LOS ANGELES SHOOTING DAMAGE

Melissa Harris-Perry on MSNBC mentioned something about the aftermath of the Los Angeles airport shooting I found interesting.  She said something along the lines of, “as a result of the shooting, private security firms will be busy trying to figure out some new product to sell”. Her comment brought to mind a couple of my favorite book Jeremy Scahill, Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army, which is an example of over response, and Naomi Klein’s, Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, which explains the principles involved. A single demented gunman with an assault rifle killed one and wounded three in an airport and it has worldwide repercussion. Some nut case tried to use a cigarette lighter to light his tennis shoe (TSA) on an airplane in 2001 and the government formed an agency, which literally forces millions and millions of people to take off their shoes at airports. In the human mind, events like these are additive, taken personally, and blown way out of proportion. In addition, there are people who are “advantage takers”; those who watch everything like vultures looking for opportunity. They work overtime trying to figure out how to make money out of situations driven by our innate desire for a feeling of personal safety knowing public official often spend money foolishly for things for which they would not normally spend money—the Shock Doctrine principle.

In addition, there is a shift in public sentiment involved. People look at the TSA as an example of the government being intrusive in their lives. The same people who abhor a nanny government are the ones who called for increased government activity—the original TSA legislation was written by a “big government” hating Republican and signed into law by an equally “big government” hating Republican, George Bush. Without a detailed accounting, it is difficult to determine how much privatization has taken place in TSA activities; meaning that private companies make the profits and the government take the blame. There are several big airports where the TSA function is entirely under private control; hence, profit making. In addition, detection equipment manufacturing—metal detection and imaging devices of all kinds—are costly to tax payers.  The obvious inconveniences and delays at airports is a source of irritation to travelers. The big government haters and the “cut taxes not matter what” crowd do not seem to mind spending money foolishly. Enough liberals in congress go along with these sentiments to make it easy to pass laws that go to excess—again, the shock doctrine.     

The sides taken in the argument are not along political lines. Both sides argues that we must have air transportation protection while it is obvious that no amount of protection can be perfect, which creates the perfect field for advantage takes. Sadly, it is also a perfect field for terrorists. There is a direct correlation between cost and effectiveness but also between effectiveness and personal invasiveness. The example of the surgically implanted bombs in suicide bombers indicates the hopelessness of the situation. The dangers of x-irradiation take the situation to the level of causing more public health harm than do good; we hurt ourselves trying to protect ourselves.  This is the same correlation terrorist of any description, home grown or foreign, are looking for, the smallest act to inflict the most damage.  In the Los Angels airport shooting, there was one person dead and three wounded, but only time will tell how much economic damage we will do to ourselves.

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