Guns, God And Spectacle Of Fear In New York

On Wall Street, an orange alert creates a circus atmosphere of religious revival, militarism and fear the writer calls our new national security culture.

NEW YORK–Hours after Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge raised the colour-coded terror alert, tourists sat in front of the K-9 dogs and machine gun-toting police guarding a flag-draped New York Stock Exchange, ready to capture any developing emergency. Cameras ablaze, visitors from France, Japan and Idaho were poised to bring friends and family back home images of the latest trend dominating American life this election year:the rapid rise of a new American national security culture.Joining them before the marble cathedral of global capitalism was a motley gathering of New Yorkers there to both proselytise and sell souvenirs not far from Ground Zero.The scene that unfolded was a combination of bazaar, religious revival and political protest.”We know that we are in fact living in the last days,” says Elder Kelly, a tall, blond 20-something member of the Church of Latter Day Saints.In the hopes of preparing lost souls for the end of history prophesied in the Catholic, evangelical and Mormon bibles – and in pamphlets circulating around the Exchange, as well as in best-selling novels – a smiling elder Kelly adds, “We’re here to let people know that they have to get ready for that.We have to hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.People need to realize that they have to get right with God.”Having just returned from the security fences and political platforms of the Democratic National Convention in Boston, it seems to me that the pursuit of “infinite justice” and “enduring freedom” would continue in some form – Republican, Democratic, apocalyptic – for the foreseeable future.New Yorkers seem once again caught in the thick of a cloud of insecurity.Mike, an electrician and self-described “citizen of the city of New York,” holds a cardboard sign before the SWAT-suited NYPD officers.The sign, painted in lipstick (“You can’t buy markers anymore because it’s considered a ‘graffiti instrument,’” he says), reads, “Bill of Rights Under Attack, Repeal the Patriot Act.”While his colleagues yell, “Give the permanent war to your children and grandchildren!” Mike tells me that Secretary Ridge and the Bush administration are “trying to build an anti-terrorism police state.”A bearded Jewish man standing in the curious crowd behind us listens silently as a pony-tailed man in shorts debates points with Mike.I wonder what the yarmulked man thinks when politicians and police chiefs tell us “we need to learn from Israel.”I ask him.”Let’s leave that issue alone,” he says.The crowd moves on to the bright lights and bulky cameras of live-broadcast interviews conducted a few feet away by a financial news reporter for CNBC.With cameras targeting the machine gun-toting police standing beneath a colossal Old Glory, the reporter ends by saying that today’s increased security is “just another fact of life.”With lights and cameras off, she climbs onto a director’s chair towering over the dispersing crowd and tells her crew that the scene had “a bit of a circus atmosphere.”But who is responsible for the facts, and who is directing the circus? In search of an answer, I walk to Ground Zero, a few blocks away.There, in front of the still-empty centre of our culture and politics, I find several members of Ladder Company #10 huddled in front of a shiny, new red fire truck emblazoned with American flags.I approach one of the firemen to see how the renewed terror alert affects his crew.Before I can ask, he somberly closes the sliding door of the still relatively new station.On the wall I notice a bronze plaque with pictures of firemen standing before a New York skyline that includes the World Trade Centre and the statue of Liberty.As a member of the media, I realize, I too may enhance and reproduce the spectacle of our nation’s response to the threat of terror.Looking at pictures of the charred and crumbling firehouse #10 taken on Sept.11, 2001, I regret disturbing the privacy of people saturated daily with military guards, orange alerts and media-amplified calls for vigilance.Yet, unless we unravel the complexities of this ascendant culture of fear and militarism, all of us run the risk of being perpetually disturbed in times of perpetual war.* PNS contributor Roberto Lovato (robvato63@yahoo.com) is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer.Cameras ablaze, visitors from France, Japan and Idaho were poised to bring friends and family back home images of the latest trend dominating American life this election year:the rapid rise of a new American national security culture.Joining them before the marble cathedral of global capitalism was a motley gathering of New Yorkers there to both proselytise and sell souvenirs not far from Ground Zero.The scene that unfolded was a combination of bazaar, religious revival and political protest.”We know that we are in fact living in the last days,” says Elder Kelly, a tall, blond 20-something member of the Church of Latter Day Saints.In the hopes of preparing lost souls for the end of history prophesied in the Catholic, evangelical and Mormon bibles – and in pamphlets circulating around the Exchange, as well as in best-selling novels – a smiling elder Kelly adds, “We’re here to let people know that they have to get ready for that.We have to hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.People need to realize that they have to get right with God.”Having just returned from the security fences and political platforms of the Democratic National Convention in Boston, it seems to me that the pursuit of “infinite justice” and “enduring freedom” would continue in some form – Republican, Democratic, apocalyptic – for the foreseeable future.New Yorkers seem once again caught in the thick of a cloud of insecurity.Mike, an electrician and self-described “citizen of the city of New York,” holds a cardboard sign before the SWAT-suited NYPD officers.The sign, painted in lipstick (“You can’t buy markers anymore because it’s considered a ‘graffiti instrument,’” he says), reads, “Bill of Rights Under Attack, Repeal the Patriot Act.”While his colleagues yell, “Give the permanent war to your children and grandchildren!” Mike tells me that Secretary Ridge and the Bush administration are “trying to build an anti-terrorism police state.”A bearded Jewish man standing in the curious crowd behind us listens silently as a pony-tailed man in shorts debates points with Mike.I wonder what the yarmulked man thinks when politicians and police chiefs tell us “we need to learn from Israel.”I ask him.”Let’s leave that issue alone,” he says.The crowd moves on to the bright lights and bulky cameras of live-broadcast interviews conducted a few feet away by a financial news reporter for CNBC.With cameras targeting the machine gun-toting police standing beneath a colossal Old Glory, the reporter ends by saying that today’s increased security is “just another fact of life.”With lights and cameras off, she climbs onto a director’s chair towering over the dispersing crowd and tells her crew that the scene had “a bit of a circus atmosphere.”But who is responsible for the facts, and who is directing the circus? In search of an answer, I walk to Ground Zero, a few blocks away.There, in front of the still-empty centre of our culture and politics, I find several members of Ladder Company #10 huddled in front of a shiny, new red fire truck emblazoned with American flags.I approach one of the firemen to see how the renewed terror alert affects his crew.Before I can ask, he somberly closes the sliding door of the still relatively new station.On the wall I notice a bronze plaque with pictures of firemen standing before a New York skyline that includes the World Trade Centre and the statue of Liberty.As a member of the media, I realize, I too may enhance and reproduce the spectacle of our nation’s response to the threat of terror.Looking at pictures of the charred and crumbling firehouse #10 taken on Sept.11, 2001, I regret disturbing the privacy of people saturated daily with military guards, orange alerts and media-amplified calls for vigilance.Yet, unless we unravel the complexities of this ascendant culture of fear and militarism, all of us run the risk of being perpetually disturbed in times of perpetual war.* PNS contributor Roberto Lovato (robvato63@yahoo.com) is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer.