Less freedoms in Canada, the effect of 9/11

Less freedoms in Canada, the effect of 9/11.

Less freedoms in Canada, the effect of 9/11

Less freedom, the effect of terror on North America.  

 

Did you know that the sidewalk in front of Loblaw’s is not allowed to be stood upon by protesters as of 5:43PM, September 3rd, 2013? How did things get like this? Well, I think that if we look at things from a cause and effect point of view, we might see that this is partly an effect of 9/11. At that time three jets were hijacked. One jet was flown into the CIA building.  The brains or intelligence network of the US military.  Two more jets were flown into the world trade center causing it to collapse. And a third jet although it was hijacked crashed when the passengers themselves counter attacked and in the resulting fight the jet crashed.  It is now September in Toronto Canada north of New York USA, and I believe that we are still feeling security related, freedom related, and race related effects from this shameful crime.

 

The security effects were obvious shortly after the crime which involved beefed up security at airports around the world.  First, in New York’s airport the army posted guards wearing military camouflage inside the airport in New York holding machine guns.  I didn’t ask them if they were loaded, but it certainly looked that way.   Second, the practice of huge long lines before you could pass airport security started.  The importance and status of security guards, firemen, policemen, and those who worked and wore a uniform has risen.  Thus because of the rise of these people, they were allowed more liberties, more power. That previously they were not.  Finally, bags were taped at airports once they were checked and going through the United States passengers were told not to bother locking their suitcases anymore because they will be opened. If there was a lock on your case it could be hacked off in the name of “national security.” So we could see the army working on the ground in American airports, long lines and more suitcase checking and taping was a result of 9/11.

 

Freedoms in Canada and the USA have diminished.  I didn’t realise this until I listened to radio broadcasts on the CBC of commentators pointing this out.  And then I noticed various effects of the killing of innocent civilians in the USA.  One effect was that the NSA is now reading emails.  They say that they need to do that in order to guarantee national security.  I think that they decided to read emails because George Bush declared a “war on terrorism.” In war anything seems justified to win it. We all know that. So eliminating privacy as a result, seems a price that we have to pay.

 

Not only the freedom of speech but also the freedom to assemble and protest in public seems to have shrunk in the wash. The general public is not complaining too much. Although sales of the book 1984 discussing police states, rocketed up in the USA once it was discovered that the NSA was reading emails through Google and Facebook and whatever communication mediums that there are. So today, as I walked past a protest in front of Loblaws I believe I heard a policeman telling protesters that they were not allowed to stand on the sidewalk because the sidewalk was private land. I was so shocked because previously I believed that the sidewalk is public land. However, a loss of public space in which to gather is also a feature of the loss of freedoms that resulted from 9/11. We can see that the United Nations idea of freedom of speech and freedom to gather in public areas has diminished in Toronto as a result of 9/11.  As John Sewell the ex mayor of Toronto pointed out, the police seem to have taken on more military metaphors from America than civil images from England recently.

 

The race effects were pointed out by the comedian George Carlin and various other comedians.  In North America, the bad guys used to be all black in racism, Malcom X etc.  Now the colour has switched to brown people.  For example, there are untold stories of brown people receiving different treatment at airports.  I saw this at Heathrow myself. The Arabic looking man behind us was pulled out of the line-up and thoroughly searched. All his bags opened.  Furthermore, the dead killer of 3000 people Osama Bin Ladin, was Arabic. Also the men that flew the jets into buildings were Arabic. So as a result recently in Quebec they were thinking of passing a law that you could not wear any sort of religious headgear if you worked in the government.  Secularism, was the excuse. However, I suggest that this could be one effect of 9/11.  

 

So that is the connection between racial profiling at airports, the result of 9/11. Immediately after 9/11 Iraq was attacked, although it had no Weapons of mass destruction to be found. Those were brown people who looked like the people who flew the jets into the World trade Center.  Many black comedians were laughing and describing how they were not being noticed and feared as much As illogical as racism is, Brown is the new black one ripple effect of dropping the World Trade Centre to the ground.

So as I walked by the wall of police with sunglasses, and who knows what weapons clearing the sidewalk from tax paying protesters, I wonder how Canada might have been different without the disastrous effects of one psycho killer called Osama.