Tuesday, August 10, 2004
Terrorism, 9/11, and America, Part 2
So now I've blamed the media and the irrationality of the fear behind terrorism. What else is there? Well, I'm glad you asked...
As a small detour, I wanted to share this little anecdote. In one of my classes last year, we had a very interesting discussion about why the government, corporations, and consumers spend money on preventing death in some cases, but not others. The professor's point was that we spend billions on the war on terrorism, but less on car safety and heart disease, even though you are far more likely to die from the latter two.
Yes, there are some reasons for why this is the case; heart disease isn't preventable (although I argued that terrorism isn't preventable either), car accidents can sometimes be your own fault. But the professor didn't make any judgments about whether this allocation of money was good or bad, he simply wanted to know why we spent money on it. Some reasons, like painful death avoidance, lawsuit avoidance, preventability, were sensible and obvious. Then, a kid raised his hand and said "Well, we spent a lot of money after 9/11 because America was founded on the principle that you can be free from terrorism here." And he didn't bat an eye. Neither did anyone else in the classroom. Let me just say that the founders of America and the fighters in the American Revolution were considered to BE terrorists. And let me also say to that kid- I have some magnetic bracelets for you to buy.
But the discussion prompted me to think about the pure rationality of the allocation of resources. Obviously you can't just sit down at a computer and say "Where is this billion dollars going to save the most lives?" and allocate accordingly. But the spending of money on the war on terrorism represents the reverse strategy, a total knee-jerk reaction, with no hindsight or foresight at all. If 3,000 people die from flu tomorrow, maybe we'll just switch all that money over there instead. What I am doing is just a cry for a little more thought behind the process. But like I've said before, other factors are at work. If the American sheep think that not enough money is being spent on terrorism, you have to spend more money on terrorism, regardless of whether it is good for them or not.
That's sort of why it was a simpler time when all that mattered on election day was who you thought was going to put more money in your pocket over the next 4 years. Yeah, it was selfish and narrow minded, but at least it made sense, and at least the candidates had a target to shoot at. Now the government has to tell you what to be concerned about, and why they are better at handling those concerns.
Anyway, back to terrorism. Are we at more risk from domestic terrorism than international terrorism? Is it about the same? Vice versa? After the Oklahoma City bombing, everyone blamed a two-man conspiracy, and once we caught those guys, we were assured, they were two nutcases from an otherwise wholesome, content society. Why wasn't our entire intelligence community overhauled then? Was it because we don't want to police our own? Is it racism? Was it because not enough people died? I think it was partly all of these.
In terms of racism, isn't it easier for everyone to blame the Arab population that it is to actually dissect and analyze which people are more likely to be terrorists? There was a situation a while back where a group of Arab men got on an airplane, and the other passengers got so freaked out that they refused to fly with them. Eventually the flight was cancelled. There was another case where a group of Syrians congregated near the bathrooms of the airplane, and proceeded to freak everyone on the airplane out again, causing that flight to be rerouted. Would either of these have happened if it was a group of white guys in the first scenario (of course not) or a group of asian/hispanic/black people in the second? (probably not) Now, either of these incidents may or may not have been done on purpose, but the point is that being prejudiced against Arabs is understood, perhaps even condoned in today's society. And it seems like our security is based on that too.
But it's much easier to chase after international people and secretly go after our own agenda while doing it than it is to actually fix the problems here in the US and the problems with the US policy abroad. Maybe all the Oklahoma City bombing proved to the government was that it was incredibly easy to do PR damage control for domestic terrorism, so they don't have to worry about it. And even though 168 people died, maybe that wasn't enough to get the rest of America scared like they are now.
Yes, it probably helps that we caught McVeigh/Nichols and it probably hurts that we didn't catch Bin Laden. But that is what happened, and now we have to deal with it. But is catching Bin Laden at this point going to do anything? In fact, I can guarantee you that if Bush catches him, he'll say this, more or less verbatim: "While this is a great victory in the war on terror, we have to stay ever vigilant, because the threat of terrorism has not decreased." And the terror alert will stay the same, and airlines will still charge the September 11th security fee (no, not just a security fee, the SEPTEMBER 11th security fee... you can't be upset about that, remember September 11th, it was so horrible, we'll just charge you a few extra dollars, and remember, it was because of September 11th, so it wasn't our fault). And we won't be any safer, and we'll still take the same stupid risks that we always take.
And seriously, that's what we should do. Remember right after the attacks, how people sprung up to sell flags, caps, and less tasteful things ("I can't believe I got out!" t-shirt comes to mind) related to 9/11? Of course you do, they still sell them. Maybe those guys were the biggest patriots of us all, because they didn't let all the hype get to them, and they tried to do the most American thing: make a quick buck off all the suckers standing around them.
So don't let the government spend all your money on the war on terrorism. In the upcoming election, concentrate on more tangible matters, like who is going to make your son's school better, or who will make your health insurance more affordable, or who is going to find the cure for your baldness first. Or at the very least, concentrate on who is going to make you richer. At least that makes sense.
As a small detour, I wanted to share this little anecdote. In one of my classes last year, we had a very interesting discussion about why the government, corporations, and consumers spend money on preventing death in some cases, but not others. The professor's point was that we spend billions on the war on terrorism, but less on car safety and heart disease, even though you are far more likely to die from the latter two.
Yes, there are some reasons for why this is the case; heart disease isn't preventable (although I argued that terrorism isn't preventable either), car accidents can sometimes be your own fault. But the professor didn't make any judgments about whether this allocation of money was good or bad, he simply wanted to know why we spent money on it. Some reasons, like painful death avoidance, lawsuit avoidance, preventability, were sensible and obvious. Then, a kid raised his hand and said "Well, we spent a lot of money after 9/11 because America was founded on the principle that you can be free from terrorism here." And he didn't bat an eye. Neither did anyone else in the classroom. Let me just say that the founders of America and the fighters in the American Revolution were considered to BE terrorists. And let me also say to that kid- I have some magnetic bracelets for you to buy.
But the discussion prompted me to think about the pure rationality of the allocation of resources. Obviously you can't just sit down at a computer and say "Where is this billion dollars going to save the most lives?" and allocate accordingly. But the spending of money on the war on terrorism represents the reverse strategy, a total knee-jerk reaction, with no hindsight or foresight at all. If 3,000 people die from flu tomorrow, maybe we'll just switch all that money over there instead. What I am doing is just a cry for a little more thought behind the process. But like I've said before, other factors are at work. If the American sheep think that not enough money is being spent on terrorism, you have to spend more money on terrorism, regardless of whether it is good for them or not.
That's sort of why it was a simpler time when all that mattered on election day was who you thought was going to put more money in your pocket over the next 4 years. Yeah, it was selfish and narrow minded, but at least it made sense, and at least the candidates had a target to shoot at. Now the government has to tell you what to be concerned about, and why they are better at handling those concerns.
Anyway, back to terrorism. Are we at more risk from domestic terrorism than international terrorism? Is it about the same? Vice versa? After the Oklahoma City bombing, everyone blamed a two-man conspiracy, and once we caught those guys, we were assured, they were two nutcases from an otherwise wholesome, content society. Why wasn't our entire intelligence community overhauled then? Was it because we don't want to police our own? Is it racism? Was it because not enough people died? I think it was partly all of these.
In terms of racism, isn't it easier for everyone to blame the Arab population that it is to actually dissect and analyze which people are more likely to be terrorists? There was a situation a while back where a group of Arab men got on an airplane, and the other passengers got so freaked out that they refused to fly with them. Eventually the flight was cancelled. There was another case where a group of Syrians congregated near the bathrooms of the airplane, and proceeded to freak everyone on the airplane out again, causing that flight to be rerouted. Would either of these have happened if it was a group of white guys in the first scenario (of course not) or a group of asian/hispanic/black people in the second? (probably not) Now, either of these incidents may or may not have been done on purpose, but the point is that being prejudiced against Arabs is understood, perhaps even condoned in today's society. And it seems like our security is based on that too.
But it's much easier to chase after international people and secretly go after our own agenda while doing it than it is to actually fix the problems here in the US and the problems with the US policy abroad. Maybe all the Oklahoma City bombing proved to the government was that it was incredibly easy to do PR damage control for domestic terrorism, so they don't have to worry about it. And even though 168 people died, maybe that wasn't enough to get the rest of America scared like they are now.
Yes, it probably helps that we caught McVeigh/Nichols and it probably hurts that we didn't catch Bin Laden. But that is what happened, and now we have to deal with it. But is catching Bin Laden at this point going to do anything? In fact, I can guarantee you that if Bush catches him, he'll say this, more or less verbatim: "While this is a great victory in the war on terror, we have to stay ever vigilant, because the threat of terrorism has not decreased." And the terror alert will stay the same, and airlines will still charge the September 11th security fee (no, not just a security fee, the SEPTEMBER 11th security fee... you can't be upset about that, remember September 11th, it was so horrible, we'll just charge you a few extra dollars, and remember, it was because of September 11th, so it wasn't our fault). And we won't be any safer, and we'll still take the same stupid risks that we always take.
And seriously, that's what we should do. Remember right after the attacks, how people sprung up to sell flags, caps, and less tasteful things ("I can't believe I got out!" t-shirt comes to mind) related to 9/11? Of course you do, they still sell them. Maybe those guys were the biggest patriots of us all, because they didn't let all the hype get to them, and they tried to do the most American thing: make a quick buck off all the suckers standing around them.
So don't let the government spend all your money on the war on terrorism. In the upcoming election, concentrate on more tangible matters, like who is going to make your son's school better, or who will make your health insurance more affordable, or who is going to find the cure for your baldness first. Or at the very least, concentrate on who is going to make you richer. At least that makes sense.
# posted by Stuart @ 7:14 PM 
Comments:
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Hey Stu, mostly I agree with you, but the part about racism (in both of your posts on the subject) struck me as one-sided. It's true that suspicion of Arab Americans rose sharply and unfairly after the attacks, but to drop the blanket-condemnation of 'racism' on this is also unfair. Remember that the attacks themselves were a profoundly racist act--the result of an unfair characterization of all Americans. It was a lynching.
Imagine a southern black neighborhood sixty years ago, two weeks after a kid from that neighborhood was lynched. Can the feelings toward whites that pervade that neighborhood (anger, some hatred, distrust--all tempered and confused by the knowledge that not all white people are like that)--can those feelings be called racism? Would it make any sense to tell the people in that neighborhood, "Hey, stop being such racists! Stop looking at white guys differently than everybody else, you buncha racist idiots!"
I don't think so. It's more complicated than 'racism.' I think you may be vastly undervaluing the racial sensitivity and restraint that Americans have shown since 9/11. While, obviously, most if not all Americans were unable to prevent a change in their subconscious perception of Arab(or Arab-looking) people, such a prevention is simply not a realistic thing to expect. A neighborhood kid was lynched, and it would require superhuman restraint to avoid a feeling of murderous anger toward the people (not the RACE, the PEOPLE--but when almost all the people you're talking about are the same race, these things get rhetorically muddled) who took part in the lynching, or approved of it.
Racial conflict is much, much older than civilization. The feelings and instincts you're dismissing as racism are older than language. Dismissing them won't make them go away. Calling them 'racism' doesn't make them preventable.
Imagine a southern black neighborhood sixty years ago, two weeks after a kid from that neighborhood was lynched. Can the feelings toward whites that pervade that neighborhood (anger, some hatred, distrust--all tempered and confused by the knowledge that not all white people are like that)--can those feelings be called racism? Would it make any sense to tell the people in that neighborhood, "Hey, stop being such racists! Stop looking at white guys differently than everybody else, you buncha racist idiots!"
I don't think so. It's more complicated than 'racism.' I think you may be vastly undervaluing the racial sensitivity and restraint that Americans have shown since 9/11. While, obviously, most if not all Americans were unable to prevent a change in their subconscious perception of Arab(or Arab-looking) people, such a prevention is simply not a realistic thing to expect. A neighborhood kid was lynched, and it would require superhuman restraint to avoid a feeling of murderous anger toward the people (not the RACE, the PEOPLE--but when almost all the people you're talking about are the same race, these things get rhetorically muddled) who took part in the lynching, or approved of it.
Racial conflict is much, much older than civilization. The feelings and instincts you're dismissing as racism are older than language. Dismissing them won't make them go away. Calling them 'racism' doesn't make them preventable.
# posted by 
: 7:40 AM
: 7:40 AM
I still stand by and call it racism, even though the reasons behind it are complex. Like I said in my earlier racism post, I believe any prejudice based on racial lines is racist (I am NOT saying that I am free of prejudices), and I think I would probably have been nervous on that flight as well. I am not immune to irrationalism either. But I was perusing a few forums last night talking about the incidents on the plane, and I ran into a forum, I think it was rightnation.us, or something, where people were absolutely proud to be racists. They said things like "I sat down next to the only middle-eastern person on the flight and made sure he didn't get up the entire flight" and "I'll make a pact with the 5 biggest white americans that we go and talk to each of the ragheads on the plane..."
Now you can't imagine them saying this about any other race. Yeah, they probably are anti-other things, but they mask this hatred for Arabs within a guise of patriotism, and then display it proudly for everyone to see.
So I admit, calling it racism is a little simpleminded, but I use a simpleminded definition of racism. And sometimes, when people are racist against you, the easiest choice is to be racist against them. But I think we can agree that it doesn't solve the problem.
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Now you can't imagine them saying this about any other race. Yeah, they probably are anti-other things, but they mask this hatred for Arabs within a guise of patriotism, and then display it proudly for everyone to see.
So I admit, calling it racism is a little simpleminded, but I use a simpleminded definition of racism. And sometimes, when people are racist against you, the easiest choice is to be racist against them. But I think we can agree that it doesn't solve the problem.
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