The magic material turned into a household deity by Garrison Keillor (and manufactured these days mostly by the infamous Tyco Corp.) adhered to the country’s consciousness last week, as if it were the only thing holding the world in place. But as a metaphor for coping with terrorism, it keeps coming unstuck–another sign of the on-again, off-again feelings of anxiety and complacency that sheltered Americans are just learning to handle. A Connecticut man even wrapped his whole house in plastic, as if the artist Christo had suddenly enlisted in the war on terrorism. Friday dawned with duct tape already a punchline–and the mayor of New York warning that the dangers of accidental asphyxiation exceed any advantages of “duct and cover.”
So is the only choice between putting our heads in the sand–or in huge plastic bags? Most people are not reacting rashly but simply looking for some workable balance between denial and desperation, a rational prudence where we figure out how to stay calm and safe at the same time.
Last week felt a little like a cold-war flashback. But if the consequences of failure then were worse (total annihilation), the odds of being attacked by the Soviet Union were smaller. Despite long-term, low-grade anxiety (and a couple of weeks of intense fear during the Cuban missile crisis), nobody asserted during the cold war, as Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson says of bioterrorism, that an attack is “inevitable.”
Fear and anger are clarifying emotions. Anxiety is often just confusing. Americans–especially those blessed to grow up in peace and affluence–are accustomed to some measure of mastery over their lives. Now they feel that control leeching away.
That’s not surprising, given that the signals coming from authorities are so mixed. Rep. Jane Harmon, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, advises her daughters to avoid the New York subways; yet New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg says such fears are “preposterous” and advises his kids to take the subway, as he does. Surveys show that, for whatever reason, women are more anxious about terrorism; men are more stoic, or at least claim to be so.
Oddsmakers reassure us that the chances of any one person’s being victimized by terrorism are small. But this is not an excuse for confused emergency procedures. Compare the state of terrorism planning with that of air safety. When passengers board an airplane, they’re told what to do “in the unlikely event of a water landing,” even though they’re almost certainly not going to survive such a crash. The spiel is ignored by many passengers, who nonetheless feel at least vaguely comforted by it. Something can be done, or at least tried.
So why so little explanation of what to do in “the unlikely event” of a terrorist attack? The FEMA.gov Web site is in-adequate; “the last part looks like they cut-and-pasted it from a cold-war document,” says Randy Larsen, director of the ANSER Institute for Homeland Security. RedCross.org is better, but it’s essential that Tom Ridge clearly communicate the details of preparation–as he has pledged to start doing this week. Think of it as a kind of national CPR training course.
Maybe then the news media can move more often from scaring to informing. As cable networks splash their “high alert” logos across the screen (alerting viewers to their high hopes for ratings), viewers react with some combination of annoyance and alarm. They feel manipulated by the hyped reports but disturbed by how little they’ve been told about which weapons pose what dangers and how to react.
To bridge that gap, Ridge might take a leaf from Franklin Roosevelt. In early 1942, when the Allies were losing World War II, FDR announced that he was going to give a fireside-chat geography lesson that traced the progress of the war. Stores sold out of maps as anxious Americans sought to learn more about the fate of their sons in uniform. Like today’s terror targets, they just wanted to know what they were up against.
Information is an antidote to panic, but it must be properly conveyed. During the gulf war, only one Israeli civilian was killed by Iraqi missiles. But nearly 100 died from heart attacks or suffocation from improperly used gas masks. Nowadays the Israeli government is still passing out survival packs and encouraging families to stockpile a few days’ food and water. But the mood is calmer. Authorities there haven’t issued any instructions about plastic sheeting, or the handy adhesive tape needed to apply it.
In “We Need More Than Duct Tape” (Feb. 24) the name of California Rep. Jane Harman was inadvertently misspelled.
