Billboards Opposing Drone Wars Going Up All Over Syracuse
Billboards Opposing Drone Wars Going Up All Over Syracuse
Billboards Opposing Drone Wars Are Going Up
All Over Syracuse, NY
By David Swanson, World
Beyond War
http://worldbeyondwar.org/billboards-opposing-drone-wars-going-syracuse-ny/
World
Beyond War has been raising funds for and renting billboards
in opposition to war. We’ve run into censorship from
numerous billboard companies but persevered, and more
billboards are on their way.
First we put this message up
here in Charlottesville, Va., and then in Baltimore, Md.
(see explanation of the 3% calculation here):
Now we’re putting these two images up on billboards in Syracuse, NY, where drone pilots participate in U.S. wars from Hancock Air Base:
For 8 hours a day for 16
days in March, these two images will be on either side of a
billboard truck driving around downtown Syracuse and the
University of Syracuse. Then, from April 2 to May 27 each
image will be on two of the four stationary billboards
located at 115 South Street, 700 East Washington Street,
1430 Erie Boulevard East, and 1201-1208 South Salina at
Raynor Street. Then, from May 28 to July 22, one image will
be on two and the other on one of three billboards at 700
East Washington Street, 909 East Genesee Street, and 1758
Erie Boulevard East.
Why
Syracuse?
The Syracuse area hosts Hancock Air
National Guard base where the Guard’s 174th Attack Wing
conducts drone assassination and target identification
missions using MQ-9 Reaper drones in Afghanistan and
probably elsewhere. It has been announced that the numbers
of drone operators being trained at Hancock will be
doubled.
The billboard ads are being undertaken in the
context of what amounts to a whiteout of information on
drone and other air operations in Afghanistan. Pentagon
reports on drone and other air attacks in other nations are
inadequate at best, and these reports when they come have
been inaccurate and have grossly under-reported casualties.
The U.S. government has made no reports and taken no
responsibility for the emotional devastation of drone
attacks on children as well as adults, as documented by the
Al Karama Foundation’s “Traumatising
Skies.”
Syracuse is home to a creative and courageous
group of activists who have done a great deal of public
education already and who are continuing those
efforts.
Overcoming Censorship
Some
companies have refused to rent space for billboards opposing
drone wars. No company has questioned the facts of the
messages, apart from one company asking us to say that drone
wars “may” make us less safe, adding the word
“may.”
It is hardly disputable that drones make
orphans, or that they kill innocent children. That drone
wars make us less safe ought to be obvious after what the
“successful” drone war has done to Yemen, following the
April 23, 2013, testimony of Farea al-Muslimi before the
U.S. Congress that drone strikes were building support for
terrorists. But don’t take it from him or me, when a
leaked CIA document admits that the drone program is
“counterproductive,” and numerous recently retired top
U.S. officials agree.
For the most part companies have
given no explanation for refusals to display these graphics.
In some cases, they have said the graphics made them
“uncomfortable,” or they’ve asked that we stick to
“positive-oriented messaging.” Those companies that have
written policies that I’ve seen for what they accept have
in no case had a policy that explained their refusal, other
than their declaration of their right to refuse for any
reason whatsoever.
While some companies in Syracuse said
no, and others yes, every company in Forth Smith, Arkansas
has, thus far, said no, without any explanation. These
include:
RAM Outdoor Advertising: 1-479-806-7735
Ashby
Street Outdoor: 1-479-221-9827
Billboard Source:
1-940-383-3500
Feel free to ask them to explain. Remember
that politeness is most effective. RAM Outdoor Advertising
did say: “Thanks for sharing your potential creative.
I’ve shared it with the owners and they have decided that
your creative will violate our lease agreements. We will
have to decline your ads.” I requested to see the “lease
agreements” and received no reply.
Fort Smith is the
home of the 188th Wing of the Arkansas Air National Guard at
Ebbing Air National Guard base, which controls Reaper drones
for assassination and target identification. It appears
drone operations will expand there also.
Freedom
of Speech
World Beyond War billboards are funded
entirely by contributions made by supporters of ending war
who want to help put up more billboards. We will continue to
solicit such contributions and to work to overcome
censorship.
One of the more common, if ludicrous,
defenses of war making is that it somehow defends one’s
rights. Yet, freedom of speech and of press is routinely
restricted in the name of protecting the war
making.
Following the recent school shooting in Florida,
we pointed out that the shooter had been trained by the U.S.
military in a JROTC program funded by the NRA, and that this
information was publicly available and not disputed. Major
media outlets chose to avoid that story in order to focus,
instead, on the undocumented (and, as it happens, false)
claim that the shooter had worked with right-wing
groups.
Google, Facebook, and other big forces on the
internet are working hard to steer ever more traffic toward
big corporate outlets and away from voices of dissent.
Congress has eliminated net neutrality.
Whistleblowers
are now up against the risk of prison time.
Protesters at
inauguration parades face felony charges.
In my town in
Virginia, Charlottesville, we are still forbidden to take
down any war monuments, and still have no public peace
monuments, but the local government has just made it
a crime to hold a public demonstration without a permit
obtained 30 days ahead.
In some airports and perhaps
other locations, this story that you are reading will be
blocked by internet services on the grounds that it
constitutes “advocacy.”
Is this the “freedom” for
which the wars endanger and impoverish and indebt
us?
What you can do
1. Politely phone
the companies above and ask them to explain their
censorship.
2. Send us ideas for good locations for
billboards.
3. Send us donations with which to put up
more billboards.
##
--
David Swanson
is an author, activist, journalist, and radio host.
He is director of WorldBeyondWar.org and campaign
coordinator for RootsAction.org. Swanson's books include
War Is A Lie. He blogs at DavidSwanson.org and
WarIsACrime.org. He hosts Talk Nation Radio.He is a 2015,
2016, 2017 Nobel Peace Prize Nominee.
Follow him on
Twitter: @davidcnswanson and FaceBook.
Help support
DavidSwanson.org, WarIsACrime.org, and TalkNationRadio.org
by clicking here: http://davidswanson.org/donate.
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