To Have A Shot At Not….

in World — by Valleria Ruselli — May 19, 2018

“Nadine Gordimer once said that socially-conscious writers should write as if they were dead. For unless they did they’d never find the courage to tell the truth. Well, that’s only partly true today. One has to add that such a one must write as if all loved family members are dead too. For the powers that be now use shotguns.” — Richard Martin Oxman

I appreciated the link drawn by a colleague between illiteracy and drones in a recent article, and I quickly jotted down about four dozen downsides to drones, manifestations of violence that are not often enough, if at all, associated with drones. Efforts by the Shut Down Creech! activists are admirable, and should be applauded, but they need a supplement. Ditto for documentaries like National Bird and books like Jeremy Scahill’s The Assassination Complex. And articles like this. What has to happen to have a shot at shutting down the Creech Air Force Base operation and its counterparts is for citizens to begin taking over the executive decision-making in given states, and giving up on issuing bootless cries directed at folks on the federal level, no matter what administration is ruling the roost.

The forms of present protest and current means of documentation are doomed if reins of power are not secured. For instance, to have a shot at not allowing the feds to operate in Nevada unconscionably as they see fit… Brian Sandoval — if he had his heart, head and soul in a healthy place — could give fits to the feds, find a way to sway the public in a brand new direction. There is no other way to save the day. But I pray that if I’m wrong the reader will enlighten me as to why.

1. To have a shot at not hearing about more violence on campuses, stop the drones.

2. To have a shot at not hearing about more bullying, stop the drones.

3. To have a shot at not hearing about more domestic violence, stop the drones.

4. To have a shot at not hearing about more random street violence, stop drones.

5. To have a shot at not hearing about suicides, stop the drones.

6. To have a shot at not hearing about parental abuse, stop the drones.

7. To have a shot at not hearing about increasing poverty, stop the drones.

8. To have a shot at traveling abroad safely, stop the drones.

9. To have a shot at not hearing about car bombs in America, stop the drones.

10. To have a shot at not seeing increases in psychopathic behavior, stop drones.

11. To have a shot at our not bleeding our economy, stop the drones.

12. To have a shot at not causing untold misery abroad on an ongoing basis, stop the drones from killing in our name.

13. To have a shot at not being complicit in war criminality, stop the drones.

14. To have a shot at our not continually violating others’ sovereignty, stop drones.

15. To have a shot at our not deteriorating further as a nation, stop the drones.

16. To have a shot at reducing the militarization of society, stop the drones.

17. To have a shot at not militarizing space, stop the drones.

18. To have a shot at not ruining the lives of teen drone operators, stop drones.

19. To have a shot at our not developing technology that’s worse than drones, stop the drones.

20. To have a shot at not encouraging other nations to use drones, stop the drones.

21. To have a shot at not further destroying the environment, stop the drones.

22. To have a shot at not having drones carrying nuclear payloads, stop drones.

23. To have a shot at not violating the Sixth (Septuagint) Commandment, stop the drones.

24. To have a shot at not immiserating more people of color, inflicting irreparable damage on them (while reinforcing racism), stop the drones.

Valleria Ruselli is a member of the Oxman Collective. She can be reached at aptosnews@gmail.com. Drones are like shotguns fired in the dark, in a place where the the finger pulling the trigger should be turning on the light.

https://countercurrents.org/2018/05/19/to-have-a-shot-at-not/