Why Violent Airline Passengers Are Becoming Endemic?

We all have read about the new violent trend of unruly travelers on airlines. But we are rarely provided a glimpse as to why. Why, all of a sudden, passengers who behaved normally for so many years suddenly become so violent overnight? Why violent airline passengers are becoming endemic? Should we not investigate this phenomenon? Should we not look closely at the root causes and make them public? Hell, yes.

Well, I have two intersecting theories and one observation none of which is based on any scientific data. But rather on a haunch. One that comes to one naturally after observing the American political landscape for so many years.

I am almost certain many of my readers have a similar prescience, which simply foretells the conclusion an active mind often reaches when that mind chews on an idea long enough.

Violence on airplanes might subside, but it also might increase because there are other factors playing a subliminal role in people’s behavior.

WHY VIOLENT AIRLINE PASSENGERS? BLAME COVID

There is no doubt that COVID had an impact on our psyche. People, for no fault of their own, became prisoners in their own homes. This must impact people and their behavior. Some can control it because they are disciplined and smart enough to calculate the odds of harming oneself if they become uncontrollable. Some cannot.

An airplane is a locked space. Very small locked space that reminds many of the worst days of COVID when they were unable to live normally. Anger and violence become the only two responses they can handle. Of course, this does not excuse their behavior, and between the U.S. Government and the airlines industry neither has a choice but to come down hard on those who perpetrate violence.

Violence on airplanes might subside, but it also might increase because there are other factors playing a subliminal role in people’s behavior.

That anger is everywhere today, and not just on airplanes.

THE INCOME INEQUALITY THEORY

Never in the history of the United States have we had Members of Congress so attuned to the needs of the American people after Reaganomics, over the last 40 years, devastated the middle class in favor of big business. Between Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and Representatives Pramila Jayapal and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, they are all championing the disenfranchised. Because of them, there is much more attention today to such important matters as income inequality.

When CEO’s of corporations are raking tens of millions in salaries and bonuses while their employees, at the lower end, still earn slave hourly rates, eventually there will be a reckoning of how unfair our capitalist system has become. It’s capitalist pay for the wealthy, but socialist pay for the bottom feeders.

Income inequality stokes anger among people. Especially when the wealthiest of Americans pay almost no taxes annually on their accumulated wealth. The middle class is melting away as big corporations buy the votes in Congress to tilt the laws in their favor, and the lower classes seem stuck eternally in a cycle of economic deprivation. Much of it caused by the Republicans enriching their corporate sponsors and dark money donors.

That anger is everywhere today, and not just on airplanes. Insurrection? Due to income inequality anger and a middle class that can hardly keep its head above water. QAnon? Anger over income inequality among those who are unwell mentally.

If it was not for our admirable Constitution and the decency of those who respect it, the United States would be a banana republic.

A BROKEN SYSTEM

There is a product that sells on supermarket shelves called AllLemon. One cannot find one drop of lemon in that product. Or better yet, until recently, a company named ArtNaturals was selling benzene-based hand sanitizers, which are carcinogenic.

Why am I giving these examples but to show how broken our government is when it refuses to regulate companies who are running amok fraudulently labeling products consumers use to protect said consumers. Unless few thousands people become sick, the FDA, when it comes to regulating the food and drug industries is non-existent. Any wonder why so many people refuse vaccinations!!! The American people have lost their trust in their own government.

Our Congress and our Supreme Court are broken. Our elections laws are broken when we allow the rich to control the outcome of any election in what we call a democratic system of government. Furthermore, our tax laws are broken, so is our justice system. Everything works to benefit the few at the expense of so many. Everything.

And at the bottom of this unjust system are the African-American communities suffering from economic deprivation, lack of opportunities, and organized racism to keep them wanting and begging the white people. Sometimes for forgiveness for having been enslaved, and often for mercy.

Until the United States reaches social maturity, like some countries in Europe, we shall remain a rich and powerful country whose policies are more in line with third world countries.

If it was not for our admirable Constitution and the decency of those who respect it, the United States would be a banana republic.

Why the sudden violence? COVID and the realization that the American Dream, for many, is just a hoax.

Why Violent Airline Passengers Are Becoming Endemic?