Een verdeeld land?

[Cees Binkhorst]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

Wonderlijk hoe delen van Amerika er totaal anders over denken dan
andere delen, zoals blijkt uit onderstaande verhalen.
Ben benieuwd wat voor interne consequenties dat gaat hebben, zowel
binnen Californie en Washington(State) als binnen de VS als geheel.

Overigens gaat de staatsinmenging in de privacy van VS-burgers gewoon
door. Het laatste wat ik tegenkwam was een voorstel om het de politie
mogelijk te maken de email e.d. van burgers voor een korte periode te
volgen (=lezen) zonder enige verplichting te zorgen voor
gerechtelijke goedkeuring vooraf.

Kennelijk hebben sommige mensen nog nooit gehoord van het gezegde dat
'Absolute macht absoluut corrumpeert.'

Groet,

Cees

Move to War Leaves Some Feeling Alienated
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/20/international/worldspecial/20WEST.ht
ml

SAN FRANCISCO, March 19 — As Americans braced in recent days for a
war against Iraq, many Californians were feeling strangely out of it.
The great expanse between the two coasts appeared ever vaster. The
sense of threat, so acute in the East, was real but less immediate
here.

The University of California Board of Regents canceled a meeting in
San Francisco today because of "concerns about travel," but the
National Guard soldiers posted at the Golden Gate Bridge amounted to
a small fraction of the deployments in New York or Washington.

Even when the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences decided to
forgo the traditional red carpet entrance to Sunday's Oscar
ceremonies in Los Angeles, officials said it was more a matter of
wartime propriety than battle-eve jitters.

>From stockbrokers in San Francisco to software engineers in Silicon
Valley to studio executives in Los Angeles, many Californians were
puzzled by the connection between the terror attacks of Sept. 11 and
the danger posed by Saddam Hussein, something taken for granted in
many other parts of the country.

"I am hoping the administration has so much more knowledge that it
can justify its actions, because on the face of it, I can't see a
reason for doing this," said David Randall, a philanthropic fund-
raiser in San Francisco.

"There are many good reasons to get rid of Saddam," Mr. Randall said.
"But when did the events of Sept. 11 get transformed into going to
war with Iraq? Why war with this one country, right now? I can't
figure out how we got to this point."

That confusion is evident even though California has contributed more
men and women to the call-up of reservists and National Guard forces
than any other state. The defense industry pumps about $30 billion a
year into California's economy. And while 29 military bases were
closed in the 1990's, 61 installations remain in use statewide.

But California's isolation from Washington, both geographically and,
in recent years, politically, has helped foster a sense of
alienation. The state, which had such an affinity for Bill Clinton,
voted decisively against President Bush in 2000.

"There is a growing disbelief among Californians that the White House
is really representing their views and interests," said Mark
Baldassare, the director of research at the Public Policy Institute
of California, a nonpartisan group in San Francisco that recently
conducted an opinion poll of public attitudes toward President Bush,
the war, which was then imminent, and other issues.

Mr. Baldassare said this attitude had been building for several
years, starting with the state's energy crisis and the
administration's handling of it. "Because of this disconnect," he
said, "many Californians don't give the president the benefit of the
doubt on the issue of Iraq any more than they give the president the
benefit of the doubt on whether we really need to do away with taxes
on dividends or whether a tax cut will lead to a better economy."

In fact, many people acknowledged that they might feel differently if
a Democrat were leading them into battle. "I was wondering if I would
feel more comfortable if it were Bill Clinton and Al Gore saying we
needed to do this now, and I think I would," said Felicia Marcus, who
was the regional administrator in California for the United States
Environmental Protection Agency in the Clinton administration.

During some lunchtime and office-cooler chatter there has even been
longing for President Clinton, a Hollywood favorite, who, the
reasoning goes, would never have allowed a war to play havoc with
Oscar night, one of the state's most hallowed traditions.

By some accounts, the chasm in attitudes between East and West is new
only in its intensity. Many residents have always enjoyed thinking of
themselves as different from the rest of the country, especially
those working in the Hollywood pop-culture factory.

"Californians love that sense of distinctiveness," said Peter Bart,
editor of Variety. "We're not going to see the 60's again, but I
think we are going to see a lot of rebellion against the mandates of
Washington. This is an unpredictable and bizarre place, and I think
we are definitely heading into an intensely politicized time in
Hollywood."

Since many of the most prominent antiwar spokesmen in recent months
have been Hollywood celebrities, this has further bolstered
California's self-image and the state's image around the country as
the epicenter of antiwar sentiment. The Academy Awards on Sunday
night, if they come off as planned, will probably only harden that
perception.

Robert Greenwald, a Hollywood producer and director who helped found
Artists United to Win Without War, said a number of celebrities had
committed to wearing antiwar pins at the awards, including Ben
Affleck, Kirsten Dunst, Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal, Dustin Hoffman,
Jessica Lange, Meryl Streep and the entire U2 rock band.

Doubting in California, however, is not the sole province of
Hollywood, or even of the career leftists and peace advocates who
were among those blocking streets today in downtown San Francisco.
The police said one peace demonstrator died when he jumped from the
Golden Gate Bridge in an apparent suicide.

"There is less fear of conforming here," said Warren Langley, the
former president of the Pacific Stock Exchange. "People are more
willing to question what the president says."

Mr. Langley found himself in an unusual place last week: At the San
Francisco jail after being arrested for blocking the entrance to the
exchange in an antiwar protest. The blockade was his first act of
civil disobedience — he even attended an evening of training in
preparation — but probably not his last, he said.

"It has been 30 years since I even had a traffic ticket," said Mr.
Langley, who led the exchange between 1996 and 1999 and was arrested
in a suit and tie. He also happens to be a retired Air Force
lieutenant colonel who was once an instructor at the Air Force
Academy, "We are not going to stop this war. I know that," he said.
"But I have to find a way I can help others, help us as Americans
become good citizens of the world again."


It is also the case, some say, that Californians do not feel as
unsafe as people in other parts of the country.

"We didn't feel or see any of the shocks of Sept. 11 except on
television," said Steven Maviglio, a spokesman for Gov. Gray Davis.
"We don't have anything like they do in Washington, where trucks are
rolled up on the grounds of the Washington Monument, or where there
was a mad rush for duct tape."


Robert J. Waste, a professor of public policy at California State
University, Sacramento, said the state's ethnic and racial diversity
and large immigrant population also played a part, making it
distinctive — and less receptive to the president's message.

"The deepest penetration of the president's case for war is among
white males and Republicans," Professor Waste said. "That is not the
whole of California."

An opinion poll conducted last week in the Sacramento area by the
university's Institute for Social Research pointed to diversity as a
determining factor on the war question.

The poll showed that support for a war was weakest among racial
minorities and strongest among men. In El Dorado County, a mostly
white and conservative area in the Sierra Nevada, 65 percent of
respondents favored military action. In Sacramento County, where
there are large immigrant and minority communities, support was 49
percent.

"California is more diverse than the rest of the country, and this
diversity is the hardest part of the sell for war," Professor Waste
said.

Mr. Baldassare of the Public Policy Institute said an opinion poll
conducted last month by the group showed that the troubled California
economy had colored the views of residents about many subjects, like
the popularity of Governor Davis (he registered a 60 percent
disapproval rating; to the state's future (only 28 percent said the
state was headed in the right direction), to President Bush's
handling of the situation in Iraq (50 percent said they disapproved,
while 46 percent approved).

"People are in a kind of nervous mood I haven't seen since the early
1990's," Mr. Baldassare said. "They are very wary of the state's
vulnerable position economically right now. That has made people
cautious about things they might view as extraneous events, including
going to war with Iraq."

It is not just Californians who view themselves as different and
apart. So do some of their visitors.

David Houston, a self-described conservative from Tampa Bay, Fla.,
who was on a monthlong vacation in California, said many people in
the state struck him as out of touch with the rest of America. "It is
obvious a lot of people here are against the war," he said. "Of
course, if a lot of them went to visit the World Trade Center, they
might think differently."



Suitcase surprise: Rebuke written on inspection notice
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/iraq/134653764_tsasign15m.html

By Susan Gilmore
Seattle Times staff reporter

Seth Goldberg says he found this notice — and note — in his luggage
after it was inspected earlier this month at Sea-Tac Airport.

Seth Goldberg says that when he opened his suitcase in San Diego
after a flight from Seattle this month, the two "No Iraq War" signs
he'd picked up at the Pike Place Market were still nestled among his
clothes.
But there was a third sign, he said, that shocked him. Tucked in his
luggage was a card from the Transportation Security Administration
notifying him that his bags had been opened and inspected at Seattle-
Tacoma International Airport. Handwritten on the side of the card was
a note, "Don't appreciate your anti-American attitude!"

"I found it chilling and a little Orwellian to have received this
message," said Goldberg, 41, a New Jersey resident who was in Seattle
visiting longtime friend Davis Oldham, a University of Washington
instructor.

Goldberg says that when he took his suitcase off the airplane in San
Diego, the zipper pulls were sealed with nylon straps, which
indicated TSA had inspected the luggage. It would be hard, he said,
for anyone else to have gotten inside his bags.

TSA officials say they are looking into the incident. "We do not
condone our employees making any kind of political comments or
personal comments to any travelers," TSA spokeswoman Heather Rosenker
told Reuters. "That is not acceptable."

Goldberg, who is restoring a historic home in New Jersey, said he
picked up the "No Iraq War" signs because he hadn't seen them in New
Jersey and wanted to put them up at his house.

"In New Jersey there's very little in the way of protest and when I
got to Seattle I was amazed how many anti-war signs were up in front
of houses," he said. "I'm not a political activist but was distressed
by the way the country was rolling off to war."

Goldberg said he checked two bags at Sea-Tac on March 2 and traveled
to San Diego on Alaska Airlines. The TSA station was adjacent to the
Alaska check-in counter.

Nico Melendez, western regional spokesman for the TSA, said the note
in
Goldberg's luggage will be investigated, but he said there's no proof
that a TSA
employee wrote it. "It's a leap to say it was a TSA screener,"
Melendez said.

But Goldberg said, "It seems a little far-fetched to think people are
running around
the airport writing messages on TSA literature and slipping them into
people's
bags."

He says TSA should take responsibility and refocus its training "so
TSA
employees around the country are not trampling people's civil rights,
not
intimidating or harassing travelers. That's an important issue."

Oldham, the UW instructor, said he was so upset by the incident he
wrote
members of Congress. U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., has asked TSA
for a
response.

"The Senator certainly agrees with you that it is completely
inappropriate for a
public employee to write their opinion of your or your friend's
political opinion,"
said Jay Pearson, aide to Cantwell, in a letter to Oldham. He said he
expects it
may take a month or more to hear back from the TSA.

"I just thought it was outrageous," Oldham said. "It's one of many
things happening recently where the government is outstepping its
bounds in the midst of paranoia."

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