The party goes global...

Free counters!

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Too soon? Too bad.

Please read this essay by George Monbiot in The Guardian.

I continue to be wrenched by the killings on Connecticut. But I'm also wondering where all the memorial services, candlelight vigils and NFL memorials are for the kids we're murdering in Pakistan.

They have names, too. Not that you would know it, given the US government's policy of silence concerning civilian deaths from drone strikes:

'If the victims of Mr Obama's drone strikes are mentioned by the state at all, they are discussed in terms which suggest that they are less than human. The people who operate the drones, Rolling Stone magazine reports, describe their casualties as "bug splats", "since viewing the body through a grainy-green video image gives the sense of an insect being crushed". Or they are reduced to vegetation: justifying the drone war, Obama's counterterrorism adviser Bruce Riedel explained that "you've got to mow the lawn all the time. The minute you stop mowing, the grass is going to grow back".'

Bug splats. Grass that needs to be chopped. Imagine if someone described the Newtown kids that way. Just fucking imagine.

2 comments:

Susie said...

Of course it's not too soon. Seems to me, we're too late.

David Maine said...

Hi Susie, yeah I agree with you. Still, better late than never, right? Changing policy now rather than not at all would at least let some people live on who haven't been killed yet. Including some kids.

And hey, nice to see you up & around again... ;-)