Concrete, steel, cameras, and paranoia

[MichaelHarris]

From this:



To this

These images brought to you by 8 years of republican rule. We counted at least 9 cameras on each car.

[aikoaiko]

1. What's the point in comparing a 90 year old monument to an actual working border crossing?

:shrug:

[saras]

3. Simple point

There wasn't much of a difference until the Bush junta.

[aikoaiko]

4. Well, the CA-US border crossing at Buffalo was high security long before BushCo.

I'm pretty sure the security at all border crossings would have increased over the last 10 years no matter who was in the White House.

I suppose if the "before" photos had been of the actual crossing showing fewer cameras or security, the point you describe would have been made.

[saras]

2. That was a sweet place

I worked in that park (Peace Arch State Park, Blaine, WA) in the seventies. You could park on one side of the border, walk into the other country while still in the park, eat your lunch in another country, and go home again without ever facing Fatherland Security. The park ranger had a massive collection of drug paraphernalia that people had thrown out of their cars at the last minute, in a glass display case in his house. There was a whole crew of teenagers employed there in the summers. We would occasionally find bags of pot tossed from cars while we were weeding the flowerbeds, and magic mushrooms grew in the fields. There was a huge, rare plant fenced in with hedges, and we'd tell tourists, with as straight faces as we could muster, that it was a man-eating rhubarb. That Canadian flag you see on the ground behind the arch in the first picture is made out of flowers, and our side competed with them for the most spectacular flower displays.

[pa28]

5. It's really lovely.

Every time I go through the 'gates that may never close' I've come to expect very personal and attentive service from customs agents.

:rofl: