Sometimes you read something and the cognitive dissonance is enough to make you want to bang your head in frustration. When we have a blog, we get to rant. Bjorngrímnir at Expanding Inward writes about a new spying device being developed by the US Department of Defense. They're calling it ISIS.

From recent news coverage:

Several companies have begun design work on a prototype airship that could hover at an altitude near space where it would be able to track ground and aerial targets for up to a year at a time. Whether the program, known as Integrated Sensor Is Structure, or ISIS, moves beyond the design stage anytime soon, however, will depend on the final version of the 2007 defense budget.

The U.S. House of Representatives funded the full $16.3 million request for the effort in its version of the 2007 Defense Appropriations Act, which passed the House in June. The Senate Appropriations Committee, however, has recommended denying the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s entire $16.3 million budget request for the program in 2007. The bill is currently awaiting a vote on the Senate floor.

If the program does go forward, the airship will feature a radar sensor of “unprecedented proportions,” according to a Pentagon document.

DARPA’s 2007 budget justification materials, which are posted on the agency’s Web site, describe ISIS as a sensor capable of conducting surveillance and tracking hundreds of time-critical targets in both urban and rural environments.

Isis is the feminine archetype for creation - the goddess of fertility and motherhood. Isis was, for almost 3,500 years, the principle Goddess of Egypt. She was the wife and sister of Osiris and the mother of Horus, and the personification of the faithful wife and devoted mother. Isis is the Mistress of The Words of Power and the Goddess of Nature. She is the embodiment of nature and magick.

Isis is the most important goddess in Egyptian mythology, who evolved from a local goddess in the Nile Delta to a cosmic goddess all over the whole ancient world. The cult of Isis eventually spread outside Egypt throughout the Middle East and Europe, with temples dedicated to her built as far away as the British Isles. Pockets of her worship remained in Christian Europe as late as the 6th century. Isis' name is still a beloved name among modern coptic Egyptians and many modern Wiccans and Pagans are devoted followers.

In the Book of the Dead, Isis was described as She who gives birth to heaven and earth, knows the orphan, knows the widow, seeks justice for the poor, and shelter for the weak.

It strikes me as incredibly perverse and profane that a weapon created by the US government for the intended purpose of spying on its own citizens - the same US government that has demonstrated time and again its contempt and lack of compassion for the poor and the weak, for anyone who is not white, rich, male and Christian - would be named after the ultimate mother, the ultimate symbol of care and nurturing.

Some of Isis' many other titles were:

• Queen of Heaven
  
• Mother of the Gods
  
• The One Who is All
  
• Lady of Green Crops
  
• The Brilliant One in the Sky
  
• Her Latin name was Stella Maris, or Star of the Sea
  
• Great Lady of Magic
  
• goddess of magic, fertility, nature, motherhood
  
• underworld Mistress of the House of Life
  
• She Who Knows How To Make Right Use of the Heart
  
• Light-Giver of Heaven
  
• Lady of the Words of Power
  
• Moon Shining Over the Sea
  

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 10:10 AM