Lawrence Upton wrote:
> For the purposes of security management, this labour camp is under
> observation twenty four hours a day, sometimes longer.
>
> Any infringement of rules will be reported and may count against the
> perpetrator when they are assessed for continuance.
>
> Safety management is handled simultaneously but checks are undertaken
> round the clock.
>
> Listen to all announcements.
>
> Obey the guards.
>
> Familiarise yourself with regulations.
>
> Do as you’re told.
>
> Remember thou art dust.
>
> If you see anything suspicious, shout and point at the worrying thing or
> person; but do behave yourselves.
>
> No discussions.
>   

Don't know why I never blogged this. It's from late winter 2008. Maybe I 
got scared and took it down?....


If You See Something, Say Something

It is all over the subways. It is in buses. A poster reminds us that 
last year 1,944 New Yorkers “saw something and said something.”

What did they see besides the paranoid fantasies of their own fearful 
imaginations? What did they see besides what Sean Hannity, Bill 
O’Reilly, and OxyBoy told them to see? “Officer, I live on East 83rd 
Street and I saw a Black man who was not wearing his leash and collar.” 
“Officer, I saw a woman with a head scarf walking on Greenwich Avenue. I 
think she was only pretending to be pregnant, I think that was a big 
load of C4.”

We are told we are all soldiers in the War on Terror. That’s like 
declaring war on acne or on the common cold. It’s about as effective as 
the War on Drugs. Ask any junkie you happen to see….

Terror is a state of mind. When I see a cop I become terrorized.

I am suggesting to you—but of course you will not believe me, dangerous 
radical that I am—that there is no War on Terror. There is a war only on 
the liberty of an American population that is handing over its freedom 
the same way a whore hands over her body. There is a war waged by the 
Drunken Frat Boy and that Vice President from the Undead. “They” don’t 
hate our freedom, *we* hate our freedom. Feed half this population a 
diet of Nascar and cheese fries and they will beat up a Sikh because the 
turban makes them think he’s an Ay-rab. The cholesterol in the junk-food 
diet has gone to the brain tissue of Middle America.

If I see something, say something. Right. I see it each day in lower 
Manhattan. I hear it each day commuting to my work. The announcements 
about being alert for strange packages, especially the one with the 
Death’s Head on the side that says “Contents: Anthrax.” I see it in 
South Ferry subway station: gorgeous dogs—black Labs and German 
Shepherds—who are smarter than the cop handlers who make a point of 
harassing random travelers to make sure they aren’t carrying an Uzi, 
stick of dynamite, or bag of junk, or copy of Mother Jones magazine. I 
see it in the daily shows of force by phalanxes of police cars with 
their lights revolving, intimidating people who work for a living and 
becoming downright forceful with the ones who missed the Prosperity boat.

Seven years after 9/11, we have turned into what Robert Lowell once 
called “cowed compliant sheep.” And there are no wolves out there except 
the ones we feed.


Hey, it's better than a blog.

kw

-- 
----------------------------
Ken Wolman

http://awfulrowing.wordpress.com
http://opensalon.com/blog/kenneth_wolman
http://wearethecure.org/friends/cids-memory-p-394.html