Ewan's Musings

Breakfast and Terror

Nothing in America that I've found says more to me that 'you're somewhere else' than the breakfast / café chain that is Denny's. Sure there's a bundle of funny moey where all the notes are the same size, and the same color, (but they have different faces, and tiny numbers in the corner), but walking into Denny's and being overcome by the shher American ness of the staff, the menu and the patriotism is enough.

The US flag is absolutely everywhere. It's on the walls, the cars, flying in the breeze - when I'm out and about there always seems to be at least one of them in line of sight. Hanging on the wall of Denny's is the flag pictured below, with the names of all the dead from the Sept 11th attack.

It's fair to say that even now, four years later, that those attacks are still very much a part of the collective consciousness, and that's something that I find especially hard to relate to. I can remember when I was in the Air Cadets the night of the IRA bomb in the docklands, a resumption of mainland attacks. Yes the alert condition was raised, and we had to be careful travelling in uniform, and be a touch more aware at the RAF Summer Camps (at RAF stations) that year. But America still seems to be balancing on a hair-trigger that's only being tightened by the continuing war in Iraq. In my opinion, they don’t have an honourable way of backing down.

The only thing to fear is fear itself. The American population have no way to relate to the fear that 9/11 has handed them, apart from hand more and more power to their politicians and internal security organisations. Much the same way that Tony Blair is scared of being blamed for an attack on the UK mainland. His option is to follow the US model, which had the virtue of re-electing the sitting leader. But giving up freedom because of thefear of attack? Perhaps young Tony should have a word with his hero, Baroness Thatcher, about what you do when the bombs start going off in Brighton Hotels.