Not moving after all, and glad not to be flying

Good news, in a way: it looks like we're staying put in London, after all the stress and fuss. Prospective Employer has at least given a verbal offer with a starting date (in January) now, and he felt like it was firm enough to announce.

Which, although we were planning to relocate to Dublin by train and ferry, brings me around to the TSA mess. I am very, very glad that no further flying will be necessary in the foreseeable future, especially into and out of the US. (We were originally supposed to move to the Bay Area, and I did not feel like I could reasonably refuse.) It will take very special circumstances indeed to get me back into an airport, and that's with my whole family across the Atlantic. I am really not looking forward to the levels of alienation that might result if something should happen to my grandmother. I'm honestly not sure I could force myself to venture into an airport.

( I really, really hated flying already )

On a good day, I'm the monkey, and that's before anyone tries to touch me:



In airport situations, I'm kind of amazed I haven't bitten anyone yet. Biting is not good, but neither is the way they frequently deal with customers.

None of the personal concerns have changed (except I am, if anything, having more tics lately), but even more petty tyrant behavior and anxiety from that has been thrown in. Which makes me even more concerned about melting down and maybe starting bellowing, screeching, and hitting people I shouldn't if they touch me. Especially since I have gotten patted down more than randomly flying in the US, since both my knees are held together with screws--and I'm not sure I could do the expected deferential body language if I tried. I have seen some excellent points raised about the added distress for sexual assault/abuse survivors (and trans* people). Below are a couple of links talking about that.

( Protest vs. power-tripping authoritarianism? )

Back to the PTSD-related stuff, there's also one at The Wild Hunt, PNC-Minnesota: Rape Survivor Devastated by TSA Enhanced Pat Down.

I found the regular patdowns--not even the "let's use a more intrusive kind to try to humiliate anyone who refuses the scanners" kind--a bit triggering from that kind of survivor perspective. But, one commenter there puts a finger on an aspect I find even more disturbing (and which makes me more likely to have the kind of violent PTSD reaction that will get me arrested):

If it is made absolutely clear that their profits drop with more TSA invasive maneuvers, they might have to treat you like a customer again, instead of like an inmate in an asylum.

I'm not sure about the first part of that sentence, but yeah. It's the same kind of bad institutional behavior, trying to control people through threats of humiliation and violence of one kind or another. Getting herded around an airport under not-so-subtle threats, dehumanized at pretty much every opportunity, and punitively "searched"/intrusively touched is very much like being locked up "for your own good" in a psych hospital. (US prisons don't even bother to pretend it's for your benefit and safety--not that I've ever been in one.) I have been punitively treated in the same kinds of ways in hospital settings as a minor (not only psych, either), and felt if anything more violated and helpless from those abuses of power than from blatant sexual assault by individuals who don't actually have that institution-backed level of power over other individuals. I am still amazed that the majority of the travelling public have put up with it to the extent that they have.

But, a friend also pointed out the Milgram experiment; then there's the Asch conformity experiments and Carney Landis: The Scourge of Rats Everywhere. My own experiences (and who knows, maybe neurology) have made me very demand resistant and distrusting of authority-for-authority's-sake. On one level, I understand the motivations there, but on most others, I just boggle.

And another good observation from the comments at The Wild Hunt:

As for private screenings? If you're behind a curtain or a door, someone is very likely to have you get naked.

So why is the TSA all about naked-or-grope? Would you like to get naked or be groped? People talk about how nobody wants to see you naked, but when it comes down to it, yes they do. And punitive groping, as described above? Just another rush of power for the people with arbitrary levels of authority.

Petty tyrants don't have to hurt you, they just like to.

Unfortunately, that does seem to be just about all the explanation of dynamics required in a lot of cases. See also the Stanford Prison Experiment--people who did not start out behaving like petty tyrants will do so, under the right "Us vs. Them" institutional conditions. And what have you got to hide, anyway? *facepalm*

Overall, this sounds very pessimistic, but I truly can't see the situation improving anytime soon. What I can see is the TSA-as-institution escalating things as people make more noise about the kind of treatment they're getting, to show that they can.

States visited meme

Via dame_grise. Despite the number of times I've seen this meme going around, this is the first time I've done it myself.

1) Alabama 2) Alaska 3) Arizona 4) Arkansas 5) California 6) Colorado 7) Connecticut 8) Delaware 9) Florida 10) Georgia 11) Hawaii 12) Idaho 13) Illinois 14) Indiana 15) Iowa 16) Kansas 17) Kentucky 18) Louisiana 19) Maine 20) Maryland 21) Massachusetts 22) Michigan 23) Minnesota 24) Mississippi 25) Missouri 26) Montana 27) Nebraska 28) Nevada 29) New Hampshire 30) New Jersey 31) New Mexico 32) New York 33) North Carolina 34) North Dakota 35) Ohio 36) Oklahoma 37) Oregon 38) Pennsylvania 39) Rhode Island 40) South Carolina 41) South Dakota 42) Tennessee 43) Texas 44) Utah 45) Vermont 46) Virginia 47) Washington 48) West Virginia 49) Wisconsin 50) Wyoming

No, I haven't yet managed to make it west of the Mississippi nor out of the Lower 48 (well, other than to Europe!), though I would like to. I don't really remember visiting some of them, as a kid, and may have missed some.

ETA: We did make a car trip that involved Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia (and probably going through Ontario at some point) when I was younger. But I was young enough that I could only make some informed guesses as to which US states we went through to get there and back!