The state of the union might be good, but the state of the Union is not. Rog and I are both making statements like “this is our last trip to America”, which now that we have left the US are reinforced by the difference between travelling to and within the US and our experience so far in Europe. What follows borders on political, and is possibly a rant partially fuelled by a can of Danish beer, but I can see no good coming from the US’ obsession with security.
I’m not going to get started on 9/11 or the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan — I don’t have anything to add on these topics. But as a foreign traveller who visited the US a couple of times just prior to 9/11 and on numerous occasions since — a traveller from a supposed key ally and “friend” of the US too, I might add — I am appalled at the way that the US treats its own citizens and its visitors. Dignity and privacy go out the window in a US airport nowadays, or at a foreign airport for flights with US destinations. Apparently it’s the price we have to pay for travelling by air these days.
We have taken what was even only ten or twenty years ago the most prestigious form of travel (with the possible exception of luxury ocean cruising) and turned it into one of the most impersonal, stressful and dehumanising experiences on the planet. In my opinion, anyone who says that deprivation of liberty is a requirement for air travel is part of the problem — we should be intolerant, we should be complaining, we should be angry at what is happening. The longer we “grin and bear it” the more it will become the accepted norm, and what will be next? Every time we accept having our fingerprints and photograph taken at the US border we accept that part of our privacy and liberty be sacrificed to a foreign power, and what will be next?
The secondary issue to this is the attitude displayed by these screening people. I do not doubt for a minute that these folk have a very difficult job — but if our attitude as travellers forms part of the screening process or carries the risk of prosecution, then so should the screeners’ attitudes be kept in check. Are they deliberately being obtuse and agressive in an attempt to solicit a response from would-be aggressors? Who knows. But at the least, I would expect the courteous, respectful treatment that the TSA themselves state I should receive.
Even within the US things are different. The street at the boundary of the South Lawn of the White House in Washington DC has been closed, preventing clear access to one of the nicest White House photo opportunities. Supposedly the most powerful man in the world, and he cowers from his own people behind concrete and steel and men with guns. What happened to the Office of the President being more important than the person holding it?
I’ll post an update after I’m home, once I’ve calmed down from the whole travel scene — it might be that I’m just strung out from too much transit and not enough sleep. I’d really like to think that
Crossed Wires 