tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post6331486235554971034..comments2024-01-28T03:56:39.351-08:00Comments on TOM CLARK: The Sky Is CryingUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-60368185785930903032015-11-23T02:12:22.300-08:002015-11-23T02:12:22.300-08:00Tom,
It just happens to be that I am in Chennai t...Tom,<br /><br />It just happens to be that I am in Chennai these days. Until a couple of days ago, boats were ferrying people from home to office and back. Work had to be done (Larkin).I had never entertained the very real possibility of drowning, since I make it a point of never entering water. It seems like a necessary consideration now. The beaches in Chennai have turned stone black, and will be so for a couple weeks to come. There is no better place for the moon and the sun, except for in poems right now, I guess. All my problems are skin-deep right now. manik sharmahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18055072451804840121noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-63159640997729552592015-11-22T10:38:18.163-08:002015-11-22T10:38:18.163-08:00A couple of further excerpts from the Democracy No...A couple of further excerpts from the Democracy Now! interview with the former Air Force drone operators:<br /><br />JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Michael Haas, I wanted to ask you, in terms of your experience in the drone program and the culture that the military basically allowed to flourish in the drone program, you’ve talked about how your fellow servicemembers talked about the children that they were targeting, as well.<br /><br />MICHAEL HAAS: Yes, the term "fun-sized terrorists" was used to just sort of denote children that we’d see on screen.<br /><br />AMY GOODMAN: What was it?<br /><br />MICHAEL HAAS: "Fun-sized terrorists."<br /><br />AMY GOODMAN: "Fun-sized terrorists"?<br /><br />MICHAEL HAAS: Yes. Other terms we’d use would be "cutting the grass before it grows too long," just doing whatever you can to try to make it easier to kill whatever’s on screen. And the culture is—that mentality is very much nurtured within the drone community, because these—every Hellfire shot is sort of lauded and applauded, and we don’t really examine who exactly was killed, but just that it was an effective shot and the missile hit its target.<br /><br />AMY GOODMAN: When did you start to have questions?<br /><br />MICHAEL HAAS: Shortly after I became an instructor and I started to see how much the mentality had shifted since I had been in. And the 11th hadn’t really changed how they had trained their sensor operators from a basic-level standpoint.<br /><br />AMY GOODMAN: The 11th is?<br /><br />MICHAEL HAAS: The basic training squadron up at Creech. They train all the sensor operators.<br /><br />AMY GOODMAN: This is at Creech in Nevada.<br /><br />MICHAEL HAAS: Yes.<br /><br />JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And you were a video game addict as you were growing up. Can you talk about this whole impact of sort of the video game approach to war?<br /><br />MICHAEL HAAS: The thing that makes the gamers a prime target for this job field is that ability to just multitask and do a lot of things subconsciously and just sort of out of reflex. And you don’t really even have to think about it, which is, you know, paramount to doing this job. But a lot of it is getting used to just seeing something on screen, killing it and then going about your business as though you don’t really—you don’t really pay it a second thought. It was just an objective to be completed.<br /><br />*<br /><br />AMY GOODMAN: And, Michael Haas, as we wrap up, what do you want people to be left with today? And there’s a large military audience here, too. What you have to say to your fellow servicemen and women?<br /><br />MICHAEL HAAS: On the other side of that screen, they’re very real. It feels like a video game, and it looks like a video game, but it’s very, very real. And to keep that in mind and not become disconnected from your own humanity and not to take away theirs—that’s what I’d want to leave them with.<br /><br />AMY GOODMAN: Cian Westmoreland?<br /><br />CIAN WESTMORELAND: We should all take responsibility for what we do at all times. I have a cellphone in my pocket. It has metals in there that were extracted from the Democratic Republic of Congo, where there’s been a war for 15 years and 4 million—I think 4.4 million people have died. I know that, and that bothers me.<br /><br />AMY GOODMAN: You’ve all left the military. Were you—did they request you re-enlist?<br /><br />CIAN WESTMORELAND: Yeah.<br /><br />AMY GOODMAN: Were you offered a bonus to re-enlist?<br /><br />CIAN WESTMORELAND: We all were.<br /><br />AMY GOODMAN: How much?<br /><br />CIAN WESTMORELAND: $50,000.<br /><br />AMY GOODMAN: How much, Michael?<br /><br />MICHAEL HAAS: $80,000.<br /><br />AMY GOODMAN: Stephen?<br /><br />STEPHEN LEWIS: Over $100,000.<br /><br />BRANDON BRYANT: $109,000, plus a step promotion and safety evaluation upgrader.<br /><br />AMY GOODMAN: What did you say?<br /><br />BRANDON BRYANT: I said, "F— that. I’m getting out."<br /><br />AMY GOODMAN: Stephen?<br /><br />STEPHEN LEWIS: "I’m done."<br /><br />AMY GOODMAN: Michael?<br /><br />MICHAEL HAAS: I made my decision to get out long before that re-enlistment became even an option.<br /><br />AMY GOODMAN: Cian?<br /><br />CIAN WESTMORELAND: I burned my uniform in my boss’s grill, and I hitchhiked around the world.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-65552578786378836082015-11-22T04:45:21.954-08:002015-11-22T04:45:21.954-08:00And a volcano to boot. Agony.And a volcano to boot. Agony.Hiltonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04497545378045907642noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-47748734498688901032015-11-22T01:00:10.541-08:002015-11-22T01:00:10.541-08:00US Air Force drone operators on the job: photo by ...US Air Force drone operators on the job: photo by Rui Vieira/PA Wire/AP via The Intercept, 19 November 2015<br />https://prod01-cdn06.cdn.firstlook.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/1/2015/11/drone-operator.jpg<br />and they are and laughing!!!!L'Enfant de la Haute Merhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17122358316297267842noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-44580726618820662222015-11-21T23:52:51.025-08:002015-11-21T23:52:51.025-08:00Elmore James: The Sky is Crying
Albert King: The...<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKEdlSTHjtU" rel="nofollow">Elmore James: The Sky is Crying</a><br /><br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8Mj5ioPhxs" rel="nofollow">Albert King: The Sky Is Crying (live in Sweden)</a>TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.com