Conditioning The Masses

This post was overlooked, and originally written on March 23rd.
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Kokito barked for two hours in his carrier after a flight attendant demanded that the luggage the dog was in had to go in the overhead bin during the 3.5 hour United Airlines flight. He quit barking before the plane landed in New York and when the carrier was taken out, they found the 10 month old puppy dead. And all the airline company is doing is apologizing!

So, because this happened on a private company public transport carrier service, the rules apparently don't apply to United the same way they would if a neighbor next door was secretly running a puppy farm in the backyard and was eventually found to have neglected them horribly, as we've heard about so many times in past news stories.

But for me, there's a more scary societal issue of concern, which is the conditioning of the public masses.. It was refreshing to hear Mark Stein on Tucker Carlson's show Thursday speak to this deeper, more disturbing issue.  What do I mean? Consider this point. The post 9/11 air travel industry has changed so much that the traveling public has been forced to take off their shoes (which has since been dropped), empty their pockets, put their carry-on luggage through a scanner while TSA agents - some of which may, or may not, have a high school diploma - stoically look at you as if they suspect you are the next terrorist about to down the plane you're about to board.

The conditioning has gone even further with the advent of cell phones in that, when a situation of serious consequence is occurring, people get out their cell phone to either record the event in audio, or video, as though they're going to be the next instant millionaire who sold their recording to the highest bidder media offer, rather than acting with any compassion or character to intervene in  the situation themselves!

Why is this so? Several factors, I believe, play into this modern phenomenon. One, the social norm nowadays, to me, seems to be that one does not intrude, or get into anyone else's business with perfect strangers. But more importantly, two, the conditioning which has now gone on for nearly twenty years since 9/11 has been a subliminal message to the public which makes them afraid to do anything; especially on an airline.

It wasn't but last year that an Asian man was physically removed by police from an airplane because he was not happy with the arrangement of his seating assignment. The media has aided in covering such events which consequently send the subtle message of; act up on an airplane flight and you'll face the legal implications of federal laws which can run as much as $250,000 in fines thanks to the FAA and laws on the books in an effort deal with the terrorist threat. Yes, when applied to this problem, these are unfortunate, but necessary evils.

There's also another aspect to this "collective attitude" which, I feel, was popularized and has now been promoted by the media, of speaking out, or protesting, as a movement by the former President. Remember Ferguson, MO? Now, it's deja vu all over again. On the one month anniversary of the Parkland massacre, it was "the thing to do" for high school, middle-school/junior-high, and even elementary, to participate in a walkout to demonstrate concern about gun violence. Like that's going to solve it! Yes, I understand it gives people who feel helpless something to do, but it creates a mindset that gets youth to believe protesting and demonstrating is a rational, constructive way to affect real change for the better; it doesn't! I know, I lived through the violent protest era of the late '60s of the Vietnam War and Pres. Johnson.

However, the public in the process has slowly been neutered from doing anything as common sense as opening the overhead bin and removing the barking dog who's suffocating because they're afraid it will lead to unwanted problems that wouldn't have come about in years prior. Like JFK's assassi-nation in my youth, the 9/11 event was another watershed moment which was yet another one of those events where everyone - assuming they were old enough - will never forget where they were on that fateful September day.