The truth is better than the lie

I find myself thinking a lot about terrorism lately as if I’m going to solve the problem. The way we’re going about it isn’t working, and it doesn’t even make sense. It’s like the 58-year old calling the teenager sick for getting whacked out over their affair. He takes no responsibility for her state and will further destroy her in his “defense.”

I think there most definitely is a problem. As we near doubling our population, our world grows increasingly smaller and I for one don’t want the human race to go out in a hail of gunfire. It’s romantic in the movies but in real life, it’s just sad if we can’t find a way to get along. But real change requires understanding, work and sacrifice; it’s not just a matter of pushing someone back in line and telling them to shut up. If we wanted to make an impact on those who finance Al-Qaeda, we should have stopped the flow of money. Immediately. Stop driving cars if we have to and spend the billions of dollars being spent on the war to float the economy.

My family went overseas for the first time in 1984. I was just about to start high school when I met my English family. My cousins, a couple of years younger than me, wanted nothing more than to go to America. They thought it was the coolest place on earth. Twenty something years later, the Brits no longer love America and after decades of being our biggest fans outside of ourselves, they don’t even like Americans anymore. They think we’re ignorant, selfish, stupid and lazy and our President is all the proof they need.

When my friend was visiting from London, we were talking about something and I said, “people always think they’re doing the right thing.” I said that even George Bush thinks he’s doing the right thing. “Really,” he asked, “because I think he’s just taking a piss.” He referenced the comments he makes and how flippant and arrogant they are, how it seems he just doesn’t even care. I was too embarrassed to admit that I don’t listen to him anymore and because, frankly, it's difficult to imagine the magnitude of lying and deceit if he knows what he's doing.

I read an article in the New York Times a while back about plastic surgery in Iran. It’s so prevalent, apparently, that even men now are getting multiple surgeries done: nose jobs, chin implants, and cheek implants. A Persian friend of mine commented on it during her last trip there. She said every woman had a nose job and no one was the least bit bothered by a girl with bandages and bruises. There was a photo in the article of a woman, a beautiful woman, whose whole family has had a nose job. She didn’t even look Persian, she looked like a generic white woman. It was sad.

If I were Iranian, I think I would be livid. I would be outraged by the idea of a whole culture changing what makes them unique, succumbing to the idea that there is an ideal beauty, and that it is Western. I don’t want to live in an American world. Droves of people move here from other countries, looking for a better life, but they are all loyal to their homeland, their culture, their language, their food, their music, and their country. What would America be without that diversity?

Even Canada, our neighbors to the north, and the country that is probably most like ours in language, culture and history, is sensitive to not becoming Americanized and losing their identity. It’s easy then to imagine how massively offensive and threatening the export of our culture is to countries that share none of those things with us. Our culture isn’t just television and clothes. It’s language, policy, business, and yes, even our ideals. Just because we say something is important, doesn’t make it so. It has to appeal in a way that’s relevant and it has to be translated.

I remember reading in college about the family planning movement in Bangladesh. It was a critical program designed to reduce the poverty by decreasing the birthrate but it would require female empowerment, something just as new and delicate. While Western organizations could provide support, education and resources, it was essential that the actual outreach be done by local Bangladeshi women. Women who understood the culture and what they were up against but also, why it would work. And it did. Between 1975 and 1994, the fertility rate dropped from 6.3 to 3.3 and is now at 3 (children per family).

My mom told me a disturbing story that she read in the paper. The government of the Dominican Republic, in an effort to make their country more appealing to tourists, is cutting down hundred-year old shade trees that line their streets and replacing them with palm trees. The idea is that the tourists expect palm trees in a tropical country and they're trying to justify this massacre by saying the trees they're chopping are non-native. Meanwhile, the poor residents lose shade, cooler temperatures, fresh air and oxygen that these trees create, in addition to their history and the beauty of their town. Once again, a whole country suffers in the pursuit of a false ideal.

Europe, perhaps because of its smaller size, has always been much more concerned about keeping things clean, quiet and efficient, than the United States. In Sweden, apartment buildings have grass on the roof to contribute oxygen to the air and help insulate. In Britain, gas lawn mowers have been made illegal because of the noise and everyone uses nearly-silent electric mowers. In Paris, an electric train and public bicycles provide everyone with clean, quiet and efficient transportation. The cars are smaller, the houses are smaller, appliances are compact, and it’s always been like that.

Yet they have managed to mind their own business when it comes to America’s disgusting obsession with size and waste. Our compact cars of the same make and model are larger than their European counterparts and use more gas. But most of us aren’t even trying to be fuel-efficient. Our toilets use too much water, our water heaters heat water all day so it’s hot for the half hour that we need it, our food is too big and we throw most of it away. And yet, you don’t hear them telling us how we should live, though I wish they would. It's only a matter of time before the rest of the world starts imposing their views on us.

In the real world, we can’t force an employer to want to hire us, we can’t force a person to fall in love with us, we can’t force our children to be what we want them to be, and we can’t force people to buy our products. So why do we think we can force people to share our beliefs? The only thing we can do is make ourselves the best we can be and hope to be liked for who we really are. In marketing, we focus on making sure the product is something that people want and then making it relevant. If we want to sell democracy and freedom, we first have to practice what we preach and then find a way to make it something the rest of the world wants to buy.

I liken the "War on Terror" to the "War on Drugs," a similarly misguided attempt that failed spectacularly, increasing drug use, increasing drug profits and otherwise making the unwanted behavior more attractive and rewarding. The U.S. government allowed or otherwise participated in drug smuggling in order to fund other covert operations, no doubt justified by saying the actions were "good for the American people." Meanwhile, this country waged war on its own citizens. The land of "freedom lovers" has more people in prison than any country in the world, and nearly a quarter are there on drug charges.

One step behind the terrorists

My mom just got back from a business trip and almost missed her flight home. The airlines changed the gate and no one told her. She sat for an hour and a half at the wrong gate in a terminal with no food. Hungry and wanting coffee, and they'd be boarding soon. When it was time to board, nothing happened. Puzzled, she asked about the flight and was then told she was at the wrong gate. She and several other people made a mad dash to catch their flight in another terminal halfway across the airport. Along the way she passed Peet's Coffee, Wolfgang Puck's, California Pizza Kitchen, damn! They barely made it and some people probably didn't.

A friend of mine told me almost the identical story a few weeks ago, and this happened to me about a month ago. Seems to be a trend. A co-worker of my mom theorized, "The airlines are overbooking every flight, this is their way of trimming off the extra." Those people will miss their flight, get on the next one and there's always a wait list to make sure every flight is full. My friend asked, "Isn't it a security issue to have luggage on the plane without a passenger?" Interesting point.

Why is it, my mom asks, that there's so much security at the airport anyway? Many situations present possible danger for far greater numbers of people. "There are probably more people shopping at the grocery store than sitting on that flight," she says, "and no security there, why not?" I told her it was because since 9-11, we've learned that airplanes can be used as a weapon and kill far more than who is on the plane.

That naturally segued into strategies for better flying. Pack light, bring only a small carry on, wear slip on shoes, forget the jacket and the belt. She tells another story about being scolded for leaving a water bottle in her bag. "What's the water thing all about anyway?" "Well," I said, "we're always very cleverly one step behind the terrorists." We didn't have to take off our shoes until there was the shoe bomber. Then someone supposedly had liquid explosives and now we can't bring water to drink on the plane. Who ever heard of anyone being protected by being one step behind the criminal mind? I don't feel any safer. Especially since I know 100% of the gaps in security are user error.

Last time I was at the airport a woman set off the metal detector when she went through. "Oh," she said, and pointed at her heavy bracelet. "Okay," the guy nods and lets her go. Uh, what? They're supposed to make you take off the metal, put it in the bin and make you go through again. Even I know that! That's the oldest trick in the book. Set off the metal detector, point to a bracelet? Meanwhile, she's got a pistol in an ankle holster. Anyone who's watched a movie knows that one.

I don't know what's behind the last minute switching of the gates but it seems to be going around. Maybe it's some clever ploy to fool the terrorists. Maybe the last terrorist plot was by some guy who talked on the phone and missed his plane when they switched the gate and the geniuses in charge decided to keep that gag running. All I know is this. When you get to the gate, go to the counter and ask a person if it's the gate for your flight to your destination at your time. And don't settle for anything other than yes, yes and yes. Do that and then relax and enjoy the flight!

Expose yourself

This blog is starting to sound like a dream journal but I have been having some vivid and bizarre dreams lately. Last night, before going to bed, I decided to blog about an article in this month's Wired.

Five years ago Bangladeshi-born Hasan Elahi, a 35-year old artist and Rutgers professor, was detained at the Detroit airport by the FBI on suspicion of stockpiling explosives in a Florida storage facility. He was released when they were convinced they had the wrong guy but it landed him on the US terrorist watch list. A list that's apparently very difficult to get your name taken off of.

In response, Elahi started a website where he posts his location via a GPS he wears, a feed of his credit card transactions and, since he travels frequently, photos of every meal he's about to eat on an airplane. He also calls the FBI before every trip so they can alert their field offices. He hasn't been detained again.


Elahi says by flooding the market with information about himself, he deters overly ambitious agents from getting the details wrong in their snooping. He says with the younger generation, like his students, posting their personal photos on Flickr and writing journals on MySpace, Big Brother just might go out of business.

So last night, I had a dream that I was detained by a group of Scientologists. They told me that they had my friend's newborn daughter and unless I cooperated with them, they would not give her back. I got to see her for a moment. She was tiny like a Barbie doll and she was attached to a piece of cardboard with twisties like a doll when you buy it. I touched her little hands and started crying.

(I guess that the reason they had this particular friend's daughter is because she has a celebrity blog and doesn't say very positive things about the Scientologists. It's rumored that Scientology has maintained such a high profile list of followers by taking advantage of actors, desperate for success, and leeching their darkest secrets from them.)

They had my journals from high school and knew everything about me. They never harmed me physically but wore me down in questioning. They made me feel weak and vulnerable and then came in like my protector. "If you join us, we can protect you."

This is how Homeland Security works. Without their snooping, our cities might be bombed by terrorists every day. We don't know for sure, but we're scared and worn out, so we give in. At one point during the interrogation, I started hitting and punching the woman who was questioning me. She didn't react at all. She was like an android without any feelings. They continued to name the people I cared about that they had access to if I resisted. The dream ended with me saying "I want my life back. I want my job and my friends and my apartment and my boyfriend. I want my freedom back. I want the choice to say no to you" and I woke up sobbing.

I immediately thought about the Wired article. See, when I went to bed I thought "right on, good for you!" to Elahi taking charge of his life and refusing to be a victim. It could be his site that has kept him out of Guantanamo. But this morning I had a different view. I wasn't harmed in my dream but I clearly felt that my freedom had been taken from me. I realized that even things like the job I don't have anymore represent choices that I have, choices that I often take for granted. And I wondered, is this trend of total exposure and radical transparency really a victory?