It’s easy to criticize President Obama for continuing and radically expanding President Bush’s program of targeted assassinations using unmanned drone planes. But let’s face it. Everyone knows what they would do with those drones if they got the job.
I Want to be a Drone President
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The Final Countdown" talk show on Radio Sputnik. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
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Need any help in compiling that kill list, Ted ?…
Henri
Why am I certain — even before I go online myself to check — that somewhere out there is the set of instructions for building a killdrone from off-the-shelf equipment?
Can you say, “Unelectable” ? … I knew you could. Not that it wouldn’t be all giggles and grins to drone the bastids, but first Ted or I would have to get into office and that just ain’t gonna happen in today’s US of A.
i.e. : The pug-lickins retook the Senate. The American electorate evidently forgot what happened the last time the pug-lickins owned all four branches of government (incl Media)
A wise man once said that we get the government we deserve. I’m afraid he’s right.
CrazyH, although I’d hate to think that of you, you might just possibly deserve the US government – and the best Congress money could buy in 2014. But I doubt sincerely that we in the rest of the world do…. 😉
Henri
It may just be up to the rest of the world to fix the US gubbmint. The citizens certainly haven’t stepped up to the responsibility.
There are 19 of “you” for every 1 of “us,” those are good odds even if we do have a ludicrous military budget. But if it’s not too much bother, I’d appreciate advance warning on D Day.
Loose lips sink ships….
Henri
@ mhenriday – My wife & I had just recently begun seriously considering a return to the U.S.
This election, of course, makes us more certain of remaining in Mexico. 🙁
My best wishes, mein verehrter Lehrer, to you and to your wife, whether you choose to remain in Mexico or return to the United States. Alas, no matter where on the planet one lives, the results of elections in the latter country will influence – and generally not for the good – one’s life….
Henri
Henri / Lehrer
(Most) Kidding aside – I was surprised, I honestly thought that the electorate was even more fed up with the R’s than the D’s. (Doesn’t mean they LIKE the D’s …)
But then, I was surprised when O’bummer got reelected. I was pretty sure he was a single-term prez on the day he was was sworn in. Between his choice of skin color and his (previously) leftish politics, he shoulda been doomed.
I think it highlights just how broken the system is. As an engineer, when I see a wildly thrashing system I assume it’s just about to explode and run away.
Not sure there’s a far enough away this time around.
It does seem inevitable that it will all come crashing down around our ears. But is that a priori a bad thing?
We’re screwed economically – we’ve got a petroleum based economy. We *must* get off it in order for ‘civilization’ to continue – but I doubt that it’s economically feasible. It would cost more to fix than we’ve got available, even if we could convince the great unwashed.
We’re screwed ecologically – there are far too many of us already, and there’s no way to convince the aforementioned unwashed to stop breeding like bunnies. We may not be able to stop global warming as is, even if we stopped using petroleum and coal tomorrow.
We’re screwed politically – there is too much unbalance around the world, too many old grudges, add dwindling resources to the mix and (insert picture of threaded fastener)
Okay, we’re screwed. We can’t realistically fix what we’ve got with what we’ve got to fix it.
If we continue down the path we’re on, we could render the planet uninhabitable before the economic or political screwing. That would be bad.
Going back to Philosophy 101: if killing one man will prevent the deaths of a hundred, then the moral thing to do is to kill that one man – even if he’s innocent of all wrongdoing. So the most moral route would be to do all we can to hasten the economic or political crash in order to avoid the uninhabitable planet scenario.
hmmm, maybe the I’ll start voting a straight Republican ticket after all…
@ mhenriday –
Thanks for the best wishes.
I really have to laugh when friends or relatives in the U.S. ask my wife or me: “Aren’t you afraid to be living in Mexico?” With what’s happening North of the Border, I’d rather be here.At least there are no illusions of “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”
We’ve been told by neighbors, “We are all watching out for you to make sure the bad guys leave you alone.”
That’s good. 🙂
I suspect you’re right, CrazyH, in that the wildly thrashing system is in terminal decline – the question is whether its going to take the rest of us with it when it finally explodes/implodes. I hope not, and I hope that cartoonists like Ted survive to record the debacle….
Henri
I sent this clip (a documentary) to myself over a year ago, and never got around to watching. I re-discovered it while cleaning out my mailbox today.
It explains a lot about what has happened in the United States and around the world. The clip is almost 20 years old, and it is of 43-1/2 minutes duration; but it is worth your time if you watch and digest the content and understand the repercussions.
It explains the reason why people vote against their own best interests, why they are so insulting of one another, and why they are devolving from what once was considered to be good and humanitarian interests.
It it all explained here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=DHunekX1xPw
> It explains the reason why people vote against their own best interests, why they are so insulting of one another, and why they are devolving from what once was considered to be good and humanitarian interests.
Well, I could explain that in a lot less than 43-1/12 minutes, but I can’t guarantee that it wouldn’t be insulting…
😀
A very interesting conversation.
The decline of the world. The Club of Rome was putting the end of everything as happening in the late 1980s/early 1990s, if I recall correctly. I think their calculations (which were never meant to be rock-solid in the first place) were insufficient due to the rise of computer-enhanced technology as well as a margin of error (you can’t calculate the end of the world’s exact moment, and the efficiencies from computerization may have increased food production and provided for more-rapid development of pharmaceuticals and new molecular compounds for agriculture).
The population, I strongly suspect, will begin to drop soon. And then it will go into free fall. Only a few events need to happen. And the oceans rising will certainly force everyone’s hands. But what will really do it will be something like a couple monsoon failures in a row. Or a new crop fungus that can’t be dealt with by normal means.
The Republican victory? That’s a post for another time. I don’t want to go to bed depressed.