SWA is Southwest Airlines.
This post isn't about their prices, destinations, hubs, routes, or in-flight service. Frankly, if that stuff is what you think of as "really important" or "relevant to my interests", then get the f*ck off my blog right now.
It is about their gross misapplication of FAA regulations, and the now-apparent collusion between FAA-authorized "federal air marshalls" as a "facility" Southwest abuses resulting in extremely egregious violations of the civil rights of some of their passengers.
By the way, I have a question that someone can perhaps answer:
By the way, I used no profanity (SWA-ering) towards any person including in-flight crew (FAs) or airmarshalls (FAMs) or any other officials, at any time, before or after being taken into custody. I did, in fact, speak audibly though, to at least 15 feet from my person (much more loudly, to at least 100 feet, once on the terminal concourse gate area with the handcuffs on and witnesses numbering the hundreds) ...I spoke about civil rights, about the irony and significance of this event taking place the day after we commemorate the achievements of Dr. Martin Luther King, about non-violent resistance, about the specific circumstances, about my name and my home city and so on. It was like Robin Williams in performance. Utterly spontaneous, unrehearsed. I still cannot believe that I could do that, all without offering physical resistance as I was essentially "being arrested."
I was not charged with anything by any Federal or State agency. This is convenient for SWA, because now they (think) that they will not have to answer challenges in a criminal proceeding. Think about that, truly. It is to Southwest's apparent advantage in pursuing this incomprehensible policy, to not have me or you charged, or truly "arrested."
If you grasp this point, you will really begin to see that these people need now to be forcibly restrained by the instruments of our social contract. There are very recognizable historical instances of entire communities of people going collectively out of their minds together. Salem, Mass.: the Witch Trials. Southwest as a "business organization" -- a kind of communal entity -- has collectively gone insane.
Southwest Air seems to be the worst airline out there, but I don't travel by airline much. I hadn't taken it in a long time, and if I had not needed to make same-day, got-to-get-home flight arrangements in Denver to get to Buffalo, and the only option was Southwest, I would not have cared to specifically choose them. I said: "great, one stop with a change of planes, I'll be home by 11:30 pm." In other words, I had no advance negative expectations about Southwest -- preconceived negative expectation can add to negative stress, as we all know; you start out from a place of disadvantage in a mental sense and just have to work so hard to get even "ok" as you go along. But that wasn't a problem here.
Anyway, you've read my story. A few final words now.
Don't be a SWA'er. Not because I think I'd like them to make one less fare's worth of income today (someone else who has not read this blog will absolutely take the seat you have decided to not purchase, yes, true).
Don't take Southwest Air because they are a real, imminent and present danger to your emotional and physical security, and have gone to that "place" of extreme corporate corruption that we sometimes see businesses do. Look, yeah, I don't believe in corporations, and that isn't the point of this blog. But by the way the most I will ever say of any corporation is "oh, they're ok." Because a corporation is not really a "they." It's a thing, not even a real thing, but a highly abstract thing; and what the thing is, is a means by which individual actual human beings can fool themselves into thinking they can avoid personal responsibility for their own choices, their own actions. Look it up. The point of "incorporating" is to indemnify executives and officers of the corporation against personal loss in the event of catastrophic business failure. It also provides certain benefits in terms of making the corporation into a pseudo-entity that can be conceptually treated as if it was "a person" for the purposes of legal proceedings. But it isn't a person or anything like it. Saying "loyalty to a corporation" for instance, is just incredibly ignorant and twisted. Only actual beings are worthy of our loyalty (and only real values and principles are worth dedicating ourselves to).
Don't take Southwest Air and furthermore don't ignore that they are operating this disaster-assured business in the country we call our home land. Don't tolerate them. There are things that are understandable but not forgivable. More than a decade after the 9/11 world-changing calamity, some job tension for in-flight personnel on planes is understandable. Dangerously prone to making unsound decisions is unacceptable; and collusion between a federal agency and a public transport (licensed air carrier) is unforgivable. Require that some folks lose their jobs, their livelihoods, their self-respect, over this. That's called justice. It means "everyone cannot have everything exactly the way they want all the time." These SW Air executives need to have everything taken away from them. It's called justice. And stopping the doing of harm is called righteousness. Both are central Buddhist tenets.
You think you'll go wrong if you decide to stand on the side of the Buddhist teachings? As many people already think, these teachings are an extremely rational and empirically verifiable system, based on a paradigm of causality (cause and effect). It's a really good bet in a world where almost nothing can really be taken for granted anyway.
OK, do take Southwest Air. Don't be a SWA'er. Don't swear. At all. But do not go quietly. If you take Southwest and you become or witness one of your fellow passengers becoming one of their now practically random victims (of human rights violation), speak continuously (don't try to crack jokes, though ...and try to check the faces of people around you -- even the hostile, fearful ones -- every few seconds if you can stand that ...and try to remember that there might be a reachable human being behind many of those faces, and that this "reasonable" and "rational" Buddhist approach is ultimately based completely [in the final sense] on faith ...and so the humanity in those around you might re-awaken at some moment, when you need it to ...). Don't take SWA unless you think you might be ready to exceed every concept of yourself (if you are sure that you are, you are most likely not ready). Which it is potentially possible for any of us to do, at any time.
Is an Air Marshall essentially a rent-a-cop?I ask because when I was forcibly taken off of SWA Flight #4838 on Tuesday night upon arrival from Denver, without any realistic facsimile of a vague shadow of provocation, I had the impression that I was being roughly restrained by a security guard, not a peace officer. In fact, as this experience unfolded, I used the spiritual or "mind-observation" training of a Buddhist practitioner to notice (but not be controlled by) my fears; and it was not until I was put into a car driven by a real policeman, a Baltimore PD officer, that I felt 100% better.
By the way, I used no profanity (SWA-ering) towards any person including in-flight crew (FAs) or airmarshalls (FAMs) or any other officials, at any time, before or after being taken into custody. I did, in fact, speak audibly though, to at least 15 feet from my person (much more loudly, to at least 100 feet, once on the terminal concourse gate area with the handcuffs on and witnesses numbering the hundreds) ...I spoke about civil rights, about the irony and significance of this event taking place the day after we commemorate the achievements of Dr. Martin Luther King, about non-violent resistance, about the specific circumstances, about my name and my home city and so on. It was like Robin Williams in performance. Utterly spontaneous, unrehearsed. I still cannot believe that I could do that, all without offering physical resistance as I was essentially "being arrested."
I was not charged with anything by any Federal or State agency. This is convenient for SWA, because now they (think) that they will not have to answer challenges in a criminal proceeding. Think about that, truly. It is to Southwest's apparent advantage in pursuing this incomprehensible policy, to not have me or you charged, or truly "arrested."
If you grasp this point, you will really begin to see that these people need now to be forcibly restrained by the instruments of our social contract. There are very recognizable historical instances of entire communities of people going collectively out of their minds together. Salem, Mass.: the Witch Trials. Southwest as a "business organization" -- a kind of communal entity -- has collectively gone insane.
Southwest Air seems to be the worst airline out there, but I don't travel by airline much. I hadn't taken it in a long time, and if I had not needed to make same-day, got-to-get-home flight arrangements in Denver to get to Buffalo, and the only option was Southwest, I would not have cared to specifically choose them. I said: "great, one stop with a change of planes, I'll be home by 11:30 pm." In other words, I had no advance negative expectations about Southwest -- preconceived negative expectation can add to negative stress, as we all know; you start out from a place of disadvantage in a mental sense and just have to work so hard to get even "ok" as you go along. But that wasn't a problem here.
Anyway, you've read my story. A few final words now.
Don't be a SWA'er. Not because I think I'd like them to make one less fare's worth of income today (someone else who has not read this blog will absolutely take the seat you have decided to not purchase, yes, true).
Don't take Southwest Air because they are a real, imminent and present danger to your emotional and physical security, and have gone to that "place" of extreme corporate corruption that we sometimes see businesses do. Look, yeah, I don't believe in corporations, and that isn't the point of this blog. But by the way the most I will ever say of any corporation is "oh, they're ok." Because a corporation is not really a "they." It's a thing, not even a real thing, but a highly abstract thing; and what the thing is, is a means by which individual actual human beings can fool themselves into thinking they can avoid personal responsibility for their own choices, their own actions. Look it up. The point of "incorporating" is to indemnify executives and officers of the corporation against personal loss in the event of catastrophic business failure. It also provides certain benefits in terms of making the corporation into a pseudo-entity that can be conceptually treated as if it was "a person" for the purposes of legal proceedings. But it isn't a person or anything like it. Saying "loyalty to a corporation" for instance, is just incredibly ignorant and twisted. Only actual beings are worthy of our loyalty (and only real values and principles are worth dedicating ourselves to).
Don't take Southwest Air and furthermore don't ignore that they are operating this disaster-assured business in the country we call our home land. Don't tolerate them. There are things that are understandable but not forgivable. More than a decade after the 9/11 world-changing calamity, some job tension for in-flight personnel on planes is understandable. Dangerously prone to making unsound decisions is unacceptable; and collusion between a federal agency and a public transport (licensed air carrier) is unforgivable. Require that some folks lose their jobs, their livelihoods, their self-respect, over this. That's called justice. It means "everyone cannot have everything exactly the way they want all the time." These SW Air executives need to have everything taken away from them. It's called justice. And stopping the doing of harm is called righteousness. Both are central Buddhist tenets.
You think you'll go wrong if you decide to stand on the side of the Buddhist teachings? As many people already think, these teachings are an extremely rational and empirically verifiable system, based on a paradigm of causality (cause and effect). It's a really good bet in a world where almost nothing can really be taken for granted anyway.
OK, do take Southwest Air. Don't be a SWA'er. Don't swear. At all. But do not go quietly. If you take Southwest and you become or witness one of your fellow passengers becoming one of their now practically random victims (of human rights violation), speak continuously (don't try to crack jokes, though ...and try to check the faces of people around you -- even the hostile, fearful ones -- every few seconds if you can stand that ...and try to remember that there might be a reachable human being behind many of those faces, and that this "reasonable" and "rational" Buddhist approach is ultimately based completely [in the final sense] on faith ...and so the humanity in those around you might re-awaken at some moment, when you need it to ...). Don't take SWA unless you think you might be ready to exceed every concept of yourself (if you are sure that you are, you are most likely not ready). Which it is potentially possible for any of us to do, at any time.
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