Angry Yemeni protesters burn a drone effigy. (Reuters)
Tracks
As a perpetual emotion machine — producing and guzzling its own political fuel — the “war on terror” continues to normalize itself as a thoroughly American way of life and death. Ongoing warfare has become a matter of default routine, pushed along by mainline media and the leadership of both parties in Washington. Without a clear and effective upsurge of opposition from the grassroots, Americans can expect to remain citizens of a war-driven country for the rest of their lives.
Washington, DC: March from the White House to General Atomics to protest the Obama administration’s drone war. Caskets representing those murdered were placed outside General Atomics, a company that produces drones. April 13, 2013
Photos by Jenna Pope
McClatchyDC’s review of top-secret intelligence reports reveals the CIA has used drones to kill hundreds of people “who only were suspected, associated with, or who probably belonged to militant groups.”
Read the full investigation here.
And read everything we know so far about the drone war doctrine of “signature strikes.”Very apropos, as we’d just mentioned the dearth of available information on the U.S. drone strike program a couple hours ago — do yourself a favor and read this full story on what is perhaps America’s most controversial modern warfare tactic. Figures and insights on drones are hard to come by, so it’s truly crucial not to miss the information that does trickle out.
NO DRONES SAN DIEGO / DAY 1! (Apr. 4, 2013)
General Atomics Predator Drone Production site demo, Poway, CA, and Overpass Light Brigade demonstration on Hwy 5 south.
We are at the edge of a tsunami of public anger regarding the misuse of drone technology, and our message to Congress is fix it quickly!
Join us for Day 2 — Friday, 4/5/13
Schedule:
San Diego Demonstrates Against Drone Warfare
No Drones San Diego Day 1. Setting out from Mission Bay, San Diego’s Overpass Light Brigade demonstrates regarding the misuse of drone technology. San Diego is the drone production capital of the world. San Diego is home to General Atomics, builders of the lethal Predator and Reaper drones, and Northrup Grumman, maker of the Global Hawk surveillance drone. Surveillance drones also regularly fly along the border between San Diego and Mexico.
—Apr. 4, 2013
Several years ago, more or less on a lark, a group of researchers from England used a computer program to analyze the emotional content of books from every year of the 20th century — close to a billion words in millions of books.
This effort began simply with lists of “emotion” words: 146 different words that connote anger; 92 words for fear; 224 for joy; 115 for sadness; 30 for disgust; and 41 words for surprise. All were from standardized word lists used in linguistic research.
… “Generally speaking, the usage of these commonly known emotion words has been in decline over the 20th century,” Bentley says. We used words that expressed our emotions less in the year 2000 than we did 100 years earlier — words about sadness and joy and anger and disgust and surprise.
In fact, there is only one exception that Bentley and his colleagues found: fear. “The fear-related words start to increase just before the 1980s,” he says.
—”Mining Books to Map Emotions Through a Century” by Alix Spiegel on NPR (Apr. 1, 2013)
For those arguing effectiveness of drones, let me explain:
Arguing that “we must drone-bomb people in order to stop terrorism” is the equivalent of arguing that “we must continue to smoke cigarettes in order to stop lung cancer”. As ample evidence proves, the so-called “solution” to Terrorism - endless violence and killing - is actually its primary cause. As the Yemeni blogger Noon Arabia put it this weekend after a series of multiple drones strikes on her country: “For those arguing effectiveness of drones, let me explain: civilians killed => animosity towards US = Qaeda members increase = Vicious [circle]!”
—excerpt from “MLK’s Vehement Condemnations of US Militarism Are More Relevant Than Ever” by Glenn Greenwald in Guardian.co.uk (January 21, 2013)
