Top Ten List: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb Drone”

It appears that the “Drone people” have decided that they need an extreme makeover to change the image of drones from authoritarian killing machines to something more like a really really smart toaster. Company officials are about to launch a publicity campaign to change the public perceptions of drones after conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer said recently that the first person to shoot down a surveillance drone on U.S. soil will be a “folk hero.” It is not clear when this ” How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb Drone” will start.

Michael Toscano, President of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI), says that the industry will soon start the publicity campaign. It is not clear what group of Mad Men ad executives will tackle the problem. However, they will seek to change the view of the drones as threatening privacy or safety.

The industry already has a Gretchen West, fetching “Domestic Drone Advocate” who appears on Fox.

The article below discusses the recently uncovered Air Force document laying out how the government can circumvent laws to use drones to monitor the activities of Americans.

Some standard publicity moves can be expected like photo ops of drones visiting wounded veterans in hospitals and commercials showing them at home with their little drones. However, they may want to ramp it up a bit. Here are a few suggestions:

1. Change the name of drones from menacing monikers like “the predator” to “the sky buddy.”

2. Use drones to locate missing kids, cats, and car keys on local news.

3. Show a drone next to a Ted Nugent clip and ask “who would you prefer to hover outside of your house at night?”

4. Have a drone marry Kim Kardashian and then go on an interview tour to explain why it just couldn’t stay married more than a week with someone who is so self-engrossed and materialistic.

5. Release talking points to Fox anchors showing more people are killed each year by civil libertarians driving than drones.

6. Have Rush Limbaugh attack drones as “sluts” and “prostitutes” who want the taxpayer to subsidize their lifestyle.

7. Distribute bumper stickers at Tea Party conventions comparing the “American-made drones” to a “foreign-born President” and proclaiming “all drones are straight.”

8. Play on the rising angst of permanently single and divorced Americans with a campaign promising “The BFF Force: Drones will never leave you.”

9. Reveal that drones are all Cubs fans (who have not been a threat to anyone in decades).

10. More drones mean fewer black helicopters.

Any other suggestions for the good people at AUVSI?

Source: Salon