The TSA Is A Milgram Experiment

in #news7 years ago

by James Corbett
corbettreport.com
May 26, 2018

Everybody's least favorite homeland security goon squad, the Transportation Security Agency (TSA), is back in the news again this week, and for precisely the same reason as it always is: Engaging in the degradation, humiliation, dehumanization and molestation of innocent people which is its real raison d’être.

This time the victim was Jeanne Clarkson, a 96-year-old WWII veteran who the jackbooted thugs of the police state decided would be a fitting target for their "deluxe" treatment, i.e., a full six minutes of groping, patting and molestation. The only reason this even made it as a blip on the news radar (and even then, only in the tabloids and the alt media) was that her daughter had the sense to record the entire ordeal and post it to facebook, where the post went viral.

Sadly, there is nothing new here. Nothing shocking. Nothing unexpected to those who have seen this taking place for nearly two decades now. Whatever one makes of how long (or short) a journey it was from the pre-9/11 airport security experience (the waltz through the metal detector) to the police state gauntlet of today (removing shoes and belts, bomb swabs, radiation scanners, and the dreaded molestation pat-downs), the only surprising part of this story is that people are surprised by it.

As Matt Agorist notes in his write-up on the Clarkson incident and its context:

The TSA – whose job is supposedly “fighting terrorism” – is, without doubt, one of America’s most corrupt and incompetent agencies. However, last year, they apparently became so unsatisfied with the mere ability to strip search babies, remove colostomy bags, beat up blind cancer patients, and fondle your genitalia, that they announced a more invasive physical pat-downs. The pat-downs, which TSA warned would probably prompt assault complaints with the police department because of their invasive nature, have been implemented and a 96-year-old WWII veteran has become their latest victim.
To those who are truly surprised at the latest TSA outrage, I could point out yet again that the TSA is pure security theater, nothing more.
  • Their security screenings have a staggering 95% failure rate.
  • They have repeatedly failed to find bombs, massive shipments of narcotics, loaded guns, and even the very types of box cutters used on 9/11.
  • And, in the ultimate case of "pot meet kettle," even the US Congress itself has excoriated the TSA as an "enormous, inflexible and distracted bureaucracy, more concerned with human resource management and consolidating power, and acting reactively instead of proactively."
But, just as the "intelligence failures" narrative is trotted out after every successful false flag terror incident in order to steer the conversation away from the intelligence agencies culpability for those attacks, so, too, is the "security failure" narrative trotted out to explain TSA "incompetence" and distract us from a hidden truth. The TSA is not "failing" in any way. It is not a well-intentioned agency in need of better management or more funding or more highly-trained agents. On the contrary. It is doing precisely what it was created to do. The problem is that most people do not know what it was created to do.

In order to understand the real purpose of this spectacularly successful agency, we need to revisit the Milgram experiment.

Surely you remember the Milgram experiment from 1000 pop-psy presentations, but even if you don't you can go read about it or watch the footage of the original experiment online.

Long story short: a psychologist recruits a member of the public to aid in performing "a scientific study of memory and learning." This "study" involves the recruit taking the role of a "teacher" delivering a memory test to a "learner," who he believes to be another randomly selected volunteer. For every incorrect answer, the "teacher" is asked to deliver an electric shock to the "learner." Each subsequent incorrect answer involves an increasingly powerful (and painful) electric shock.

But the "study" is a sham. The "teacher" is not, in fact, delivering electric shocks and no one is actually being harmed. In reality, the "learner" is an actor, an accomplice of the psychologist. What is actually being tested is the "teacher's" willingness to deliver increasingly powerful electric shocks to a perfect stranger merely on the behest of an authority figure (the psychologist).

The study is famous in the annals of psychology because the results were so completely unexpected. Most psychologists predicted that only a very small percentage of the participants in the study would continue delivering shocks past the point where (they believed) the shocks could be fatal to the learner. Instead, a staggering 65% of the test participants proceeded all the way to the maximum (supposedly lethal) voltage.

65% of participants in the original study—ordinary men and women who thought they were volunteering for a simple experiment about memory and learning—were willing to deliver what they sincerely believed to be potentially fatal doses of electricity to random strangers (at this point crying out in agony or feigning unconsciousness) simply because an authority figure assured them it was necessary to continue with the experiment.

So now let's look at the TSA's real role. No, they are not there to keep us safe from the scary, turban-wearing Al-CIA-da goblins. But they are running a giant, society-wide, real-world Milgram experiment in obedience training. In this case, though, there are no actors. Real people are really being tortured, molested, degraded and subjected to the most demeaning humiliation at the hands of the police state goons. And this time the subjects of the experiment (the general public) are not being asked to deliver a shock. They are not being asked to participate in the torture, aid in the pat-downs, or help run the body scanners.

Instead, they are being asked not to participate. To sit. To watch. To learn. This is what happens to those who resist. This is what happens to random people who do not resist. This is what happens to 96-year-old WWII veterans. This is what happens to toddlers. This is what happens to pregnant mothers. One day it will probably happen to you. And you, the public who are made to watch these torture sessions from the lengthy line up at the security gate, are expected to do nothing. There is nothing you can do. Nothing you will do.

And look at what a remarkable success this nearly two-decade long experiment in obedience training has been.

People watch passively as the molestation of people like Jeanne Clarkson unfolds mere steps away from them. No outcry. No protest. No boycotts. No mass movements to stop these scenes from playing out again.

Yes, a few keyboard warriors will have a few nasty words for the agents in the comment section of a viral facebook post. A few journalists will write a few editorials (this one included) drawing attention to the issue. A few people witnessing the act as it plays out will have the sense that it's wrong. That it's unjust.

But the next time they have to take a flight, those same people will step dutifully into line, take off their belt and shoes, and pray that it won't be them next. And unless and until people stop doing nothing and start doing something in the face of these obvious injustices, absolutely none of this will change. And, if people continue doing nothing, within a generation no one will even understand that these scenes are objectionable. That they don't have to happen.

But you see, this is the most surprising part of the Milgram experiment. The one that everyone forgets. The experiment wasn't run once or twice. It was run dozens of times, under all types of circumstances, and a remarkable fact was discovered: The way the experiment was set up determined the extent to which the participants obeyed their instructions. Sometimes the experiment was run so that one "teacher" could watch other "teachers" do the study before they did. And in cases where the first teachers obeyed the psychologist and delivered the shocks, the later teacher would, too.

But—and here we get to the real lesson of the Milgram experiment—if the teacher saw other teachers disobey the psychologist and refuse to deliver the shocks, they would disobey, too.

Disobedience, once modeled, becomes an option in the mind of the public.

Remember this the next time you are at the security checkpoint: When you are asked to step into the body scanner, those behind you will be watching. Your choice will make a difference. When someone is being molested at a TSA pat-down, those around you will be taking note of your reaction. Your behavior will affect theirs.

So, what choice will you make? Will you pass or fail the experiment?

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This also has elements of the "5 monkey experiment" in conditioning.

5 monkeys are placed in a room with a ladder in the center, which has a banana at the top. However, as any monkey begins to climb the ladder, the rest are sprayed with water. Pretty soon, the monkeys are actively preventing each other from climbing the ladder, as none of them wants to be sprayed with water. After enough time has passed, the water spraying is ended- but the monkeys do not learn this, as they refuse to allow any monkey to climb the ladder and find out. They remember being sprayed all too well, and do not want to endure it again.

Soon, one of the monkeys is taken out and replaced with a new monkey. This one sees the banana and begins to climb- but the other monkeys, feeling they have seen this before, jump on the new monkey and drag it down. The new monkey quickly learns: anyone who tries to climb the ladder is pulled down. It learns not to climb, and to pull down any others who do. But it does not know why- this is simply the way things are.

This process is repeated until, one by one, all the original monkeys have been replaced. The room is now populated by monkeys who will refuse to climb the ladder, and will not allow any others to climb. And not one of them knows why.

Very well stated. Pathetic. A dire reminder to beware and be aware.

I boycott the scanner and I submit to the molestation. At least the molester is human. The experience is not violent, not even particularly offensive. It's actually a quiet, personal moment between pawns who are being forced by forces outside their control to pantomime a ritual. The human touch is intimate but impersonal, relaxing in the way that gentle human touch can be. I recommend it. Every time I have flown (which is very rare) I have had a respectful interaction with a human being who happens to be a TSA agent.

While the rest of the sheep are getting barked at by cranky TSA louts, I have resisted (to a small degree). I swim upstream and put a snag into their mechanized concentration camp efficiency. I force them to find a person among their ranks who is still human enough to ask to touch another person. The human interaction changes us both for the better.

I am always in a better mood after being massaged by a TSA agent. The disgust returns when I look around me at the other sheep lining up to get x-rayed. Obviously we are ruled by losers because we deserve nothing better.

I am not offended by people. I am offended by machines. I am offended when I see people voluntarily entering machines to be analyzed and photographed. This is an interaction that dehumanizes the victims as well as the victimizers.

Not everyone complies.

I boycott.

Thanks!

"Engaging in the degradation, humiliation, dehumanization and molestation of innocent people which is its real raison d’être."
God damn I don't know how people can continually find the time energy and willingness to expose this sludge. I so appreciate it. Much desire for your prosperity and health.

You are totally right about the TSA, it is all about dehumanizing people and conditioning them to accept authority. Historically these methods were used on people in the military and in prisons, but the problem is that never touched middle class people so they had to find a way to do that.
You should however do more research into the "Milgram study" because in fact he did a whole bunch of them. They had many different experimental conditions they tested and only in one of them did they get the levels of compliance you describe. If they changed any of the conditions they would get far less compliance. For example without the experimenters wearing lab coats people would almost never follow through.

"but the problem is that never touched middle class people so they had to find a way to do that."
What touched the middle class was schooling which has the same purpose. Different strokes for different folks one might say. Military and prison are for those who don't learn in schools. They have it covered.
Check out "The Underground History American Education" by J T Gatto which you can read online here
http://mhkeehn.tripod.com/ughoae.pdf

Here's a excerpt:
"Two years before I ran across that Atlantic broadside, I encountered a different analysis in the financial magazine Forbes. I was surprised to discover Forbes had correctly tracked the closest inspiration for school psychologizing, both its aims and its techniques, to the pedagogy of China and the Soviet Union. Not similar practices and programs, mind you, identical ones. The great initial link with Russia, I knew, had been from the Wundtian Ivan Pavlov, but the Chinese connection was news to me. I was unaware then of John Dewey’s tenure there in the 1920s, and had given no thought, for that reason, to its possible significance:

"The techniques of brainwashing developed in totalitarian countries are routinely used in psychological conditioning programs imposed on school children. These include emotional shock and desensitization, psychological isolation from sources of support, stripping away defenses, manipulative cross-examination of the individual’s underlying moral values by psychological rather than rational means. These techniques are not confined to separate courses or programs...they are not isolated idiosyncracies of particular teachers. They are products of numerous books and other educational materials in programs packaged by organizations that sell such curricula to administrators and teach the techniques to teachers. Some packages even include instructions on how to deal with parents and others who object."

they don't strip kids down in school like they used to, they don't really change for gym, they need to go to the airport for that.

I believe the TSA by nature is a direct violation of the 4th Amendment (no unreasonable searches) - is there any known case of the people trying this in a court of law?

This could be one way to at least fight against them.

Pathetic the depths to which humanity sinks again and again.

Renewal, rebirth, re-awakening, evolution, revolution... it's time to out-fox the foxes.

I strongly believe the NAZIES and SOVIETS never went away . They just intergrated to our REPUBLIC . And are the DISEASE infecting our CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC . We need a VACCINE ❗️

"Nope...no weapons of mass destruction over here..."
TSA needs to be dissolved, it's not there to Protect you, dear America.. in fact, quite the opposite
psyOps patch.jpg

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