Picture of the Day
posted by mikevotes at
6:55 AM
About This Blog
This is not the America I was brought up to believe in. This blog seeks to highlight abuse of power, deception, corruption, and just plain bad ideas in government and corporations. Updated several times a day.
Previous Rantings
- Counting down to Rove
- Hastert on Hayden and Goss
- Picture of the Day - 3
- 31%
- Run, Al, Run
- Exploitative but fun
- Picture of the Day
- Ag Dept presses "The War on Terror" under threat
- Picture of the Day
- Plame Gossip - Rove focused on Wilson
8 Comments:
I felt this one was on the border as to whether I put it up or not, but I just find the picture itself so engaging.
If you think I crossed the line please let me know.
Mike
By
mikevotes, at 10:14 PM
I think it's very moving Mike. It's good to remember the price we're paying is in human life and sometmes death is the easy way out. We need to see these every day, everybody should have to look at them everyday. The trouble now is it's all so abstract. This kid is going to live with it forever.
By
Anonymous, at 10:49 PM
Didn't cross the line at all. The MSM has already sanitized this war to the point that it is just an abstract map and some Bradley Fighting Vehicles rolling down a street with a mosque in the background. Or a few troopers in combat attire.
You don't see the human price we are paying for this war. What impresses me about this shot is how young this kid is. He has years and years ahead of him. Will the government's committment to his health care continue through the next 50 or 60 years? Will he develop complications that will cut his life short? What about trauma, the wounds we don't see on the outside?
And why did he lose those legs? What did that loss accompish for his country? I guess he and his family have to believe for now it was worth it.
Ever read "Johnny Got His Gun"?
By
NEWSGUY, at 12:42 AM
I wasn't clear. I wasn't concerned with the graphicness of the picture, I was concerned about exploiting this guy.
I mean, I don't know anything about this guy, how he feels about the war, how he feels about what happened to him.
Sometimes, some of these pictures seem to pierce pretty far into people's lives. My intention is to show the pictures that we don't see out of Iraq, but sometimes I worry that I am utilizing the individual, invading their privacy somehow.
I am very distinctly against this war, but this guy might not be, and I often wonder on pictures like this if I'm appropriating his image against his politics. you know?
And that's not cool, because this guy served his country and paid a pretty stiff price for it. I sometimes wonder how much I'm invading people's lives in these pictures....
The violence and gore doesn't bother me. I try to keep it pretty PG so I don't gross anybody out, but I often find the politics far more troubling.
I don't want to exploit people's suffering to make a political point, especially someone who gave so much in his honorable service to our country.
I include these pictures because they don't make the news and are part of the untold story, but because the writing around them is anti-war, it causes me some concern.
How would you feel if a picture of you or your kids was pulled out of context and featured on a pro war site? This guy certainly didn't seek fame....
No, I've not read "Johnny Got His Gun" although I did hear a pretty interesting discussion of it on my local NPR station about two months ago.
Mike
By
mikevotes, at 7:29 AM
Kinda makes all those Support Our Troops magnets on the back of SUVs and GM land-yachts -- driven in willful ignorance down tidy suburban streets -- seem a little, I don't know, f'ing coldly presumptuous?
Not that I'm bitter or anything...
By
-epm, at 1:53 PM
Glad to hear from you -epm. I was just thinking about you an hour or so ago. I don't know why, nothing specific, you just crossed my mind.
Mike
By
mikevotes, at 2:14 PM
I agree with Libby. We need to be posting these kinds of pictures every day ( I did a few a while back). As far as exploiting this young man, I understand your concern. But trust me, chances are that he and his family hate this war as much as we do. I don't think GI's have changed much since Vietnam. Even the enlistees (I was one) found out right away what bullshit it was. I think these guys hate being in Iraq, know the fighting is useless, and can't wait to get home. It would be nice to get some feedback from current or former soldiers who have experience there, as to the real state of moral, etc. Bottom line, you are doing the right thing.
By
expatbrian, at 2:51 AM
Expatbrian,
I don't know if you're going to read this, but at one point, I was going to put up a picture of a wounded vet named Michael Sarro, and I did a google on him, and it turned out that he was extremely pro bush pro war.
I strongly disagree with the guy, but he nearly lost his leg, so, just like the antiwar GI's, I feel he has every right to say what he wants. He earned it, and I don't feel I have the right to appropriate his image.
That's the source of my discomfort. It's my belief that the vets out of Iraq should be allowed to say what they want on either side without me getting involved. They've earned it, ya know?
It's not gore that puts me off, it's cutting into these vet's speech.
Mike
By
mikevotes, at 7:21 AM
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