I’ve been so serious these past two weeks, it’s time to take a brief break to gloat. As my long-time readers know, neither of those modes is my usual. I’m not typically a single-minded terrier, and I try not to be too smug. But sometimes The Kitty just has to pounce on an injustice when it’s fresh and new and potentially reversible. The TSA debacle pushed all of my buttons: Possible harm to my kids? Check. Sexualized violence? Check. Creating novel forms of bodily experience? Ugh – check. Trampling the rule of law? Checkmate!
So let this be my “Moment of Smug,” to paraphrase Colbert. Over the past few days, my post debunking the right-wing meme of TSA favoritism toward Muslim women drew thousands of hits – with this result:
In case you can’t quite read the graphic – and even if you can (because hey, I’m gloating!) – my post, “Not Exempt,” is the first listed on Google after the breaking news links. The first. Number one. Nummer eins. Woo hoo!
Starting tomorrow, instead of all-TSA all-the-time, I’ll be going back to a broader mix of posts. But for a few sweet moments, I’m going to savor my ascendancy over Fox News. Yes, I realize my post floated to the top of Google mainly because 100,000 other posts all regurgitated the same right-wing distortion, while I offered a fresh view. In spite of this, I know many readers merely sought to confirm their wingnutty views. (From my comment spam folder: a commenter with the clever handle “fuck you” tells me to “get fucked.”)
Never mind the haters. I’m still tickled that my information rose above the scum of Islamophobic disinformation. I guess I assumed disinformation always wins because it never fights fair. Some of us feel an inconvenient obligation to the truth, which hobbles you in the fight. It’s lovely to see that sometimes the truth does rise to the top. I’m happier yet that my post might have planted a few seeds of awareness in the minds of people who were sincerely questioning.
Thanks to my readers – old and new – for hanging with me! I’m not dropping the TSA story. You can expect updates when I feel moved to provide them, but they’ll be jumbled in with my usual mishmash of sex, feminism, parenting, kittehs, and any stuff that catches my fancy or pisses me off. For those playing along at home, I’ve put together a list of my TSA posts to date:
- My initial outrage at the new policies
- Do “enhanced” patdowns = sexual assault?
- Hearing the grope-down victims’ voices
- Might the TSA be violating child porn laws?
- What do we know about the scanners’ safety?
- Not everyone is affected equally: on kids and trans people
- Privacy is not a partisan issue!
- The unfair impact on people with disabilities
- The TSA abuses and the long shadow of Abu Ghraib
- Action you can take (as of mid-November 2010)
- And a little comic relief
Also, if you’re not reading Cogitamus, do pop over there. Lisa Simeone has been covering the abuses of the security state in depth for years. Her co-bloggers are excellent too – among them litbrit, who like me wants Sarah Palin to explain her “wild ride.”
It remains to be seen if the TSA will really be forced to revamp their policies. So far, they seem terrified of losing face. In the meantime, though:
Patron cat of Kittywampus (1985-2001)
Congrats on the Google link love!
While it is a lot of seriousness, I really appreciate that you’re writing about this and linking to all these great resources. This is such an important issue but the mainstream news coverage of it is maddening sometimes.
Excellent! You have done some great writing on this and deserve some smugness!
BRAVA, SUNGOLD!! BRAVA, BRAVA, BRAVA!
Congratulations a thousandfold. Though I can’t claim to have risen to the Google Heights as you have, I do understand the sweet smell of smugness when it’s been earned.
Like you, I’ve been ridiculed, sneered at, and dismissed by so many of the supposed intelligentsia, so many supposed journalists, so many modern-day philosophers who supposedly value empirical evidence. And the time of reckoning is sweet.
I don’t enjoy saying “I told you so” to honest people who have an honest disagreement. I do enjoy saying it to knuckleheads and know-it-alls who’ve never sacrificed a thing in their lives, nor stood up for a principle in their lives, yet blithely call us Cassandras fools and jackasses.
We’ve earned it, Sungold. I’ve saved the grammatical intensifiers (i.e., cuss words) for my private correspondence rather than post them here. But oh, by george, how we’ve earned it.
BRAVA from me, too!
As well as a huge Thank You for the posts you and Lisa have been putting up.
I am still shaking my head in amazement at my fellow liberals, the ones who are seemingly okay with this outrageous and unconstitutional behavior by the very people we pay to govern us.
Lisa’s e-mail with the video from the Tampa ABC affiliate–the one in which Greyhound Bus passengers are now getting groped and searched by the TSA–got my husband’s attention in a big way. We will not fly until this b.s. stops. We’re fortunate not to have to–for work, or to visit family, as they all live within an hour’s drive.
Sadly, lots of Americans don’t have that luxury.
You deserve a little smugness–hell, a lot of smugness–and I will raise a glass to you and Lisa tonight*, when I start my TG celebrating (*it might be earlier than that, ha!)
Thanks for the love, all! It was nice to bask for a few moments. Raising a glass is a good idea even on all those other days where we toil in obscurity.
But we are still sooooo far from people getting this. My mom’s response on the phone when I told her I was planning to opt out if selected this coming Thursday: make sure you don’t miss the plane. I am actually planning to get to the airplane plenty early so I won’t risk much. I know I have to get to California.
My mom’s typical of so many good-hearted folks who want to avoid making waves – at all costs. It’s not that she thinks the scanners are wonderful, but she’s not willing to make a fuss.
It’s really dismaying, though, when politically active liberals, journalists, jurists, and other people who generally don’t fear a fuss still close their eyes to abuses. The mainstream media has enjoyed playing this story for a few days because it was full of drama, but they’ve got no principled reason to stay on it. That’s gotta change, but I have no idea how.