A Few More Thoughts on Janet Napolitano's Walmart Video
I’m guessing the video plays in a loop, over and over. It’s less than a minute long, so by the time you’ve been standing in the checkout line, say, 5-10 minutes you would have heard it quite a number of times. Plus it would be replicated at all the other checkout lines, Janet Napolitano’s face in miniature everywhere you look, exhorting everyone to be suspicious of everyone ...
The effect would be quite unpleasant, I imagine—and bad for business. If I were a Walmart manager, I wouldn’t want the video playing in my store, night and day, seven days a week, scaring the customers, driving away business ...
Employees would suffer more, of course. Prolonged exposure to the video can’t be good for you. Someone should have tested it on lab rats first before recklessly inflicting it on the public in this fashion …
Unstable individuals will almost certainly be pushed over the edge. People who are already paranoid, irrational, with a fragile grip on reality, will go stark raving mad with Napolitano’s message looping over and over in their heads, warning them to be on the look-out for—what exactly?—some vaguely defined, yet imminent, terror threat somewhere in the store …
As a result, paranoiac attacks will become common. It will no longer be safe to go to the store. Anyone might accuse anyone at any time of any kind of crime, and decide to mete out vigilante justice on the spot. One moment you’re shopping for a lawn mower, the next moment some maniac has buried a garden tool in your throat. It could get ugly …
No, definitely not good for business. And the video will probably not result in much useful information either. Police—and store managers—will have their hands full following up on every off-the-wall terror tip and screwball lead reported by the dimwits, boneheads, lamebrains and gibbering morons that, unfortunately, make up a large portion of the population of our great republic. This video is bad news, any way you look at it …
The effect would be quite unpleasant, I imagine—and bad for business. If I were a Walmart manager, I wouldn’t want the video playing in my store, night and day, seven days a week, scaring the customers, driving away business ...
Employees would suffer more, of course. Prolonged exposure to the video can’t be good for you. Someone should have tested it on lab rats first before recklessly inflicting it on the public in this fashion …
Unstable individuals will almost certainly be pushed over the edge. People who are already paranoid, irrational, with a fragile grip on reality, will go stark raving mad with Napolitano’s message looping over and over in their heads, warning them to be on the look-out for—what exactly?—some vaguely defined, yet imminent, terror threat somewhere in the store …
As a result, paranoiac attacks will become common. It will no longer be safe to go to the store. Anyone might accuse anyone at any time of any kind of crime, and decide to mete out vigilante justice on the spot. One moment you’re shopping for a lawn mower, the next moment some maniac has buried a garden tool in your throat. It could get ugly …
No, definitely not good for business. And the video will probably not result in much useful information either. Police—and store managers—will have their hands full following up on every off-the-wall terror tip and screwball lead reported by the dimwits, boneheads, lamebrains and gibbering morons that, unfortunately, make up a large portion of the population of our great republic. This video is bad news, any way you look at it …
posted by Mack White at 4:51 PM
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