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A few days before the day that doesn't have a name yet
but everyone knows what you're talking about -- as I was
saying, a few days before That Day, I ran across a magazine
article about The Terrorist Next Door.
It did not concern the immigrant down the street who took flying lessons but paid no attention during the parts of the curriculum that concerned take-offs and landings. Nor was it about a couple of Waco-angry veterans who detonated a truckload of explosives in front of a federal office building.
Instead, it was about ecoterrorists
-- people who
might live down the street, but who sneak out at night and
put the torch to half-finished structures in some sprawling
real-estate development.
This was supposed to be a wake-up call for us all to take this stuff more seriously, but there were some problems with the premises of the article.
The closest incident that might have been
ecoterrorism
was the torching of five buildings and
four ski lifts under construction as part of a
controversial Vail expansion. It happened almost exactly
three years ago, early in the morning of Oct. 19, 1998.
No one was even injured, let alone killed, and the authorities still have made no arrests.
Did this arson, this act of terrorism, cause widespread fear in the mountains?
Yes, but not the kind of fear mentioned in the article.
The night it happened, a friend was visiting, so we
assuaged our fears by realizing we could alibi each other,
just in case the investigation expanded to cover
everyone who had ever expressed anything other than
adoration toward Vail Resorts.
Other friends quickly told me things like I was in
New Mexico, and I have witnesses,
I twisted my ankle
when I was walking my dog in the field across the road from
my house and I wasn't anywhere near Vail,
or No, I
have no idea who did it, but if they need a place to hole
up for a while, I'd be honored to accommodate them.
The problem here is that not everyone uses the same scale for measuring threats to their way of life.
On one side there are lawless terrorists who burn down empty buildings.
On the other side, there's a law-abiding corporation. It keeps expanding, so as to drive up real-estate prices to the extent that fewer and fewer people can afford to live near their work. Indeed, more and more of its ill-paid employees live across the Continental Divide in another county that has to struggle to pay the consequent educational and social-services costs. And this company, in order to continue to grow, seems to want a $4 billion subsidy from the taxpayers of Colorado, in the form of a monorail connecting the resort to Denver, or failing that, a wider Interstate 70.
So, which is the bigger threat to one's way of life -- the arsonists who struck once and vanished, or the corporation that never goes away but instead keeps extending its tentacles? Which one should be more feared?
Questions like that could get one in trouble with the new Homeland Defense bureaucracy, and that's the last thing I need. One the other hand, it's not like Vail Resorts is a vital defense installation.
Or is it?
That's what makes this the most confusing war I've ever heard of. My parents talk about how they saved bacon grease and toothpaste tubes during World War II, how gasoline and tires and meat and sugar were rationed, how they participated in blackout drills and followed the course of the war with pins on a world map, how people on the home front were encouraged to buy War Bonds instead of consumer goods that usually weren't available anyway.
But this time around, we're not being encouraged to sacrifice anything except time at airports. We're supposed to go about our daily lives, so as to tell the Sept. 11 terrorists that they have not intimidated us, that we stand tall and strong.
Further, our national strength is not just military, but economic. The stronger our economy, the stronger our country. Travel and tourism are major components of our economy, and so supporting these industries is a way to strengthen our nation in a time of crisis.
In other words, the continued pursuit of activities that might otherwise seem rather frivolous has become a patriotic act. Every time we spend and enjoy, rather than scrimp and save, we're helping the cause.
That may sound preposterous, but I can't see any flaws in the logic: The more we spend, the stronger the economy, and thus the stronger our nation as it goes to war. Since the Vails and Disneylands of this world are places to spend money, they become vital components of the cause.
There's a phrase that pops up in old movies, Don't
you know there's a war on?
It would be the reply when
some complaining vacationer got bumped off a train in favor
of a soldier.
Now there's a war on
would be a patriotic reason
for making the pleasure trip. And I suspect I'm not the
only one who feels perplexed by this.
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