Into the Streets With Drone Education

In his March 20, 2012, article for Truthout (“Gated Intellectuals and Ignorance in Political Life: Toward a Borderless Pedagogy in the Occupy Movement”) Henry A. Giroux writes:

… [T]here is a need to develop what I call a project of democratization and borderless pedagogy that moves across different sites – from schools to the alternative media – as part of a broader attempt to construct a critical formative culture in the United States that enables Americans to reclaim their voices, speak out, exhibit moral outrage and create the social movements, tactics and public spheres that will reverse the growing tide of authoritarianism in the United States.

In this spirit, beginning on April 12, 2012, in Brooklyn, New York, the National Know Drones Tour will use three Reaper drone replicas – 8 feet long with wingspans of 11 feet – to undertake sidewalk education on drone warfare and drone surveillance.

The premise of the tour is simply to take information, in however small a way, directly to people, where they already are, and to engage them in conversation. The hook is the drone replica, which has proven to stimulate great curiosity and, always, questions.

The tour is focused exclusively on the home districts of 18 of the 55 members of Congress who are members of the Unmanned Systems Caucus, know informally as the Drone Caucus. These members function within the Congress to promote the interests of the drone industry, which includes all the major aerospace contractors and other makers of robotic machinery.

The schedule for the tour appears on www.KnowDrones.com.

This ten-minute film, based on sidewalk education visits in late 2011 outside New York City’s Museum of Modern Art, shows what will be happening on the Know Drones Tour.