Judging from the media coverage of the non-event, I guess I'm supposed to be outraged at Alec Baldwin's uppity behavior. I mean, really -- how dare not just shut his cakehole like a good German, and happily submit to what has long been nothing more than an abusive process, from the time you set foot in the departure terminal to whenever you eventually disembark.
Seriously, Baldwin should have thanked American Airlines for their "just shut the fuck up and sit quiet while we wait on the runway for a fucking week to take off" attitude that they stockpile in reserve for every airline passenger. Instead, he had the nerve, the absolute gall, to USE HIS I-PAD WHICH COULD TOTALLY BRING DOWN THE ENTIRE FRAGILE AIR TRANSIT INFRASTRUCTURE!!!elevenZOMG!!!
No. It's much easier for us to tell ourselves that some mouthy actor is being an asshole, than to wonder for a hot second just how we continue to let ourselves be treated like animals in a routine consumer transaction. Some folks will continue to do so right up to the moment the wage slave on the kill floor parks the metaphorical bolt gun between their eyes and pulls that trigger.
Just another little cut, a common indignity which most have been conditioned to placidly accept, one of a thousand. Go back to sleep.
Alec Baldwin is not a freedom fighter. Everyone knows by now what it means to get on a plane. Baldwin's behavior is more along the lines of "The rules are for everyone else". His Capitol One commercials actually use the idea that he is exceptional and should not be treated like everyone else. He's an idiot.
ReplyDeleteYes, everyone knows what it means to get on a plane -- it means standing in line for hours to get fingered and felt up by a TSA agent; it means waiting endlessly on the runway for clearance so you can actually take off; it means being treated like a farm animal by everyone you deal with in the transaction chain, and not being allowed to even be annoyed by it, lest one be tagged as un-American.
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