Never before have the words to Simon and Garfunkel’s “America,” meant more to me than they have following a weekend trip to Hardwick, Vermont as we flew out of Burlington.
I don’t fly often. In fact, before this past weekend, the last time I flew was 2005. I am not afraid of flying, my late uncle, my brother and a high school friend all had private pilot’s licenses at one time in their lives and each one of them took me “up” for short flights in small, 2 and 4 seat planes.
I am afraid of airport security. I AM NOT A CRIMINAL. I am a progressive-populist who believes in civil rights, personal liberty, human dignity and who happens to be married to a man who has been a community organizer for 30 years of his adult life. Trained by the irascible Shel Trapp (who ascended from a line of organizers trained by or through the work of Saul Alinsky), my husband’s work in various parts of the country, teaching people to advocate for themselves with their government bodies on a wide range of issues has earned him a thick FBI file and line placement on many government lists. He ALWAYS gets x-rayed at airports.
Sunday, July 27, we got in line to print our tickets at the United Airlines Counter at the Burlington, Vermont “international” airport. We entered a line to either check our bags or print our tickets at a “self-service” kiosk. There were two lines waiting for two kiosks. Out of 4 kiosks, only half were actually functioning. As we stood in a growing line for “economy” travel, people who had paid “premier” rates entered a non-existent line labeled accordingly. Essentially, they paid for the privilege of “cutting” in line through frequent flier miles and by paying an additional $2,500.00 to $10,000.00 fee.
In America, it no longer matters whether or not you have paid, but how much you have paid. Now, I have been ahead of the game, verbally and vehemently standing against the patriot act and its growing invasion of our personal privacy in our homes, cars and workplaces through computer cameras, smart phones, emails and land-line surveillance. I am adamantly against the SCOTUS’ recent fascist decisions making money, speech and corporations, “people” with religious liberties; ALL of which overpower and outweigh the speech and religious liberties of real human beings. I have been frightened by these things and more, including a “liberal Democratic” President who used to be a Constitutional Law Senior Lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School and not only entered the oval office without dismantling a single outcome of George W. Bush’s original Patriot Act, but expanded its purview through the continual and growing collection of information stored at ever growing in number and breadth National Security information hubs. Then he ran the whistleblower, Edward Snowen, out of the country to Russia to avoid treason charges.
But this past Sunday, even my personal sense of equality was assaulted when we had to stand in line 5, 6, 7, 10, 15 times longer than a few others because the few could pay extra to cut in line. They are now called “Premier” customers. The situation was compounded by lack of available kiosks and what looked to be a 12 year old untrained girl who was supposed to be “handling” the lines but had absolutely no common sense available to do so. While the economy line grew beyond the queuing partitions and overflowed outside United’s allotted counter space into the main lobby of the airport; the people who paid more could cut in line.
I would not have noticed this as much if there had been kiosks devoted to “economy” and others devoted to “premier” United customers, but there was no such thing. I complained and was immediately chastised by the little “12” year-old privileged blond white girl, who responded to me saying tartly, “I can’t help that; that is the 'Premier Line.'” I walked away, but not unaffected. Rather than my husband being x-rayed or frisked, I experienced both, in addition to the bag I carried being run through the conveyor belt x-ray twice.
I realize that it may finally have been my time to experience such treatment and perhaps I am feeling some airport security paranoia, but when I spouted off at the bag checkers, “If the pancake mix we received from friends is too suspicious to fly, take it out and throw it away.”
One of the young men doing the bag checking said quickly and seemingly to me, a bit nervously, “We just need to double check.”
I was then ushered into the x-ray area where I had to spread my feet wide enough for sex (why don’t the Catholic men on SCOTUS do something about that unladylike stance) and then be frisked down my left hip and leg because there was “something suspicious sticking out under my skirt.”
The woman who did the frisking nervously asked me, “Do you have something on underneath your skirt?”
When I angrily replied, “My underwear!” She shook her head briefly, her complexion pinking a bit and let me go. By the way, my organizer husband unexpectedly “breezed” through security.
Now, at places like Sea World, you can pay extra money beyond your admission ticket price and are able to cut in line all day long, at every attraction, as many times as you want. I don’t mind people paying extra to have better seats—but they still have to wait in the same line. I don’t mind people having more expensive meals than do I at a restaurant, but they still have to stand in the same line.
I have sooooooo many LIBERAL friends who do not believe there is a bona fide class system in the U.S.A., but there is. There always has been and it is getting worse. Now, if I have enough money, I can live in a gated community, ride in my armored, fossil fuel guzzling car with body guards and fly my equally gas guzzling private jet all over the world. My stellar credit rating touts to the world that I have enough money to purchase character (whatever that is), enables me to buy politicians, foreclose on homes illegally and call the public police department to pepper spray people demonstrating on public sidewalks against the fraud and money laundering that brought the economy to its knees in the first place. I can purchase better seats at concerts, plays and sporting events, eat more expensive dinners at first class restaurants, stay at 5-star hotels and buy my clothing at outrageously priced boutiques.
BUT NOW, even if I don’t have enough money to do any of those things, I can pay $19.00 dollars extra at Sea World and feel more important than most of the schleps at the park with me. I can imagine I am better than everyone else because I had extra money and paid to cut in line!
Bill Maher was absolutely spot-on this weekend when he said that ALL “corporations in the USA have gotten too big to care.” The rest of us have become too frightened and complacent to fight; and probably rightly so. When you complain, you get frisked. Keep your mouth shut and go through the gate.
That’s why I too, join Simon and Garfunkel on a quest “to look for America!”