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CounterPunch
October
1, 2002
Bush's Name
Game
Making
a List & Checking It Twice
by
BEN TRIPP
The Men in Charge are making lists again. Lists
of Americans who may not fly on airplanes. Lists of Americans
who visit libraries, and what books they read. Lists of Americans
who attend protests, and lists of Americans with names similar
to the names of convicted felons, or who were born around the
same time.
Most Americans aren't concerned: they
don't fly on airplanes. They don't visit the library or read
books. They sure as hell don't go to protests, and they've never
gotten a felon's birthday card by mistake.
What's the problem?
The problem is lists are like rat's teeth:
they never stop growing. Our nation learned this once when the
Red Scare happened, and anybody with the faintest affiliation
to anything even remotely a gauche of center ended up
on a list. It could be a list of members of the Pasadena Lawn
Bowling Club, didn't matter. You ended up on one of those lists,
and the next thing your application for credit at the mattress
store was turned down. "We don't bed Reds," the clerk
would darkly intone, and there you were, sleeping on the davenport
without any idea why.
You think you can't end up on one of
these lists, or that it doesn't matter even if you do? Anybody
can end up on a list. You take a local check at your yard sale
from a swarthy guy who claims to be collecting old Patti LaBelle
LPs. What if that guy is on the FBI Swarthy Guy list? What
if he spends his spare time making anthrax? You may never know,
but the FBI will add you to their list of People He Has Transactions
With. How about if you're behind him in line at the 7-11 when
a surveillance team takes his photo?
Agent 1: "Who's the person behind
him? The one picking her nose?"
Agent 2: "She could be passing microfilm
to him, concealed inside nose potatoes. Let's put her on the
list."
Even if you agree with everything the
Administration is doing, you can end up on a list (for example
the list of people born without cerebrums). And if you're on
a list, and that list intersects with another list, you will
end up on two lists, and that makes you somebody to watch: you're
a connected dot.
Maybe you're somebody whose computer
needs examining while you're away. Maybe your boss will be told
about you, or your bank. All kinds of things can happen, because
nobody really knows what all of the lists are for. The people
who use them are just looking for patterns. According to chaos
dynamics, they will find the patterns they are looking for, just
as conspiracy theorists do. But this isn't conspiracy theory.
These lists are real, and they are in use today.
20 Wisconsin anti-war activists (not
an inherently violent group) were recently detained and searched
at an airport because they were on a "No Fly" list.
Did you know there is a "No Fly" list? The activists
missed their flight; ironically they were going to meet with
their congressional representatives, who did not see fit to search
them when they finally showed up. Nobody knows who maintains
this list; it's just there, and names are added to it all the
time.
Dozens of other Americans have been detained
in a similar manner in recent months. They're all on two lists
now: the list that got them detained at the airport to begin
with, and another list of people who were detained at airports,
and probably a third list of people who show up on at least two
other lists. The cycle never ends.
And it's not just a question of having
to take the bus instead of an airplane: what if you once hosted
a birthday party at which a kid named José Padilla showed
up? Kind of moody boy, kept gnawing the lawn furniture, but
he was in your daughter's class at school, so. . . Mr. Padilla
has gone to permanent, no-trial prison. You bet his derriere
was on a list or two, and once they get done researching his
past, your derriere will be on a list as well. A scary list.
A suspicious derriere list.
Will you wake up one morning to discover
your free life is over, and you now have no right to a trial,
or your family, or anything, ever again? You think being on
the Reader's Digest mailing list is bad, try the José
Padilla list.
"But," you chuckle, "I
would never allow my child to consort with ethnic children of
any stripe."
It doesn't matter.
Maybe you have the same birthday as him,
or you were on the same airplane one day. Lists get longer and
longer. They multiply. They feed on names.
Just remember this: Santa Claus has a
list of who's been naughty and nice, and it has been verified
on two separate occasions. If the Feds get hold of that list,
there may be a nasty surprise waiting for you on Christmas morning.
Ben Tripp
is a screenwriter.
He can be reached at: credel@earthlink.net
© 2002 by Ben Tripp
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September
21 / 22, 2002
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