Brainshrub.com - Guest Bloggers

Heart Shaped Vandalism

Kathryn — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 10:00:00 -0500

On Thanksgiving Eve, our shop was vandalized. Someone, or ones, tried to bash in the glass of our front door with a rather triangular, medium-sized rock. It also seems as if they were attempting to remove the door handle. After a call from some concerned friends who noticed the damage (thanks Dara and Amy!), we arrived to view the scene of the crime.

I said, "Looks like some drunk/hoodlum was driving by and threw the rock." The offending object was resting in the center of the threshold. I generally chose to believe it was random vandalism because that notion felt safest.

Later, it was pointed out to me that the left bolt on the handle of the door was halfway out and the handle itself was extremely loose. This means that someone took the time and energy not to lob a stone from a moving vehicle but instead stood in front of the door long enough to work out the bolt and probably crash the rock into the glass with all their might. This is a more disturbing picture to me.

We called the cops, filed a rote report, taped up the cracks in the door with red packing tape, and learned from the forensics officer that she had been down the street where a church had also been broken into the night before when she got the call to come see us. Oddly, this set me at ease a bit. I could relax again into thinking the crime was perpetrated by some crackhead just looking for some cash.

The next day I was working behind the cash register and a rumpled, somewhat awkward looking teenage guy held open the door and from the threshold asked, "What happened to the door?"

I replied, "Rock," and pointed to the weapon cum art piece in front of the tip jar.

"Do they know who did it?"

"No."

He let the door shut, examined it's shatter pattern and swung it open again, "I think this happened to the guy before you, too."

"Oh yeah?" I replied as he let the door shut on himself again.

He wandered around in front of the store, reading every poster in the windows and returned to the doorway with this parting quip, "I bet it was the Ku Klux Klan. Because you have some... don't you have some... homo... homosexual stuff in here?"

I looked up at him and said, "Yes. Yes, we do."

He continued, "Yeah, it was probably them. They're not very organized anymore but they still do small operations like this." And with that he was gone.

"Yeah, it could have been them I guess," was shruggingly coming out of my mouth as he left. I saw him skulking about the posters in front of the store one other time that day and I thought, "It was probably that guy!"

Still, it was a more heartening thought that it might have been some random drunken rampage, anonymous. More fear lies in the thought that someone carefully, or in some momentary rage, chose to try to breach our space because it really pissed them off that we are queer.

Pretty soon after, we began looking at the patterns on the smashed door. We all agreed there was some strange beauty in its brokenness. Then I took in my breath as I noticed the center of the blunt force wound looked like a heart made up of glass splinters. My friends rolled their eyes at my Pollyanna attitude but, they admitted that, yes, it had created a vague heart shape.

The door is fixed now. There is no trace of the violent heart and nothing has happened since.

Reflecting on the imminent beginning of a New Year, I have come to find lessons for myself in this experience. I am resolved to push back my fears as much as possible, to hold my head high, and be proud of who I am, what I do, and the community that I serve. I am resolved to see the shattered, glass-splintered heart in everything and to believe that in the darkest of dark places there is still a heart to heal and hold together. I am resolved to being receptive, perceptive, intuitive, and, of course, to love.

No counterpoint today.

Tags: Vandalism - Fear - door - heart shaped cracks

Note: This was originaly published in outinasheville.com. Special thanks to by Lin Orndorf, Editor, for permission to post this here.

Credits: First photograph was by Kathie Stanek.

Nobody died in the Foley Scandal

Doug De Clue — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 09:02:11 -0400

Connecticut Republican Congressman Christopher Shays in a desperate attempt at counter-accusation dug up a Republican moldy oldy and dusted it off claiming "no one died like during the 1969 Chappaquiddick incident involving Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy".

This just shows how desperate they are getting on the other side folks...digging up 37 year old ancient history like it's recent news.

But yes, Congressman Shays you are correct, indeed, nobody died in the Foley scandal.

On the other hand there ARE recent scandals that are probably far more important in terms of their consequences where people HAVE died.

Let's examine a few, shall we?

1) For instance... on August 6th, 2001 President George W. Bush received an urgent warning entitle "Osama bin Laden determined to strike in U.S. in his Presidential Daily Briefing while on vacation at his ranch.

He had ignored the urgent warnings of the previous administration and done nothing significant to find Osama bin Laden for his first 8 months in office and made no serious efforts to deal with terrorism AFTER this warning until mere days before the attacks of September 11th, 2001 which killed 2,985 people. At this point it was far too late to make a difference.

Why don't you talk about the deaths that resulted from this scandalous dereliction of duty by President Bush?

2) Prior to August 29th, 2005, President George W. Bush received urgent warnings about the massive devastation that impending category 5 hurricane Katrina was going to inflict upon the Gulf coast - yet he failed to respond effectively either before the hurricane with mandatory evacuations using Federal resources or AFTER the event for the better part of a week AFTER it became clear to the whole world just how devastating the disaster really was.

The death toll for Katrina has been placed between 1400 and 1800. This was yet another scandalous example of dereliction of duty and sheer incompetence.

Why don't you talk about this one Congressman Shays?

3) Or worse than just dereliction of duty or incompetence, how about lies being told by government officials that lead to thousands of deaths?

The Bush Administration, including the President, the Vice President, the Secretaries of State and Defense, and the National Security Advisor conducted a concerted media campaign to frighten average Americans and members of Congress alike into believing that Iraq and Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction including chemical, biological, and nuclear capabilities and even cruise missile delivery systems allowing such weapons to be delivered to East Coast cities within 45 minutes.

None of these lies to Congress or the American people proved to be remotely true.

In the resulting war with Iraq, as of today 2985 coalition deaths have occurred (equalling the number of 9/11 dead) of which 2752 are Americans. Beyond these military dead, iraqbodycount.org conservatively places the number of Iraqi civillian deaths thus far between 43,850 and 48,693. A less conservative study released today by John Hopkins University places the number over a magnitude higher at 655,000.

Even if we only go with iraqbodycount.org's most conservative number of 43,850, that's still 43,850 Iraqi civillians who have been killed because our President and Vice President and members of his cabinet chose to tell us lies so that they could get our permission to start a war.

Why aren't you talking about THAT scandal Congressman Shays?

That's the kind of scandal that impeachments should be based upon.

Instead you feel that it is more important to discuss a 37 year old automobile accident and try to use it to equivocate with the intentional sexually inappropriate, if not outright illegal behavior of your fellow Republican Congressman - Mark Foley.

As they say in the TV business, you've "jumped the shark" Congressman Shays. No reasonable voter will accept your claim of equivalence between a 37 year old auto accident and the recent behavior of Foley.

Worse yet, the claim that "nobody died" is only going to invite comparisons to 9/11, Iraq, and Katrina that you really don't want the voters to make and only begs the voters to go places that you don't want them to go.

Nobody died, indeed.

Read counterpoint here.

Tags: Foley - Kennedy - Katrina - 9/11 - Christopher Shays - Republican moldy oldy

Hurricane Preparedness for political campaigns

Doug De Clue — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 10:15:48 -0400

Ever since Orlando, Florida suffered through three hurricanes within in six weeks of each other during the 2004 campaign season, I've advised other activists that they should have a plan in place for dealing with natural disasters.

Here is what I had to learn the hard way:

After you have considered your own situation, be prepared to help the campaigns you are working with to batten down the hatches in order to recover quickly afterward. Make sure that office quipment is secured and that computers, paper files, campaign literature and other equipment are protected from debris, flood and rain damage.

Also, designate one reliable person to ensure that all critical computer data (such as voter databases, volunteer lists, voter ID's etc.) is backed up and a safety copy is stored off site in case of catastrophic damage to the headquarters.

While we are on the subject of catastrophic damage: Have a plan to relocate the entire campaign and bring it back up somewhere else in a worst-case scenario. Make sure volunteers and the media know where this new location will be.

Be prepared to have some non-campaigning "downtime" in the schedule where you focus on helping the community recover rather than getting out the word out about the campaign. The good will generated will be remembered much longer by the voters anyways.

Since I live in Florida, I had hurricanes in mind when I wrote this. However, most of these tips could apply to any campaign working in the aftermath of a natural disaster.

I'm curious if any readers of Brainshrub.com have experiences and lessons they would like to add? Please so so in the comments.

Doug De Clue
Former Orlando Kerry Campaign Staffer
Survivor of Hurricanes Opel, Charley, Frances, and Jeanne
Orlando, FL

No counterpoint today.

Tags: disaster - hurricane - political campaign - preparedness - disaster preparedness for political campaigns

Idea to save the Air Force money.

Doug De Clue — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 10:15:37 -0400

An Open Letter to
The Air Force Office of Scientific Research
Department of the Air Force
Arlington, VA

C/O: Public Affairs Officer William J. Sharp

Mr. Sharp:

It has recently come to my attention that the Department of the Air Force / AFOSR intends to spend approximately $450,000 in a research effort to develop credible sources of intelligence through a combination of online research and software development using so called on-line "web" logs posted at various uniform resource locators (URL's) on the "internet" - a world wide network of interconnected computers that can be traced back to the combined development efforts of the Defense Advanced Reseach Projects Agency (DARPA) and former United States Senator and later Vice President of the United States, Albert Gore, Jr. of Tennessee.

Please be advised that these web "logs" are more commonly known among their regular users as "blogs".

As someone with some experience in the use of "blogs" and in light of this proposed expenditure by USAF/AFOSR, I feel it is my duty as an American citizen to my fellow taxpayers and to the defense establishment to inform you of the existence of "Brainshrub.com".

For a Brainshrub.com offers daily featured articles of current interest to the American citizen in general as well as to the defense establishment more particularly.

Recent topics of likely interest to AFOSR and the Air Force have included general discussions of the war in Iraq with related historical analyses, the use of gunship aircraft in Iraq, domestic operation of unmanned aerial vehicles for intelligence gathering tasks, the consequences of various "interrogation" techniques being practiced in intelligence gathering operations, various aspects of domestic electronic intelligence gathering "efforts" by the National Security Agency and other highly relevant topics.

Brainshrub.com also already offers link scans of relevant topics from various blogs and primary news sources around the web thus eliminating the need to develop automation software to conduct this task "in house" at AFOSR as described in your press release.

By using Brainshrub.com as a credible souce for internet inteligence, the AFOSR can save $450,000Â while simultaneously avoiding an unnecessary three year delay and the technical problems that inevitably result from any high risk technical venture such as the one being proposed.

To reiterate my initial point, brainshrub.com is free to the taxpayer and immediately available for AFOSR's use in the "war on terror".

Best regards in your endeavor,

Respectfully,

Douglas J. De Clue
Brainshrub Guest Blogger
Orlando, FL

No counterpoint needed, because Brainshrub.com stands ready to fight the War On Terror shoulder-to-shoulder with the USAF. (Editors note: If however, the Air Force still needs to spend the money, I will be happy to help them.)

Tags: Blogs - Blogging - Air Force - Military spending - Brainshrub

Wedge issue formula: "Gay + Noun"

Doug De Clue — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 10:40:29 -0400

In a tactic only slightly more sophisticated than "your shoelaces are untied" that grows increasingly threadbare each election year; the Republican party has patronizingly trotted out another wedge-issue to distract the middle and lower classes into voting against their own best interests.

It's the tired-and-true "gay + noun" formula. As in: "gays + in the military", "gay + adoption", or "gay + marriage".

The "gay + noun" technique is so predictable that you could build a factory with a computer program that generates random "gay +" wedge issues.

This year it looks like "gay + marriage" reruns. For the 2008 election season it may as well be anything from "gay + auto insurance" to "gay + bounty hunters" to "gays + in the Olympics".

Because the "gay + noun" technique has been overused in recent years, and has lost much of its effectiveness, this year we saw a major switch in Republican wedge issues heading south of the border.

They tried to to make Mexicans the new "gays" by using scare-tactic propaganda from right wing media outlets, in combination with talking points from Republican politicians; to blame illegal immigration for taking American jobs, to the high price of gas, to lurid and spectacular crimes.

Thankfully, the attempt to demonize Mexicans back-fired spectacularly as millions of Latinos across the country took to the streets to protest and fight back in a manner not seen since the 1960's.

So now the Republican Party is running home scared to its momma - the tried and true "gay + noun" factory formula; with a gay marriage amendment to try to constitutionally regulate something that has been the exclusive province of state law for the entire history of the Republic.

It is embarrassing that the Republican Party is so devoid of good ideas that it must resort to wedge issue tactics like this in the first place.

Since when did it become the government's job to "protect" YOUR marriage anyways?

Isn't that YOUR job - to protect YOUR OWN marriage?

When will Republicans get around to dealing with real problems, rather than wedge issues that don't improve anyones life? It's far more productive to have formulas that create products and jobs, rather than rhetoric and fear.

Read counterpoint here.

Tags: Wedge Issue - gay plus - Republicans - politics - gay

How to honor fallen soldiers this Memorial Day: Stop making more of them.

Doug De Clue — Mon, 29 May 2006 07:00:08 -0400

I recently attended an event where a DCCC-endorsed Democratic candidate for Congress was handing out cards with the names of six soldiers who had died in wars throughout American history. He suggested that we honor these individuals by reading their names aloud in a public place on Memorial Day.

When I asked the candidate about his ideas on how to get US troops out of Iraq if elected, he said that while he didn't like the occupation: "we are there for a long long time" and he wasn't going to make it a campaign issue.

Great. Dead soldiers from past conflicts are worth campaigning on, but living ones in current hot-spots are left to fend for themselves.

This candidate clearly did not seem to grasp that every few days another six soldiers are dying in Iraq. Or, to put it into terms he might understand: Every few days another card full of dead Americans is being filled out.

Being the son of a career Army soldier and growing up in a military family, this callous disregard for the plight of the troops in Iraq touched a nerve as he passed around thinly-veiled campaign literature.

Both Republicans and Republican-lite Democrats, like this candidate, are always quick to be seen praising the troops. However, they are unable to recognize how deeply disrespectful it is to order soldiers to keep dying day after day with no exit strategy or realistic plan for victory.

The best way we could honor those who have fallen in service to our country on Memorial Day is not to read their names from some card printed with a candidate's campaign logo, but to make sure that no more soldiers die in a conflict that is clearly an unwinnable mistake.

The way for Democrats to win this election cycle is to stand courageously on our values and offer voters a clear choice between right and wrong.

Thinking Americans already understand that the Iraq invasion and occupation is wrong. Only ideologues and political opportunists still claim otherwise. I, for one, am tired of Republican-lite candidates who don't have the spine to campaign on a platform that proposes ways to bring as many troops home as quickly as possible.Â

Read counterpoint here.

Tags: DINO - Republican-lite - Iraq - occupation - war - Memorial Day - DCCC - Democrats

Man who got fired from Public Radio after criticizing Reagan in an online forum tells his story.

misanthrope — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 08:00:28 -0400

In 2004, I was working at the public radio station in Mobile AL as a paid announcer. In the first week of June, during the middle of a hotly contested national election campaign, former President Ronald Reagan passed away after a long battle with Alzheimer's disease.

Many of us who were politically adroit were well aware of what the Bush administration would do to take advantage of the situation. Our expectations played into the worst assumptions of political pragmatism. It also came to pass.

During that week, employees of the station were greeted with an interoffice memo dictating that we (the announcers/producers), in accordance with the mandated national day of mourning on the day of Reagan's burial, were to program into every hour of our shows a piece of "respectful and appropriate" music "by an American composer" for the national day of commemoration and to make an announcement that the work was to be played "in commemoration of our national day of mourning."

I felt completely betrayed by the order. I knew I couldn't afford to take the day off from work, however I resented being told that I would musically eulogize someone I detested on the air, to pretend as if my principles were something else altogether. To that point, we were completely responsible for our programming. If something went wrong, if the public took issue with our programming, we shouldered the blame. Now, that responsibility was being compromised.

I had to blow off steam about this. I went to a forum whereby I knew I would find sympathetic souls: Democratic Underground. In the midst of my ranting, I relayed my intention to follow through with the technicality of the order, but that I would also exercise the liberty given for the undictated remainder of my show.

I programmed what I was asked, and made my mind up to announce it without using the word mourning--the phrase I decided upon was "in conjuction with our day of national observance"--while continuing as directed. The remaining pieces carried themes of squandered ecological stewardship and sociological harmony.

Unbeknownst to me, Democratic Underground was regularly monitored by political adversaries. A young conservative at Vanderbilt University saw the thread whereby I talked about my dilemma, deciphered where I was employed, and wrote the station's general manager painting me as determined to "sabotage" the station's Reagan memorial.

The GM immediately responded in appreciation to the e-mailer, then called me. He asked if I had been posting to Democratic Underground. When I responded that I had, he told me I was fired immediately and to turn my keys as soon as possible. I quietly agreed and complied immediately.

I contacted the ACLU and they looked into my case. There was nothing they could do. The station's license is owned by a small, private college (a Jesuit school) and even though it received public funding not only from the locals via fundraising campaigns, but also from the Corporation of Public Broadcasting, the private categorization of the school made their actions legal. It seems WHIL is "public" when it behooves them and "private" when it works to their convenience.

While it certainly damaged the regard in which I held our local public radio station, it allowed me to turn to my writing more. In the meanwhile, I've moved from a better position at the newspaper where I work and have won a few awards to boot. I'm hoping it will be enough to land me a similar job in a larger market in an area of the country where the political, social and meteorological climate better suits me.

And the radio station? Well, a lot has changed there and none of it good. The general manager who fired me was ousted in a very devious and political manner about a year after he did me in. The fellow who was moved into his spot seems to be far worse, too. The reports I have heard on him for the last nine months paint a picture of someone highly abusive and incompetent that can't be trusted.

He is in the process of reworking the entirety of it into his image, as a repository of New Age and Smooth Jazz where computers do most of the work, where music is simply a product by which they try and grab ratings.

The departures started within a couple of months of his take-over.

The office manager left as well as the development director, who is in charge of all the fundraising, left and has yet to be replaced.

Of the ten announcers who were there, all but two have left. That also included the program director who had been there for 12 years. And everytime someone departed, management merely changed their shift to automation.

Most of the other announcers were in love with the arts. They had backgrounds in classical music and other similar forms. They acted in plays, wrote, painted and were general players in the town's arts scene. That's why were all in PUBLIC radio, because there, it's supposed to be about the art form first and the industry second.

No more.

Though I miss playing my jazz for folks, I'm glad I got out of there when I did.

Read counterpoint here. (Editor's note: As a counterpoint, here is the email that got the author of this letter fired. It was originaly posted here, but the link is now dead.)

Dear Ms. Breland:

In surfing the Internet today, I came across a posting on a message board that appears to be from one of your station's announcers. While he does not reveal his real name in his posting, he indicates that he works for the NPR affiliate in Mobile, AL, and that he is the announcer for the 10 A.M. - 12 P.M. weekday programming block.

In his post, this person stated that, presumably due to a personal political grievance with the late President Reagan, he would not comply with instructions to announce an appropriately respectful memorial program for tomorrow's day of mourning for President Reagan. He solicited ideas that would permit him to ignore or circumvent those instructions and subtly insult Mr. Reagan through his choice of programming. The announcer posts under the user name "misanthrope"; you can read his posting and the replies by him and others at this link:

I am sure you would not want what should be a respectful and nonpartisan observance of the loss of a former President disrupted by the political agenda of one of your announcers. As a taxpayer and supporter of public radio, I trust that you will ensure that tomorrow's memorial programming reflects the solemnity of the death of a former President. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,
[FreedomFlynnie]

(To which, FreedomFlynnie then posts the response from the General Manager:)

Thank you for bring this matter to our attention. It is truly sad when people you work with and trust feel it necessary to do these things.

Jeffrey R. Stoll, General Manager
WHIL-FM

Tags: Reagan - death - public radio - fired - blogging - online forum

Respect your food

Chef M — Fri, 14 Apr 2006 13:15:03 -0400

As an amateur chef, I am a big fan of chicken. If chicken were Elvis, I would be the screaming teen in the front row.

Whether the foul is fried, boiled, smoked, or poached; it's all super delicious to me. I know more ways to prepare a chicken for dinner than any man ought too - and I'm still experimenting with new poultry-based culinary delights.

After many years of studying food preparation, I've started to become a bit philosophic about the relationship between the animal I'm eating and the rest of society. Perhaps this is why a rare trip to Burger King the other day inspired me to contemplate how detached most Americans are from their food, and, how this detachment works to our long-term detriment.

For example, in the aforementioned Burger King, I saw a marquee adversing BK Chicken FriesÂ© that depicted two hens having a heated dispute over which sauce they should be eaten with.

Ignoring the fact that BK Chicken FriesÂ© are an abomination against nature and look like fried tampons, the advertisement struck me as being extremely disrespectful. Not just to the animals - but to humans as well.

I would like to appeal to my fellow carnivores too treat our food with a bit more respect. It's bad enough that we are forced to kill animals to survive - but over-processed BK Chicken FriesÂ© are surely a sign of the coming apocalypse.

Since it is easier to respect those you have some knowledge about, allow me to introduce you to the life cycle of the noble chicken in our society so that you, the poultry-eating customer, can come to appreciate this bird.

You might have seen a modern chicken coop from the highway at some point. It is a large, smelly, rectangular building. (Not to be confused with a Wal-Mart.) The coops are lit up 18 hours a day in order to increase the ovulation time for hens so that they produce Extra LargeÂ© eggs.

From the farmers perspective, all chickens are not created equal. Some chickens live to produce eggs and some live to produce meat. The egg producing chickens don't make good meat and the meat producing chickens, called "boilers", don't make good eggs. Perhaps there are exceptions here, I'm not sure. (Dammit Jim - I'm a chef, not a poultry farmer!)

Let's focus on the boilers for a moment: After hatching the chicks are stored in large feed lots and given a healthy diet of fiber, protein, anti-biotics, and hormones. In some cases they are de-beaked in order to reduce the risk of chicken on chicken violence. Upon adulthood, they are killed, rendered, and plastic wrapped.

Yummy.

The life of a boiler is not so bad. They have plenty of food, shelter and they don't need to worry about the capitol gains tax. A boilers only natural enemy is disease and you. They live a life of quiet contemplation and conversation with plenty of good company.

I sometimes wonder what chickens discuss amongst themselves. Do they talk about the farmers? Do they contemplate geo-politics or the nature of self?

Probably not; but just because chickens can't do algebra does not mean they are inanimate objects. Birds are living beings that have a wide range of emotions and are deserving of respect - even if they are a few rungs lower than us on the food chain.

I am not a vegetarian, but I have enormous respect for the animals that I cook and eat. In my kitchen careful attention is given to sanitation, preparation, and consumption of meat.

In my opinion, we carnivores have a responsibility to honor the formerly living, breathing, and feeling being that unwillingly gave it's life to sustain you and the people you care about. To over process meat and fashion it into a mass-produced french fry disrespects the animal's sacrifice.

Furthermore, advertising meat products in a way that objectifies the animal divorces us from having to respect life. Food becomes a game instead of part of a sacred system. It creates the unhealthy illusion that what we eat is detached from who we are.

Just wanted to give you something to think about.

~~Read counterpoint here.~~ (I just can't find a counterpoint for this, please make a suggestion in the comments.)

Tags: chicken - food - cooking - fast food - vegetarian - respect - farming - life - chicken fries - Burger King

Why allowing unmanned aerial vehicles ( UAVs ) over the United States is a bad idea.

Doug De Clue — Fri, 31 Mar 2006 08:49:36 -0500

There is disturbing news that Congress is considering allowing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV's) to fly over United States airspace and perform surveillance on Americans:

Drone aircraft may prowl U.S. skies

A House of Representatives panel on Wednesday heard testimony from police agencies that envision using UAVs for everything from border security to domestic surveillance high above American cities. Private companies also hope to use UAVs for tasks such as aerial photography and pipeline monitoring. <snip>

In a scene that could have been inspired by the movie "Minority Report," one North Carolina county is using a UAV equipped with low-light and infrared cameras to keep watch on its citizens. The aircraft has been dispatched to monitor gatherings of motorcycle riders at the Gaston County fairgrounds from just a few hundred feet in the air--close enough to identify faces--and many more uses, such as the aerial detection of marijuana fields, are planned.

I am a licensed private pilot and an aerospace engineer who has specific technical and safety objections to this proposal based on my expertise, but I am writing here today as an American citizen first and foremost.

It is outrageous that the United States Congress would ever contemplate allowing the government to use Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV's) or what used to be known as "drones" to spy on American citizens inside the territorial borders of the United States.

Many of my fellow pilots will complain of the hazards these UAV's will pose to general aviation or even to commercial aviation - and they are quite correct - but I want to talk about the much more serious hazard they pose for our democratic form of government.

These drones are essentially military in nature and can easily be armed with missiles and guns as they fly over American homes and American cities - much as they already do in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.

Therefore, these UAVs are a real threat to the legal concept of the Posse Comitatus Act: that the military shall not police the civil population.

There is no legitimate need for the government to exercise this level of surveillance over American citizens inside the borders of the United States. This proposal hearkens back to the Soviet Union or to the East German secret police, the Stasi, where they were monitoring everybody and everything all the time.

Let us be clear: This isn't about the government spying without a warrant on citizens as they use the telephone or the internet, as bad as those violations of the law and the Constitution have already been - but rather, it is about giving the state a tool that practically begs to be abused by overzealous agents.

Given the thermal imaging equipment, laser microphones and other high tech surveillance weapons these UAV's can and do carry; it will be possible to look through walls and overhear conversations at great distances - without a hint that the government was ever infringing on anyones rights.

Where can the assumption of privacy exist if we can be so easily spied on as we walk down a city street or as we sit in our very own homes?

The fourth Amendment to the Constitution guarantees us the right to be free from the prying eyes of those powerful individuals within the government, who may wish to use the apparatus of the state to spy on and intimidate their enemies. It places safeguards on the ability of the government to violate our right to privacy in the form of requiring a warrant, a judge, and a finding of probable cause.

As the famous Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once said: "Individuals have a right to be left alone."

The American people must demand that Congress put a stop to this insane idea that is being put forth merely as a way to increase the profits of the companies that build these drones. It will cost far too much because it comes at the expense of our Constitutional democracy.

Douglas J. De Clue
Private Pilot, Single Engine Land
Bachelor of Aerospace Engineering,
Georgia Institute of Technology

Read counterpoint here.

Tags: UAVs - unmanned aerial vehicles - privacy - unmanned aerial vehicles - 4th Amendment - spying - surveillance - UAV - Posse Comitatus

Credits:

The image of the UAV was from Stock.Xchng
The X-ray image was created by "c2k2e" via Flickr. You can see more of his work at his website.

Returning AC-130 gunships in Iraq are a sign of desperation from the Pentagon

Doug De Clue — Mon, 06 Mar 2006 08:00:43 -0500

As an aerospace engineer and a pilot I tend to pay attention to certain pieces of aviation and defense related news that most people simply ignore. The following story really caught my attention recently:

According to the Associated Press (AP), the Air Force is bringing back its AC-130 "Spectre" gunships to Iraq.

Armed airplanes used in Vietnam War secretly moved to Iraqi base

"The U.S. Air Force has begun moving heavily armed AC-130 airplanes — the lethal “flying gunships” of the Vietnam War — to a base in Iraq as commanders search for new tools to counter the Iraqi resistance, The Associated Press has learned.

An AP reporter saw the first of the turboprop-driven aircraft after it landed at the airfield this week. Four are expected.

The Iraq-based special forces command controlling the AC-130s, the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force, said it would have no comment on the deployment. But the plan’s general outline was confirmed by other Air Force officers, speaking anonymously because of the sensitivity of the subject."

These modified AC-130's are basically flying gun platforms with 20mm Gatling guns, large 40mm cannons and even a 105mm gun of the type usually found on self propelled artillery on the ground.

These aircraft are used to provide close air support fire missions against ground targets; earlier versions were used extensively in the Vietnam War. They were known as "Puff the Magic Dragon".

As you might imagine, these Spectre gunships are extremely deadly to whoever is on the wrong end of their guns, regardless of whether they are innocent bystanders or armed insurgents.

There are two reasons I want to bring this news item to everyone's attention:

The firepower these gunships can bring to bear is so dramatic and the risks in terms of civilian or "collateral" casualties is so correspondingly extreme that I believe that something really terrible is already happening or that something really terrible is about to happen in Iraq.
Bringing these aircraft back to Iraq is an act of desperation on someone in the Defense Department or White House.

Many hundreds and even thousands of Iraqi civilians will likely be killed if these aircraft are used in their most likely way: against insurgents in urban street battles in Baghdad, Bacuba, etc. where most of the insurgents intentionally place themselves in amongst the civilian population.

This implies that the Defense Department thinks that either that things are already going very badly for them in Iraq and they are trying to correct the situation, OR, that things are about to become very much worse and they are trying to be prepared to meet the upcoming situation as much as they can without dramatically increasing the manpower on the ground.

If Iraq continues down its present path towards Shiite/Suni Iraqi Civil War, it could make our own Civil War in this country (1861-1865) which killed 650,000+ look like a Sunday church picnic - and our troops would be caught in the middle of it if.

Bringing these gunships to Iraq is a signal that the Pentagon may be trying to get ready for the inevitable.

The next few logical steps the Defense Department can take in terms of escalation of firepower after the AC130's would be:

Return to using tactical aircraft in bombing missions like the Air Force F15E or the Navy/Marine F18's off of whatever carrier might be on station in the Gulf.
Start using more armor and artillery against insurgent targets. This was extensively done in Vietnam and although I'm not aware of this happening much in Iraq yet, it would be a logical escalation tactic that could occur.
Naval bombardment in coastal areas if necessary.
To bring in strategic bombers like the B52's that we have always used in the past. Whenever a President gets backed into a corner in one of these conflicts, he calls out the B52's. Johnson did it, Nixon did it, Poppy Bush did it in the first Gulf War, and Bush Jr. did it in Afghanistan. I would not be surprised to see this old Vietnam War era tactic return as well.
The use of napalm or fuel/air/incendiary type weapons. These have been used against our enemies in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam in the past. To my knowledge they haven't been used in Iraq but they would also be a likely tool of escalation there too.

These tactics are all indiscriminate tools of warfare that will kill many many people both civilian and insurgent alike if practiced in urban areas.

To the extent that media and the public ignores these escalations, the Bush administration can get away with using them in very heavy handed ways. The more "We the People" - and particularly the main stream media - pay attention, the fewer people will die because the administration will have to be more careful and deliberate if and when they decide to use these weapons.

Read counterpoint here.

Tags: ac-130 - gunship - Iraq - war - civilian casualties - Spectre - civil war