DUCT TAPE AND COVER

February 13, 2003 - If you grew up in the 40s or 50s you already know the drill. Duck and Cover! At the alert we were taught to crouch on our knees with our foreheads pressed firmly to the floor, cover the back of our heads with our hands or our coats and close our eyes tightly against the flash. It sounds so ridiculous now but our government had assured us and we believed that if we followed those simple instructions we could survive the devastation of a nuclear attack and by surviving we were contributing to the defeat of Godless Communism. So we practiced and prostrated ourselves like observant Moslems at prayer and tried not to be afraid.

By the 60s we were parents ourselves and we knew that we had missiles poised to hit them and they had missiles poised to strike at us from a half a world away. We also knew that covering the back our heads crouched on the ground offered no protection from a nuclear blast. But we had learned about fall-out. We would defeat Godless Communism by building a fall-out shelter for our family and stocking it with two weeks of supplies. The Civil Defense Agency published plans to build them and instructions on providing for two weeks of supplies. Millions were made selling plans and building custom-made holes in the ground. The moral issue of the day was whether one was justified in shooting the neighbor who had not adequately prepared for Armageddon and sought to force entry to your sanctuary.

Four more decades have passed and the fall-out shelters that remain have been turned into wine cellars or dismantled. The Civil Defense Agency with its doughboy helmets painted white and decorated with a yellow and blue triangle are relics of an earlier naivety, Now we look to the Department of Homeland Security to guide us and we are told to rush out, buy rolls of duct tape and plastic sheets and we can protect ourselves from chemical, biological or radiological terrorist attacks. Duct tape and cover is the 21st Century slogan for Homeland Security. I did not know that Red Green was in charge. The approved counter-measure promises to be as effective as the one we were taught in elementary school.

So why the encouragement to wind ourselves up in duct tape? Well, there is this war we want to fight and we want it so much that our teeth hurt. We have to get the American people firmly behind it. It is a matter of salesmanship and the only thing we have to sell is fear itself.

So remember, America, on this Valentine’s Day nothing says “I Love You” like a roll of duct tape!