liquids and gels for fear of terrorist attack. The terrorists were supposedly going to use two part liquid explosives smuggled in ordinary, everyday containers onto the planes. Once airborne, they would have combined these two liquids or gels and used ordinary, everyday electronics as a detonator to build their very own do it yourself bomb.
Ingenious, no?
No.
None of the zombies has taken any time at all to think about the ridiculousness of this idea, or the even more ridiculous response made to it. For example, any of the two part liquid explosives any bunch of home brewed, shoe string budgeted terrorists could get their hands on would not only be fairly low grade, but highly unstable. The kind of thing that would have the impact of a cheap firework and would in nine times out of ten either not detonate or blow up in their fucking faces.
No, these retards haven't thought of any of that. Chemistry is hard. Ask half of the idiots I went to high school with. Chemistry is hard and not really useful in a future career as a factory lobotomized button pusher or mid level office lemming. Who really needs to know about the basic structure of the universe and the world we live in? What useful purpose could anyone possibly have in possessing knowledge of how everything around them functions? Nope, clearly chemistry is something only useful for scientists and those faceless paragons of security who work for Authority.
Of course, you would think some of them, having seen and heard (but not read. Reading is for the same kind of people who actually need chemistry.) the news reports would make that tiniest of cognitive leaps and question the logic of dumping all of these contraband liquids into one receptacle. The one which happens to sit in the middle of the crowded airport they happen to be shuffling their unquestioning zombie asses through.
Nah, clearly if Authority has decided that this is the way these things should be disposed of, than it is the right way. Authority is there to protect us. Authority would never do anything that wasn't in our best interest. Authority knows best. Why? Stupid question. They're Authority.
I can't even let myself think about the political or social ramifications of this new security measure. I would have a fucking seizure trying to grasp how easily the zombies have accepted things. That or I would start screaming at them again. Trying to pierce their cow like complacency with threats verbal and physical. Fuck. I think I owe cows an apology. Even centuries of inbreeding couldn't make something this stupid.
Where do you hide anything? In plain sight. Especially if you know that the herd is conditioned to never question what is right in front of them. The slaughterhouse is always right in the midst of the stockyard.
I unclench my fists. Fingernails are starting to cut into the flesh of my palms. Blood in an airport is just asking for trouble these days. Time to go anyway. Much more of this and I will completely lose my shit.
I lift my jacket from the package I've left on the seat beside me and walk away. The asshole on the cellphone on the other side of it never even notices. I've been sitting next to him for twenty minutes. The entire time he has been having an overly loud conversation with someone on the other end concerning a business deal that he has already openly admitted, in a public place mind you, is not only illegal, but is garunteed to result in a law suit. Despite this, he is hugely proud of it. He has yelled into the receiver how the benefits will well outweigh any legal or moral improprieties.
From what I can gather, he seems to be involved in some kind of real estate venture. The game he is playing is going to result in a large parcel of former industrial property to be converted into cheap housing. The EPA and the company he works for both know that property is so full of contaminants even the roaches can't survive. This doesn't matter. By the time anything official can be done about the land, his company will have made a killing (the pessimistic side of me laughs at the double entendre the asshole next to me doesn't even realize he's made) and will be out of there before they can be held accountable in any way. He's even got a convenient set up to provide the firm plausible deniability.
And he openly speaks all of this, in a voice anyone within five yards of him can hear, in a crowded airport.
No one else notices. They are all too caught up in their own cell phone conversations or the deeply important drama of their own lives. A man openly plotting a crime that will harm the lives of hundreds, while everyone around him scurries to comply with laws intended to stop a hypothetical threat that those same laws were only passed to discourage after an attempt was alreay made to do it.
The law is about as preventative to crime as a seismograph is preventative of an earthquake.