ROBERT C. KOEHLER FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

In the not so distant future, America’s skies will be full of . . . drones.

What could go wrong?

“Although the prospect of drones flying over U.S. cities is generating cries of spies in the skies,” writes the Los Angeles Times, “groups from California to Florida are fiercely competing to become one of six federally designated sites for testing how the remotely piloted aircraft can safely be incorporated into the nation’s airspace.”

It’s just technology and technology is neutral, or so the forces of mainstream capitalism assure us. Drones are an emerging market, with worldwide sales expected to double in the next decade, to $11 billion, if not much more. And these will be good drones, the kind that look for lost children or leaks in pipelines, the kind that catch criminals.

What disturbs me about all this — what feels utterly unexamined in the mainstream coverage of this looming techno-makeover of our world — is:

A. Why is there such an emerging market for drones?

B. Why does the fact that some people will make lots of money on drones make their domestic mega-debut a done deal and what are the implications of the fact that potential profit for the well-connected is the lodestar of our future?

C. What might Drone World look like 10 or 20 years — or seven generations — down the road? And why does that not seem to be a concern of government; that is to say, why in an alleged democracy is there so little public discussion about the world we’re creating for our children and all succeeding generations?

BILL BERKOWITZ FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Last week, David Kuo died at age 44, after almost ten years of battling a brain tumor. Although he wasn't a household name, Kuo was a major player in the Bush Administration's Faith-Based Initiative who after leaving the administration wrote a book blowing the lid off the administration's faith-based shenanigans.

Kuo's 2006 book, Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction, revealed how the Bush Administration politicized the Faith-Based Initiative. Amongst the provocative revelations were; how the Bush White House took every opportunity to politicize the initiative, how ideologically-minded officials frequently rejected applications for federal faith-based funds because they came from non-Christian applicants, how administration operatives mocked and ridiculed leaders of the Christian Right, and how the very essence of the initiative's charge to help the poor was reduced to platitudes.

Kuo served in the White House Office for three years (resigning in December 2003 after being diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor, giving him, by his own account, perhaps five or 10 years to live) and having been fully involved in the evolution of the faith-based initiative from its inception as the highly touted compassionate conservative centerpiece of the president's domestic agenda to its current status as under-funded afterthought.

ANN DAVIDOW FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Perhaps common sense has become obsolete; at least the term seems to have lost the clout it used to enjoy. Especially in recent days, the most absurd arguments have been put forward about everything from same-sex marriage to gun safety. Hold that semi-automatic, multi-round magazine clip close to your heart and repeat the one-man, one woman mantra or the country could be overrun with people who prefer goats as marital partners and heaven only knows what forms of life such liaisons might engender.

As for guns and ammunition, anything less than a hundred-round magazine clip could spell disaster for that woman and her children hiding in a closet when a cadre of armed assailants invades her home. And with respect to those fun-loving hunters and targeteers: is the nasty old government trying to twist a light-hearted pastime into something evil and dangerous? Or is limiting the number of rounds the way an authoritarian government keeps a freedom-loving people in check?

Arming teachers and beleaguered public officials is the best way, according to the NRA, to protect all of us from the bad guys. As President of the NRA, Wayne LaPierre puts it, “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” A gun is, of course, one way to silence a drunken hubby, unless of course he has a gun too and thinks his wife is the one who needs to be silenced. There are dozens of gun apologists and moral one-man, one-womanizers who suggest solutions for the current state of our social compact. Unlikely situations abound that call for a fully-loaded weapon at one’s side; training by NRA do-gooders is available so safety is assured, they say. The biggest problem is a paucity of weapons in the private sector, not the preponderance of them. Examples of what happens when guns are confiscated by leaders like Hitler and Mussolini abound, as if the lessons of the Second World War boiled down to countries that lacked a second-amendment shield.

BILL BERKOWITZ FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

You wouldn’t recognize William “Jerry” Boykin if you were sharing a pole with him on the subway or sitting next to him on a bus. While he isn’t one of the brightest stars in the conservative Christian right’s constellation, he has certainly tried – and in some cases succeeded – to raise his profile. For Boykin, now executive vice president of the Washington, D.C.-based Family Research Council, the path to right wing stardom has revolved around a protracted and vicious anti-Muslim campaign: Shtick that he’s been purveying for more than a decade.

In February, Boykin, one of the original members of the US Army's Delta Force and a former United States Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, appeared on a panel, led by radio talk show host Janet Parshall, at the National Religious Broadcasters convention. According to People for the American Way’s Brian Tashman, Boykin, the co-author of Sharia, the Threat to America railed against the so-called Sharia threat, and “cited a report from Frank Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy that claims that judges in fifty court cases have used Islamic law in making their decisions and that Sharia ‘has been insinuated into our legal system.’”

The ACLU has pointed out that “the CSP report consists mostly of 50 judicial opinions, which the authors copied and pasted word-for-word simply because they mention Islam or involve claims brought by Muslims, contending that these cases serve as evidence of the so-called 'Sharia threat.'" The CSP "report doesn’t even attempt to prove that Sharia law is being used in courts, but merely finds that there are some court cases which ‘happen to involve Islam or Muslims.'"

Tashman noted that “Boykin went on to cite Oklahoma’s unconstitutional Sharia ban and insisted that the media is refusing to reveal ‘the true nature of Islam.’”

JACQUELINE MARCUS FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

It’s laughable to hear our President and members of the legislature argue the fine points of gun control when they go about attacking defenseless and poor countries, murdering hundreds of thousands of people under the phony excuse of national security with weapons of mass destruction ranging from cluster bombs to depleted uranium missiles and chemicals that literally disintegrate flesh and bones to ash as witnessed at Fallujah, Iraq, “Go massive!” Donald Rumsfeld cheered, “Sweep it all up.  Things related and not,” while Dick Cheney and his associates drooled over the sadistic methods of torture that he ordered against a people who did absolutely nothing to the United States. 

I think of that photo of the five year old Iraqi girl wailing, crouched down with her parents’ blood splattered over her dress after U.S. troops opened fire at their car because they made the mistake of driving through the patrol, an image that circled the world media except in the United States where it was censored.

That image symbolizes the perception of the United States’ rogue government from the Bush years, and it has not really improved under Obama’s given the fact that Obama refused to prosecute the Bush-Cheney administration for committing heinous war crimes: lying about evidence that Saddam Hussein harbored weapons of mass destruction, ordering barbaric torture practices and bragging about how effective the satanic act of torture is when it is anything but, invading a sovereign and civilized nation no different from European nations except that Iraq happened to be in the Middle East and an oil rich country.  These are all impeachable offenses under the U.S. Constitution. 

BILL BERKOWITZ FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Christians will be “forced underground.” – Pastor Jim Garlow

Legalizing gay marriage will spell "the death of capitalism." – Matthew Hagee

If the Supreme Court rules in favor of gay marriage it "will have lost its legitimacy in its entirety." – Matt Barber & Mat Staver 

Marching against same-sex marriage felt like being involved in the “Civil Rights Movement.” – Brian Brown

Gays and lesbians “hate God’s law and therefore they do hate God.” – Peter LaBarbera

If the above statements from members of the conservative evangelical Christian commentariat sound ludicrous yet chilling, outlandish yet eerily familiar, that is because over the years we have become quite familiar with their incessant anti-gay vitriol.  However, the more interesting aspect of this collection of off-the-wall commentary by Pastor Jim Garlow, Matthew Hagee, Liberty Counsel’s Matt Barber and Mat Staver, who is also vice president of the Jerry Falwell-founded Liberty University, the National Organization for Marriage’s president Brian Brown, and Peter LaBarbera of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality, is their fear that the tide of public opinion has turned against them.

ANN DAVIDOW FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

What is it about language that seems to confound conservatives? Why do most of them insist on saying "Democrat" when they should more properly use the adjective "Democratic?" Perhaps it’s because they don’t want their supporters to be confused into thinking that the adjective, rather than simply modifying a word, does in effect define a group politically.

Everyone from Reince Pribus to the lowest of the low - a category that includes Joe the Plumber and Sarah Palin - is comfortable in the world of malapropisms, tenses that don’t agree and mispronunciations borne of a tendency to colloquialism. When a president, namely W, repeatedly says "Nooculer" instead of "Nuclear," and even Bob Woodard does the same, what are we to make of such linguistic transgressions? It’s one thing to dismiss a bumbling leader of the free world, but Bob Woodard?

And so we are left with a meaningless jumble of words that rarely clarify a thought process. There are times when, after a particularly arduous path around an impenetrable maze of non-sequiturs and unreliable "facts," one despairs of ever uncovering anything meaningful. There are speakers and experts and anchors willing to expound on every issue if given half a chance. But when they are finished speaking one is no closer to the truth; if anything, it is more elusive than ever. Yet we all keep striving mightily as if we could make a difference, as if some magic formula would suddenly emerge to make sense of the world and sweep the clouds of partisan rancor away.

ROBERT C. KOEHLER FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

“The status quo in Chicago is no longer tolerable,” Andy Willis said, summoning the violent headlines of the past year and the past week.

This was Palm Sunday, in a church basement in a big-city neighborhood, and the time had come to stand for something enormous. My God, a six-month-old baby, Jonylah Watkins, was shot and killed this month in Chicago, as her father held her on his lap while sitting in a parked van. That was just the latest shocker. Violence is the norm, in this city and so many others. The death of children is the norm.

“We can’t live with a status quo like that,” Willis said. “We know things are breaking down . . .”

The event was called “A Remedy for Violence” and announcements for it proclaimed: “This will be a joyous and hopeful event as we aim to eliminate all violence in our community in 10 years! Zero in Ten.”

No way! They’re not serious, or they’re incredibly naïve. But I knew they weren’t, and as my cynicism gave way — this was about a week before the event was to take place — I felt an enormous sense of empowerment rising. I thought about the words of the Earth Charter, which begins: “We stand at a critical moment in Earth’s history, a time when humanity must choose its future.”

Yes, now is the time to choose our future, so let us choose one that transcends the insanity and sheer stupidity of violent behavior. This requires personal empowerment. It also requires collective empowerment. And this is what I felt in the audacious declaration: “We aim to eliminate all violence in our community in 10 years.”

STEVEN JONAS MD, MPH FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

During the Second World War, almost from the time the United States entered the war on December 8, 1941, the Soviet Union, which had been invaded by Nazi Germany on June 22, 1941, was demanding that the United States and Great Britain establish a “Second Front” in Western Europe. By this they meant doing so by invading Occupied France on its Northwest Coast. The Western Allies did invade North Africa in November 1942, and Sicily and Southern Italy in the summer of 1943. But the major offensive in the West, which could require that the Germans move major forces from the Eastern Front to France, did not, as is well known, occur until June 6, 1944.

The Abortion Wars in this country have been underway since well before the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade was handed down on January 22, 1973. That decision established that freedom of choice in the outcome of pregnancy was the Constitutional right of any pregnant woman, under the right to privacy subsumed by the Court to be in in accordance with the due process clause of the 14^th Amendment (1). The only limitation placed by the Court in Roe and subsequent decisions was that this right was a pregnant woman’s without limitation until the “time of fetal viability” (that is the ability of a fetus to live independently with the usual support provided to newborns, outside of the womb, generally considered to occur at about the 24th week of pregnancy).

(While the Court explicitly rejected the argument, I feel that what can also properly be called “freedom of choice in the outcome of pregnancy” is also supported by the Ninth Amendment, to wit: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be con­strued to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” Ambiguous? Interpretable? Oh yes, and that was exactly the original intent (Justice Scalia) of the Founding Fathers. They built into the Constitution a good deal of ambiguity and thus interpretability when it came to personal rights and liberties, that could change over time.   No wonder Robert Bork, the ultimate so-called “originalist,” described the Ninth an “as inkblot on the Constitution.”)

BILL BERKOWITZ FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

After reading the recent report – “autopsy” – issued by the Republican National Committee, some conservative Christian leaders are wondering if the GOP is ”throwing the party’s social conservatives overboard.”

When the Republican Party suffers a resounding electoral defeat, as it did in November, you can pretty much count on the mainstream media to re-up its flirtation with the notion that the Christian Right is dead. Anyone who has watched the growth, development and ebb and flow of this movement over the past four decades, knows that its demise has been grossly exaggerated. Regardless of whatever defeats it may encounter, its well-lubricated infrastructure remains pretty darned solid.  

That being said, however, after November’s electoral defeat -- making it 5 of the last 6 national elections in which the GOP lost the popular vote -- Republican Party leaders appear to be distancing themselves from what was once its core constituency. Even more importantly, the GOP appears to be distancing itself from the decades old “culture wars.”