New Year’s Eve Reflections: The Ritual Is Here As Well As The Fear

December 31st, 2009 - by: danny

GOOD RIDDANCE TO 2009 AS THE BALL DROPS AGAIN

The wheel is turning again as it does every year. Times Square will be packed again, despite the terror scare that emptied it of armies of tourists yesterday. They will play the old songs again. The New Year’s Eve ritual will be observed this year, as it has in the past, perhaps with some added punch because 2009 has been such a drag for so many. It is bleak, mid-winter with the arctic air putting a damper on people who already feel dampened.

A song for ~~2009~~ this decade, which ushered in the horrors of the Bush Administration:

I’ll get over you,
I know I will.
I’ll pretend my ship’s not sinking…
And I’ll tell myself, I’m over you
‘Cause I’m the king of wishful thinking.

Better, remove “Jack” and insert 2009:

Malcolm X once told me, and many others, that it all it takes to turn a cup of black coffee white is to add a drop of milk. His metaphor then was racial but the idea is still with us. In an age of trillions spent on national security, does anyone feel secure? All it takes is one person, one snafu, one communications failure and the nation is in a panic. Look at the chaos at the airports after this week’s terror scare. The barn doors are being fixed again but the horses are gone. These incidents are often good for the agencies defending against them – it raises their budgets and insures a compliant public willing to give up privacy and their rights in a futile attempt to stay safe.

Does anyone remember that this was the precise problem the 911 Commission addressed with its call to get security agencies sharing information in the aftermath of the 911 attacks when it was clear the FBI and CIA weren’t talking and, in fact, knew the “bad guys” were here but were too incompetent or bureaucratic to act? Sound familiar? Some things don’t change.

The more we spend on security, the more insecure we are. Despite all the “progress” in Iraq, the bombings and guerrilla attacks keep the country on edge. Ditto for Afghanistan where one more report on the shape of the Afghan Army confirms what everyone already knows: corruption and incompetence is the rule not the exception. The troops we are sending —only 1.3 poised for combat—will do little. They are a sop to the right and the Pentagon, not a serious effort to win a war that’s unwinnable. Just today, one suicide bomber blew up 8 CIA contractors, boldly attacking a secret base. Prepare for more incidents like this one.It is hard to stop people willing and eager to die for their country or religion.

Despite our strength and technology and arrogance, we remain vulnerable, caught up in a paranoid relationship with a diverse world. Our moral compass is skewed, and our repressive modalities unworkable.

Example, Michael Wolff of Newser writes:

“Who are these 4,000 people on the no-fly list? Why wouldn’t the US government want to publish this list and officially and individually identify our enemies? (And, also, give someone the chance to clear his or her name.) I suppose the government might not want to do this because it would, I’ll bet, show that the list, this ultimate bulwark against airplane apocalypse, has been assembled in a disorganized and haphazard fashion. Also, I guess it would give all the threatening people who, because of the US government’s vast disorganization, are not on the list a sort of all-clear…”

And what is the probability of more incidents? Check this out from Undernews:

WHAT’S THE ODDS?

Nate Silver, Five Thirty Eight – Over the past decade, there have been, by my count, six attempted terrorist incidents on board a commercial airliner that landed in or departed from the United States: the four planes that were hijacked on 9/11, the shoe bomber incident in December 2001, and the NWA flight 253 incident on Christmas. . .

Over the past decade, according to BTS, there have been 99,320,309 commercial airline departures that either originated or landed within the United States. Dividing by six, we get one terrorist incident per 16,553,385 departures.

These departures flew a collective 69,415,786,000 miles. That means there has been one terrorist incident per 11,569,297,667 miles flown. This distance is equivalent to 1,459,664 trips around the diameter of the Earth, 24,218 round trips to the Moon, or two round trips to Neptune.

Assuming an average airborne speed of 425 miles per hour, these airplanes were aloft for a total of 163,331,261 hours. Therefore, there has been one terrorist incident per 27,221,877 hours airborne. This can also be expressed as one incident per 1,134,245 days airborne, or one incident per 3,105 years airborne.

There were a total of 674 passengers, not counting crew or the terrorists themselves, on the flights on which these incidents occurred. By contrast, there have been 7,015,630,000 passenger enplanements over the past decade. Therefore, the odds of being on given departure which is the subject of a terrorist incident have been 1 in 10,408,947 over the past decade. By contrast, the odds of being struck by lightning in a given year are about 1 in 500,000. [More here Ã¢â€ â€™]

A 2005 report by the Center for Disease Control found the following probabilities:

1 in 126 of heart disease
1 in 169 of cancer
1 in 400 of heart disease
1 in 520 of cancer
1 in 1,245 of murder in DC in early 1990s
1 in 2,900 of an accident
1 in 7,000 of an auto accident
1 in 9,200 of suicide
1 in 12,400 of Alzheimer’s
1 in 18,100 of murder
1 in 21,004 of AIDS
1 in 43,000 of a hernia
1 in 88,000 of a terrorist attack

1 in 1,500,00 of a terrorist-caused shopping mall disaster assuming one such incident a week and you shop two hours a week

1 in 55,000,000 in a terrorist-caused plane disaster assuming one such incident a month and you fly once a month

In 2002, the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that the most dangerous job in America was being a timber cutter. Converting the data, a lumberman has 104 times the likelihood of being killed on a job as you do of being killed in a terrorist attack. A construction worker is 25 times more likely to die on the job than you are of being killed in a terrorist attack.”

None of this matters when fear can be stoked.

The small minded, bully boys have their fingers in the dike and the one option that might resolve all this remains unexplored—pressuring Israel to make a “just peace” deal, negotiating in good faith, seeking political solutions, not military resolutions. The Administration talks about talk but does so little of it. It is as if the system’s way of thinking and doing is frozen in place.

Back in my life, in my hyperactive brain, is a spreading dread despite my perennial optimism. It is hard for me understand the quiet on the western front, the unwillingness to challenge, to raise questions, to sound the alarm. The economy collapses and most of us say nothing. The media is dominated by trivia and non-reality reality and most of us say nothing. We react to the events of the moment, with little energy left over for concerns about places like the Congo, which is not in the news cycle. Perhaps my going there gave me a strong sense of the urgency and the tragedy or so many suffering. As I wrote, if A Qaeda was there, there would be more American engagement.

It’s been a busy year for me. I traveled the world again, finished two films, wrote a book, wrote endless blogs and commentaries, gave speeches, went to conferences, or in another words, did my thing.

I produced a lot but feel as if I changed so little.

The other day I saw the Kennedy Center honor Bruce Springsteen. He was up in the box with Patty and the Obamas. Jon Stewart was eloquent in praising him, and a variety of great artists paid tribute by singing his songs. But somehow it felt more like nostalgia, as if he joined the pantheon of the good and the great but lost his edge as the social critic. That was less true at the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame show where he sang his oh-so-still-relevant, “Ghost of Tom Joad.”

I thought to myself of my own stories about his work on 20/20 back in 1986 which, pretty much said the same thing. Also, I thought of my work alongside him on the Sun City anti-apartheid song and video. Bruce, the rock and roll rebel, is now lauded by men in tuxes on the Potomac.

How much longer can I do this? I don’t know.

Globalvision and Mediachannel seems to have lost its luster for many, perhaps because a new generation is on the scene. Perhaps because we didn’t have the resources to hype our work and market it. I have a few disappointments but no regrets. I think my own work is better than ever, and I keep going, rolling that rock up the hill, ringing the bells that still can ring. I keep believing that a small army of volunteers can still turn this around but we have been unsuccessful in organizing one.

I end the year as I began working with cool people. My business partner, Rory O’Connor, David Dregraw and Cherie Welch, our many interns, our book keeper Pat Hortsman, our many friends and collaborators, who are still with us. Its been a long journey, a fruitful journey

If our “dissections” has moved you at all, if it has informed you at all, you have ONE DAY to show it with a tax deductible donation to Mediachannel payable by check to the Global Center 575 8th Avenue, New York, New York 10018.

Happy New Years Eve, New Year’s day, and may 2010 be better than the year we are leaving behind.

It can’t be worse!

DANNY SCHECHTER

The News Dissector