Culture of Fear
You may recall I reviewed the book of that name last month, and I posited that there were a great many things about which we don't need to be afraid, but are. I suggested that a great deal of that fear is manufactured out of twisted statistics, dubious facts, personal grudges and, on occasion, whole cloth. I looked at how faulty conclusions or hasty judgments can not only mess with the minds of citizens, but of nations, and that how our love affair with scaring the shit out of ourselves is probably what's going to bring us down someday.
Well, it looks like Barry Glassner might want to start on that revised and updated edition, and make sure to include an entry on the Great Lite Brite Scare of 2007. I refuse to call it the Aqua Teen Hunger Force Scare of 2007 because I've never seen the show, and I think my name sounds better. Nyeah.
So I've been reading and having discussions about this in the last few days, and one of the main defenses of the Boston city government's response was, "Better to err on the side of caution." There is certainly something to that, and if the Lite Brites had been anything but what they were (a flat circuit board with four D batteries on it) I might be more willing to go along with it. If they had been, for example, large bricks of modeling clay with red LED countdown timers wired into them, then I would most certainly say that the police handled things the right way.
But the devices were A) brightly lit and B) in easily visible places for C) three weeks, which would be D) a really stupid way for a terrorist to plant bombs.
This suggests one very important thing to me: the Boston PD are undertrained. The first responders, the people who are more essential that the President or Darth Cheney or the entire city of Washington DC if Boston actually does get attacked by terrorists, can't tell a Lite Brite from a bomb. Or at least they don't have anybody they can call and ask, "Take a look at this - does it look like a bomb to you?" who will then say, "No, it looks like a Lite Brite. Here, just take the batteries out."
So. Lessons learned from 9/11: zero. Which surprises: no one.
This leads me to the city government of Boston. There were ten cities involved in this marketing campaign: Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, Portland, Austin, San Francisco and Philadelphia. Of those ten cities, only Boston went into full terror mode. Which means that either Boston is the only city actually doing its job, or that it's a city really on the edge. I think it's a little bit of both.
And I will be fair: the city of Boston does not have to bear the full burden of mockery for this, at least not yet. The media snapped this up like a Twinkie at fat camp, and put Boston under intense scrutiny by the entire nation. What should have just been a small story - "Police find suspicious items, turn out to be Lite Brites" - becomes a massive Media Event, bringing all of our old favorite fears onto the screen for a quick airing-out. The terrorists are still out there, they could kill you at any time, in any place and there's nothing you can do about it AAAAAAAGGGH! Even worse, these guys look like long-haired hippies! And they're hippies who can do basic electronics! My God! We're DOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMEEEEEEEDDDDD!!!
Mmmm.... what is that I smell? I smell ad revenue going up. Yes indeedy I do.
What is a government supposed to do under that kind of attention? The only thing they know how to do - act tough and pretend they know what they're doing. The problem is, they don't.
They've arrested these two guys and want to charge them with placing a hoax device that results in panic. Well, here's the problem: this wasn't a hoax. A hoax would be taking some paper lunch bags and wrapping them up in electrical tape, punching a couple of wires into them, and then attaching those to a timer of some sort. Then you hide them around the city, and call the police, saying, "I've placed twenty explosive devices around the city of Boston. Go find 'em." And when the police do find them - because you haven't hidden them that well - the paper bags turn out to contain not C4 but little promotional cards that say, "Watch Aqua Teen Hunger Force!"
That's a hoax.
Being spooked by some strange looking lights that have been in plain view of the public for two to three weeks (read that again - three weeks - what if they had been bombs?) is not a hoax, it is a mistake. And the honest thing to do is to get on TV and say, "Well, we overreacted to this one, so we're going to start looking at ways to make sure this doesn't happen again. We're going to look into some new anti-terror training, and once the Department of Homeland Security gets its act together wink wink, we'll be ready to implement it. Until then, we'd like to ask media companies to please just let us know if you're planning to do something like this again. Thank you and good night."
But no, that would make them look "soft on terrorism," as well as "soft on crime" and "soft on dirty hippies who think they're just oh-so-clever," which won't get them re-elected. It would also imply that The State can make mistakes, which simply does not go over well in 21st-century America. The State never makes mistakes.
So they're trying to prosecute under this anti-hoax law, claiming that these two guys, Berdovsky and Stevens, intended to cause a panic by placing bomb-like devices. Problem is, the devices weren't "bomb-like" except in the way that any electronic device in an unexpected location would be "bomb-like." And secondly, the judge in the case already has said he doesn't think they had any intent to create a panic.
Meanwhile, the mayor of Boston, Thomas Menino, is coming across like vice-principal Vernon in The Breakfast Club, threatening to crack some skulls while the entire country tries really hard not to laugh at him. Via Bloomberg: "An apology is not good enough,'' Menino said today in an interview with WBZ radio. "I want them to pay,'' he said of the executives who authorized the campaign. Doesn't this sound like a pissed-off high school vice-principal to you? It does to me....
Here's what I see happening: Berdovsky and Stevens are going to be found not guilty of violating the "Oh shit, what is that thing?" statute, making the mayor's office, the City of Boston and the State of Massachusetts look like a bunch of shadow-scared jackasses. The most they can probably be found guilty of is littering.
It didn't have to go this far, but I'm not surprised that it did. People are still scared shitless, and our governments and our media are making sure we stay that way. Why? Because it's the only thing they know how to do. And that, my friends, is something to get angry about.
Well, it looks like Barry Glassner might want to start on that revised and updated edition, and make sure to include an entry on the Great Lite Brite Scare of 2007. I refuse to call it the Aqua Teen Hunger Force Scare of 2007 because I've never seen the show, and I think my name sounds better. Nyeah.
So I've been reading and having discussions about this in the last few days, and one of the main defenses of the Boston city government's response was, "Better to err on the side of caution." There is certainly something to that, and if the Lite Brites had been anything but what they were (a flat circuit board with four D batteries on it) I might be more willing to go along with it. If they had been, for example, large bricks of modeling clay with red LED countdown timers wired into them, then I would most certainly say that the police handled things the right way.
But the devices were A) brightly lit and B) in easily visible places for C) three weeks, which would be D) a really stupid way for a terrorist to plant bombs.
This suggests one very important thing to me: the Boston PD are undertrained. The first responders, the people who are more essential that the President or Darth Cheney or the entire city of Washington DC if Boston actually does get attacked by terrorists, can't tell a Lite Brite from a bomb. Or at least they don't have anybody they can call and ask, "Take a look at this - does it look like a bomb to you?" who will then say, "No, it looks like a Lite Brite. Here, just take the batteries out."
So. Lessons learned from 9/11: zero. Which surprises: no one.
This leads me to the city government of Boston. There were ten cities involved in this marketing campaign: Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, Portland, Austin, San Francisco and Philadelphia. Of those ten cities, only Boston went into full terror mode. Which means that either Boston is the only city actually doing its job, or that it's a city really on the edge. I think it's a little bit of both.
And I will be fair: the city of Boston does not have to bear the full burden of mockery for this, at least not yet. The media snapped this up like a Twinkie at fat camp, and put Boston under intense scrutiny by the entire nation. What should have just been a small story - "Police find suspicious items, turn out to be Lite Brites" - becomes a massive Media Event, bringing all of our old favorite fears onto the screen for a quick airing-out. The terrorists are still out there, they could kill you at any time, in any place and there's nothing you can do about it AAAAAAAGGGH! Even worse, these guys look like long-haired hippies! And they're hippies who can do basic electronics! My God! We're DOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMEEEEEEEDDDDD!!!
Mmmm.... what is that I smell? I smell ad revenue going up. Yes indeedy I do.
What is a government supposed to do under that kind of attention? The only thing they know how to do - act tough and pretend they know what they're doing. The problem is, they don't.
They've arrested these two guys and want to charge them with placing a hoax device that results in panic. Well, here's the problem: this wasn't a hoax. A hoax would be taking some paper lunch bags and wrapping them up in electrical tape, punching a couple of wires into them, and then attaching those to a timer of some sort. Then you hide them around the city, and call the police, saying, "I've placed twenty explosive devices around the city of Boston. Go find 'em." And when the police do find them - because you haven't hidden them that well - the paper bags turn out to contain not C4 but little promotional cards that say, "Watch Aqua Teen Hunger Force!"
That's a hoax.
Being spooked by some strange looking lights that have been in plain view of the public for two to three weeks (read that again - three weeks - what if they had been bombs?) is not a hoax, it is a mistake. And the honest thing to do is to get on TV and say, "Well, we overreacted to this one, so we're going to start looking at ways to make sure this doesn't happen again. We're going to look into some new anti-terror training, and once the Department of Homeland Security gets its act together wink wink, we'll be ready to implement it. Until then, we'd like to ask media companies to please just let us know if you're planning to do something like this again. Thank you and good night."
But no, that would make them look "soft on terrorism," as well as "soft on crime" and "soft on dirty hippies who think they're just oh-so-clever," which won't get them re-elected. It would also imply that The State can make mistakes, which simply does not go over well in 21st-century America. The State never makes mistakes.
So they're trying to prosecute under this anti-hoax law, claiming that these two guys, Berdovsky and Stevens, intended to cause a panic by placing bomb-like devices. Problem is, the devices weren't "bomb-like" except in the way that any electronic device in an unexpected location would be "bomb-like." And secondly, the judge in the case already has said he doesn't think they had any intent to create a panic.
Meanwhile, the mayor of Boston, Thomas Menino, is coming across like vice-principal Vernon in The Breakfast Club, threatening to crack some skulls while the entire country tries really hard not to laugh at him. Via Bloomberg: "An apology is not good enough,'' Menino said today in an interview with WBZ radio. "I want them to pay,'' he said of the executives who authorized the campaign. Doesn't this sound like a pissed-off high school vice-principal to you? It does to me....
Here's what I see happening: Berdovsky and Stevens are going to be found not guilty of violating the "Oh shit, what is that thing?" statute, making the mayor's office, the City of Boston and the State of Massachusetts look like a bunch of shadow-scared jackasses. The most they can probably be found guilty of is littering.
It didn't have to go this far, but I'm not surprised that it did. People are still scared shitless, and our governments and our media are making sure we stay that way. Why? Because it's the only thing they know how to do. And that, my friends, is something to get angry about.