More often than not, you'd think the Western press was covering not Russia, but maybe Mars. Matt Taibbi gives these intrepid foreign cosmonauts their just desserts.
Matt Taibbi 21 Feb 2003
I know this column is supposed to be about Russia-related issues, but I felt that I would be remiss in my duty to The Russia Journal's readers if I did not inform them about what is happening here, on the ground, in the United States.
A thing so strange that it can scarcely be believed is taking place in what for many of you is your home country. I write to you as a reliable contemporary witness.
Many of you may have heard that at the beginning of last week, as the government elevated its "terror alert" status to the (apparently) dreaded "orange" level, the Department of Homeland Security issued a press release that recommended that Americans purchase a "disaster supply kit" to help protect them in case of a chemical or biological attack.
Among other things, the department recommended that citizens stock up on duct tape and plastic sheeting (to cover windows in the event of a chemical or biological bombing), flashlights, bottled water, latex gloves and numerous other items that the concerned citizen may enjoy having handy should a dirty bomb be exploded in his worthless neighborhood.
Within a day after this relatively low-key statement was released, the press turned it into a massive, coast-to-coast phenomenon, as it headlined the front pages of virtually every daily newspaper in the country. It was at the top of USA Today, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, even my own hometown Buffalo News.
The New York Times, normally the most circumspect and least credulous of the major dailies when it comes to covering the Bush administration's periodic panic-button ploys, devoted three whole pages to the duct tape story. Although New York is justifiably more paranoid about terrorist attacks than other cities, there seemed to be other factors at work in the elevated New York coverage.
The warnings were issued just days before a massive anti-war demonstration was expected in Manhattan; in fact, specific warnings about cyanide attacks in New York subways coincided exactly with news that the protesters would be denied a permit to march past the United Nations for "security reasons."
It seemed clear enough that the terror warnings, as far as New York was concerned, anyway, were intended at least partly to both provide a reason for clamping down on the protest and also to dissuade would-be marchers from coming to Manhattan during cyanide season. But forget about New York. What was amazing was how quickly the duct-tape phenomenon spread straight from the front pages of America's newspapers into the brains of Middle Americans. Not since the days of the "Reefer Madness" movies have Americans indulged publicly in paranoid lunacies of this magnitude.
On Feb. 13, a day after the Buffalo News issued its front-page duct tape story ("Ready on Homefront," Feb. 12, by Ken Turner), I decided to do an experiment. I'd had a sneaking suspicion as I read these stories that this whole duct-tape thing was a media end run, that these tales of Americans descending upon hardware stores in droves were fictional, or at the very least exaggerations.
I had special reason to think that way in Buffalo, where the idea of a terrorist attack being likely was beyond counterintuitive and actually insane. Buffalo is probably the only place in the world that would be improved by a terrorist attack. It would mark the first thing of any importance that took place in this city since the assassination of William McKinley. What's more, Federal Emergency Management Agency cleanup crews would probably have a difficult time distinguishing the bombed areas of Buffalo from the untouched residential ones.
There is nothing a terrorist could do to this city that the mayor and the city council haven't done a thousand times over already; it is the least-likely target in the world. Nonetheless, when I took a trip to the local Home Depot, it took me just 45 seconds (I was timing it) standing guard in front of the duct-tape rack before I happened upon my first customer.
It was an older woman, obviously well-off, with dyed blond hair, a silk scarf and a cashmere coat. She nodded to me as she bent down to inspect the tape. Having found one roll to be satisfactory, she then bent down and bought six more. Then she nodded to me again and disappeared down the corridor.
I was stunned. It was like watching "Close Encounters" on video and then seeing a cigar-shaped object whiz by your window 10 minutes after the film ended. I decided to follow her and raced down the aisle. Once there, I spotted her loading her duct tape into a carriage. I was amazed to discover the following other items in her cart: A huge jug of bottled water, a packet of flashlights, and about three dozen D batteries. In about 30 minutes in the store I saw three more people buy duct tape. Later on I asked the shift manager if he was doing good duct tape business. "Gangbusters," he said. I asked him if he thought that was strange. "No," he said, eyeing me suspiciously. "Why?"
These are some freaky times here in the United States. Several of the network TV channels keep constant "Terror Alert" graphics onscreen to remind viewers, 24 hours a day, that they face imminent attack. More and more often we hear warnings that instruct us to "keep our car gassed" and to hold family meetings to "map out disaster strategies." Even when evidence comes out revealing the absurdity of all of this, it gets ignored. Last week, for instance, ABC News reported that the Orange terror alert was brought on largely by a bogus tip from a Guantanomo inmate, one who subsequently flunked a polygraph test and was described even by the Homeland Security Department as "unreliable."
Nonetheless, the alert remained on. As I write this column, I can see Buffalo City Hall outside my window. There are extra policemen outside the front door today. The reason? Code Orange. Elevated terrorism threat. Orwell would have had a hard time making this stuff up. Expats, it is time to start making plans for permanent exile.