Death From Above

The New Inquiry did an issue about drones. Our eyes rolled into the back of our heads, our twitching fingers pulled every trigger they could find, and our whole organism convulsed in shivering mechanical ecstasy.

Enjoy the B-sides!

***

“How can you kill what does not live?!” - Glenn Greenwald

“If Nietzsche were alive today he would write not of the lamb and the bird of prey, but of the shepherd and the drone.” - PW Singer

“The hysterical overreaction to Obama’s self-declared executive right to murder belies the profounder, repressed realization that it is the button that pushes itself.” - Eric Holder

“Just as the creation of nuclear weapons ensured that the balance of power among nations could never really change, the robotics revolution makes the domestic order equally immutable. Who rules today shall rule tomorrow and forever more." - Rupert Murdoch

“Can you really say that civilians are killed ‘by mistake’ if you’re not trying to not kill them in the first place? We prefer not to acknowledge them at all.” - Jay Carney

“You think its bad now, wait until black males make up one third of drone strike victims.” - Samuel Alito

"One day children will spurn the sun and wake up with the drone." - Donald Rumsfeld

"None of that. If you're going to kill someone, you do it from underground." - President Reagan

"We have to be careful with this, there is the potential for abuse."
"No, there are a number of non-military applications. For example, you could follow rare endangered species by air for purposes of conservation or nihilism."
- Leon Panetta

"Clear as a summer day, as clear the conscience of a drone." - Mayor Ray Kelly admiring the empty streets of New York

"Next we're developing a self-writing zine." - Robert J. Stevens, CEO Lockheed Martin

“Let the machine do it.” - Dr. Joseph Mortimer Granville

"Robot hearts have no moving parts." - Wall-E

"Loneliness is the price of perfection." - Predator Drone X398-7

"Maybe I'll finally make some friends here." - Beta Z7 on its inaugural flight, Afghanistan

"Will this be the generation that never loves again?" - X97-A1, speeding towards an insurrection in St. Louis

"Don't they know I don't care who they are?" - D5 Spider, first domestic flight

“I don't feel any different!” - Drone Pinnocchio

"What if we were to offer drones in four different colors?" - Jonathan Ive, innovating

“Awesome!” - Abdulrahman al-Awlaki playing Call of Duty:  Modern Warfare