Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”
(Macbeth, act 5, sc. 5)
Comment. During a White House Correspondents Dinner, President Obama delivered some funny lines (allegedly written by others), in which he jokes about killing people via drones.
A pop musical group was attending the event and Obama’s daughters apparently liked the group. Here are Obama’s quoted lines,
“Sasha and Malia are huge fans; but boys, don’t get any ideas. Two words for you: predator drones. You will never see it coming. You think I’m joking?”
If someone is actually killing people with drones, I would think basic decency would prevent him from joking about drones on a nationally broadcast event. No, Obama was not joking – or if he was, it shows the value he puts on lives (other than his and his daughters) – a tale told by an idiot, etc. etc. After all, who cares, Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow…
Recent statistics suggest that 5000 people have been killed by drones. Obama’s episode is on par with Bush’ joke about looking for weapons of mass destruction under the table at the usual top-of-the-line, tax-payer funded official dinner.
While each of these episodes comments itself – the sum of them all (and there are literally hundreds if not thousands) cannot but help the suspicion of many that the alleged prime cause of all this, – 9/11 – was a very well concocted affair to enable world-wide slaughter and all the other crimes we have been witnessing ever since.
Now, to put into better perspective how sick the whole drone thing is, here is an excerpt from the recordings of two drones operators (the source is the German Newspaper “Der Spiegel”). The operators are in an air conditioned bunker in New Mexico – called a ‘cockpit’ in Pentagon parlance.
A Brandon Bryant is the operator that pushes the button to fire the “Hellfire” missile (nomen omen) from a “Predator” (nomen omen) drone. The target is a village between the towns of Baghlan and Mazar-e-Sharif, in Afghanistan. Two seconds before the firing a child appears on the screen. There is a flash, there is an explosion. The building collapses. The child has disappeared. Here is the dialog,
“Did we just kill a kid?” Bryant asks the man near him.
“Yeah, I guess that was a kid,” the man replies.
“Was that a kid?” they write into a chat window on the monitor.
Someone unknown answers, someone sitting in a military command center somewhere in the world who had observed their attack.
“No. That was a dog,” the unknown party writes
Bryant and colleague review the scene on video and ask, “A dog on two legs?”
As Duncan says to Macbeth, we say to this brave operator (and to his colleagues and to Obama and to the Pentagon), “… only I have left to say, More is thy due than more than all can pay.” God bless America.
Suggestion for use. The lines well describe a probable view of life when you are down in the dumps.
In the play. Seyton has just announced to Macbeth that the queen is dead.