Delta-Northwest, AirTran, Ft. Hood and GMTruth is stirring among the people; the government/media complex cannot contain it When the Ft. Hood Islamic terrorist attack occurred, we wrote of the increasingly wide disconnect between what the people know and think, and what the government/media complex wants them to know and think. The same phenomenon is occurring with respect to the media’s coverage and non-coverage of the Islamic terrorist activity on AirTran flight #297, and the more recent, and less ignorable Islamic terrorist activity on Delta-Northwest flight #253. The American people—and particularly that segment of the American people that engages in a lot of flying, which includes most of the producers in this country—are furious at the hamstrung, politically correct idiocy that passes for leadership in the US government, and in particular at the Department of Homeland Security. The American people are not stuck on stupid, but the government is. The outrage is not going away; it is building. And in what may seem on the surface to be unrelated, when the takeover of GM occurred, we wrote of how that would be the end of GM, because the people don’t like what the government has done, and they will stop buying GM cars. Here’s the connection: the airlines are rapidly going to go under unless and until they make it clear that there has been a clear and unmistakable shift in their approach to flight security—namely, that they will no longer screen for weapons; they will screen for terrorists. Yes, they will profile. And if they don’t or won’t do so, their customers will cease to buy their service. The amount of air travel that is truly ‘mandatory’ is not enough to keep one airline afloat, much less an entire industry. And if the airlines keep feeding the public the nonsense that the TSA is up to the task in the face of more and more incidents that plainly show the opposite, there will be a mushrooming customer revolt. So it will be interesting to watch the airline executives deal with this reality. Because first and foremost, they know it is the reality. They can spin all they want about these Islamic terrorist incidents as ‘isolated’ or really just cases of ‘unruly passengers’ or some other such blather, or they can try a palms-to-the-ceiling, security-is-the-government’s-job approach, but the people aren’t buying any of it anymore (if they ever did), and they are about to—as the saying goes—‘vote with their feet’. The executives know exactly what needs to be done, but it’s not clear that even one of them has the guts to denounce the American government for failing to take the action that is required. They are so afraid they might need a bailout that they will play along with whatever PC nonsense the government decides to spout. This is so pathetic and so unnecessary. As IBM likes to say, we can build a smarter planet. An unparalleled technological capability exists for sophisticated and accurate terrorist profiling—by gender, age group, country of origin and religion. The result would be a safer airline experience for everyone, including peaceful Muslims. All that’s missing is the willingness to do it, caused by a naivete as to the difference between good and evil, and a foolish read of history that would turn American constitutional freedoms into a suicide pact. Americans don’t agree that Islamists have the right to kill us all because of something called ‘freedom of religion’. Americans want to see Muslims change their religion’s dictates regarding infidels and sharia law, or get out of America and stay off American airlines. It's that simple. Paul Gable December 28, 2009 |