Our absolutized aversion to dealing with any kind of tragedy imposed from without has truly dark applications. It is precisely this existential-dread level of ass-covering and risk-management that informs the American security state’s adoption of the drone “signature strike,” in which men and perhaps some bystanders near are killed by drone attack even if we have no idea who they are. Their “pattern of life” in Yemen is just deemed too risky for their existence to be endured by the American military. Fire away.
Scared Little People
Eighty-six hours in stress positions
Those horrible people make us so mean
We burn the tapes of Crucifixion
We glamorize torture on flashing screens
We shrapnel the flesh of people who gather
At weddings and funerals and blitzkrieg scenes
Protecting the lives of people who matter
From monsters who claim to be human beings
We hide from ourselves avoiding detection
Righteous folks we’re pretending to be
That’s not a window; that’s a reflection
That stain on our soul is a shocking decree
What a scared little people we have become
With hearts and brains rendered totally numb
by Richard W. Bray
Tags: drones, fear, Michael Brendan Dougherty, Poetry, sonnets
Laughter hope sock in the eye's Blog 
May 14, 2017 at 6:31 pm
[…] Our absolutized aversion to dealing with any kind of tragedy imposed from without has truly dark app…. It is precisely this existential-dread level of ass-covering and risk-management that informs the American security state’s adoption of the drone “signature strike,” in which men and perhaps some bystanders near are killed by drone attack even if we have no idea who they are. Their “pattern of life” in Yemen is just deemed too risky for their existence to be endured by the American military. Fire away. —Michael Brendan Dougherty […]