The Angry Exile: Security Theatre.

The Hangman

Into our town the Hangman came,
Smelling of gold and blood and flame.
And he paced our bricks with a diffident air,
And built his frame in the courthouse square.
The scaffold stood by the courthouse side,
Only as wide as the door was wide;
A frame as tall, or little more,
Than the capping sill of the courthouse door.
And we wondered, whenever we had the time,
Who the criminal, what the crime
That the Hangman judged with the yellow twist
of knotted hemp in his busy fist.
And innocent though we were, with dread,
We passed those eyes of buckshot lead --
Till one cried: "Hangman, who is he
For whom you raised the gallows-tree?"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
And he gave us a riddle instead of reply:
"He who serves me best," said he,
"Shall earn the rope of the gallows-tree."
And he stepped down, and laid his hand
On a man who came from another land.
And we breathed again, for another's grief
At the Hangman's hand was our relief
And the gallows-frame on the courthouse lawn
By tomorrow's sun would be struck and gone.
So we gave him way, and no one spoke,
Out of respect for his Hangman's cloak.
The next day's sun looked mildly down
On roof and street in our quiet town,
And stark and black in the morning air
Was the gallows-tree in the courthouse square.
And the Hangman stood at his usual stand
With the yellow hemp in his busy hand;
With his buckshot eye and his jaw like a pike
And his air so knowing and business-like.
And we cried, "Hangman, have you not done
Yesterday, with the foreign one?"
Then we fell silent, and stood amazed,
"Oh, not for him was the gallows raised."
He laughed a laugh as he looked at us:
"Did you think I'd gone to all this fuss
To hang one man? That's a thing I do
To stretch a rope when the rope is new."
Then one cried "Murder!" and one cried "Shame!"
And into our midst the Hangman came
To that man's place. "Do you hold," said he,
"with him that was meant for the gallows-tree?"
And he laid his hand on that one's arm.
And we shrank back in quick alarm!
And we gave him way, and no one spoke
Out of fear of his Hangman's cloak.
That night we saw with dread surprise
The Hangman's scaffold had grown in size.
Fed by the blood beneath the chute,
The gallows-tree had taken root;
Now as wide, or a little more,
Than the steps that led to the courthouse door,
As tall as the writing, or nearly as tall,
Halfway up on the courthouse wall.
The third he took -- we had all heard tell --
Was a usurer, and an infidel.
"What," said the Hangman "have you to do
With the gallows-bound, and he a Jew?"
And we cried out, "Is this one he
Who has served you well and faithfully?"
The Hangman smiled: "It's a clever scheme
to try the strength of the gallows-beam."
The fourth man's dark, accusing song
Had scratched our comfort hard and long;
"And what concern," he gave us back.
"Have you for the doomed -- the doomed and Black?"
The fifth. The sixth. And we cried again,
"Hangman, Hangman, is this the man?"
"It's a trick," he said. "that we hangmen know
For easing the trap when the trap springs slow."
And so we ceased, and asked no more,
As the Hangman tallied his bloody score.
And sun by sun, and night by night,
The gallows grew to monstrous height.
The wings of the scaffold opened wide
Till they covered the square from side to side;
And the monster cross-beam, looking down,
Cast its shadow across the town.
Then through the town the Hangman came,
Through the empty streets, and called my name --
And I looked at the gallows soaring tall,
And thought, "There is no one left at all
For hanging, and so he calls to me
To help pull down the gallows-tree."
So I went out with right good hope
To the Hangman's tree and the Hangman's rope.
He smiled at me as I came down
To the courthouse square through the silent town.
And supple and stretched in his busy hand
Was the yellow twist of the hempen strand.
And he whistled his tune as he tried the trap,
And it sprang down with a ready snap --
And then with a smile of awful command
He laid his hand upon my hand.
"You tricked me. Hangman!," I shouted then,
"That your scaffold was built for other men...
And I no henchman of yours," I cried,
"You lied to me, Hangman. Foully lied!"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
"Lied to you? Tricked you?" he said. "Not I.
For I answered straight and I told you true --
The scaffold was raised for none but you.
For who has served me more faithfully
Then you with your coward's hope?" said he,
"And where are the others who might have stood
Side by your side in the common good?"
"Dead," I whispered. And amiably
"Murdered," the Hangman corrected me:
"First the foreigner, then the Jew...
I did no more than you let me do."
Beneath the beam that blocked the sky
None had stood so alone as I.
The Hangman noosed me, and no voice there
Cried "Stop!" for me in the empty square.

Maurice Ogden

Wednesday, 10 February 2010

Security Theatre.

Two non surprises over airport security recently. First is that the new body scanners are going to be inflicted on us here in Australia as well as the rest of the free-for-a-given-value-of-'free' world that is governed by knee jerk politics and poll obsessed fuckwits. Second, the first claims of abuse of the system and the copying and circulation of images have already emerged.

Now maybe this is bullshit and it's just a bit of self publicity on the part of Shah Rukh Khan, and to be fair it is being denied by BAA. But on the other hand any staff that did do what's been claimed are hardly likely to have circulated it round the whole company. Even if they had done so in my tin foil hat moments I might well be prepared to believe that they might have been taken aside somewhere and told that it was all very embarrassing for the company and the government, and that their ongoing employment would therefore be tied closely to their continuing silence on the matter.

As I said not so long ago, far from helping win the fight against religious headcases all this security theatre is handing them a major fucking victory.

... why is the UK even bothering to carry on fighting in the 'Stan? Why, when the chickenshits in charge have already let terrorists score so many victories? Attacked supposedly for our decadent, western, freedom loving ways the whole fucking west responds by restricting the freedom of its citizens. Thanks to knowing which buttons to press a few headjobs have ensured that getting on a plane is now a colossal pain in the arse and that you can't take a photograph without attracting the attention of some overbearing, gum chewing, busybody, bullying cocksocket who makes Constable Savage look reasonable.
...
What the fuck happened over the last ten years? When did we become such softcocks? When did we let other people decide for us whether it's safe to go somewhere? Why do so many of us roll over so meekly and allow our fucking governments - the cunts that are supposed to be elected to make sure what we say gets done (yes, ahahahahahahahahaha, I know, ahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha) - to hand the win to religious nutters because there might be yet another one prepared to set his underpants on fire?
...
The bottom line is that by changing our lives so much for the terrorist threat we lose and they win.

And I still stand by that now. This is a step backwards for freedom and therefore a massive own goal. At this point I'd be inclined to say harden the fuck up, but as I discovered via Obo not long after I wrote those words it's not even fucking necessary. If the Israelis don't have to put up with all this shit and three hours of fucking security checks at the airport - yes, the Israelis DON'T go through all this* - then there's no plausible reason why the rest of us should have to either.

"Israelis, unlike Canadians and Americans, don't take s--- from anybody. When the security agency in Israel (the ISA) started to tighten security and we had to wait in line for – not for hours – but 30 or 40 minutes, all hell broke loose here. We said, `We're not going to do this. You're going to find a way that will take care of security without touching the efficiency of the airport.'"

And they did. Without reiterating it all (read the links for details of how Israel does things at Ben Gurion International) they don't put travellers through the purgatory experience we do but they don't feel like they sacrificed security - if anything they'd probably argue the exact reverse. In the USA, UK, parts of Europe and now Australia our governments have taken the approach of buying very expensive pieces of equipment that they make lots of claims about but that potentially can be defeated by a number of techniques, and in any case have already been shown to miss things that they are supposed to pick up.

Still, as long as the companies that make the fucking things are coining it in, eh?

But what really fucks me off is the number or people who are completely missing the point. It's not that someone gets to see your cock or your tits, or in some cases both.

The real outrage is that the default position of governments, airport operators and security staff throughout nominally free societies - most especially the Home of the Unfree and the land of the Slave, whose collective overreaction to what Europeans had been putting up with for decades I suspect is behind much of this - is to assume that each and every passenger is a terrorist. Remember that next time you fly. It was bad enough in the days when you were thought of as Self Loading Freight wanting a fortnight in Benidorm. Now, just by the act of buying a plane ticket, we are automatically suspected of being Suicidal Looney Fruitcake after an eternity in Paradise.

Cunts.

* Until they arrive in Europe, Australia or the United States, obviously.