Monday, November 11, 2013

tsa and pigs...,



nsfw | How -- and why -- the left and right united to turn TSA agents into public enemy number one.

On Friday morning, 23-year-old Paul Ciancia walked into Terminal 3 of the Los Angeles LAX airport, pulled a Smith & Wesson AR-15 semi-automatic rifle from a duffel bag and started shooting his way through a security checkpoint. He specifically targeted TSA agents, killing one screener and wounding three other people before an airport cop took him down with a shot to the face. 

At first police suspected that the shooter was a disgruntled former TSA employee. But a different picture emerged a few hours later: Ciancia was an anti-government conspiracy nut who came to LAX specifically to kill TSA agents.



One witness said she looked directly into Ciancia's eyes and heard him "curse the TSA." Several FBI sources told reporters that Ciancia carried a rambling racist and homophobic note that touched on "fiat currency" and the New World Order, denounced TSA oppression and described himself as a "pissed-off patriot" who "wanted to kill TSA and pigs" to "instill fear" into their "traitorous minds."

While details about the LAX shooter continue to emerge, it has become clear that Paul Ciancia is a mentally unstable individual who had come under the sway of some very toxic anti-government conspiracy theories. 

But one question remains: Why did he focus his hatred on the TSA? Out of all the possible federal agencies to choose from, what convinced him that airport screeners - who don't have arrest powers and aren't allowed to carry weapons - are the root of all government evil, and deserve to be hunted down and killed like animals?

In a way, it was just a matter of time before something like this happened. 

For the past three years, a vicious PR campaign has demonized and dehumanized TSA screeners. Launched by the libertarian-right, this smear offensive sought to equate the TSA in the public mind with the worst people imaginable: Nazis, rapists, gropers, child molesters and sadistic enforcers of a police state. 

The right-wing echo chamber would routinely trot out violent tropes and racist and homophobic language describing the TSA as Obama's "private army" and calling on liberty-loving Americans "to do something" to stop this "bureaucratic monster." 

But while this anti-TSA campaign was created by the libertarian-right, it was enabled and strengthened by the left. Some of the most prominent progressive and leftie bloggers and journalists took an active part in the TSA media witch-hunt.

 They joined the right in labeling the TSA as America's enemy within, unaware that underneath the big-brother rhetoric and feigned right-wing concern about civil liberties, the anti-TSA campaign was really a union-busting operation with a specific set of political goals: to prevent the TSA from unionizing, to privatize airport security and to introduce Israeli-style racial profiling into the airport-screening process.

4 comments:

CNu said...

lol, BD gone do what BD gone do - and THAT'S why he's my valued poster-child. That said, oh poster-child of mine - don't ever get it twisted in yer little pinty-haid that you and I are playing at the same level or driving in the same lane.

CNu said...

Um..., my wife and I waited until waaaaaay late to have our allotment of two children. We had accumulate the resources and the practical wisdom sufficient to the task of parenting. How much sympathy am I suppose to have for folk who don't similarly handle their bidnis? Dysgenic breeding bears harsh negative consequences, period.

Outside the pragmatic and personal - Kunstler had it right in this piece called out by Kikka-san; http://subrealism.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-misalignment-of-politics-and-reality.html

Vic78 said...

To say that bullies usually go after professional athletes is the biggest crock of shit I've seen in a few days. If you're getting bullied as an athlete, you're being culled from the herd. If you aren't willing to fight for six figures, ain't a whole lot I can do for you.

CNu said...

If you aren't willing to fight for six figures, ain't a whole lot I can do for you.rotflmbao...., up in this fin d'siecle, Dickensian muhphuggah - if you don't REALIZE that fact by now, NOTHING can be done for your silly markazzzz.....,

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