Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kerry -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: cnyndwllr who wrote (14269)	4/12/2004 4:53:26 PM
From: Augustus Gloop	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 81568

<<I think you're the kind of man that, if you were an Iraqi and some of the dead were yours, would pick up that AK-47 and kill some Americans.>> No doubt but that I'd be that way. The problem is that unless their own people hand over the terrorists we have few ways of identifying them. Thus we invade the entire place to keep them off balance and on the run.

To: cnyndwllr who wrote (14269)	4/12/2004 6:37:57 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 81568

The taboo against media coverage of US war casualties has broken down __________________ Catherine Hours Pictures of body bags and US soldiers praying around dead comrades are creeping into American media coverage of Iraq, highlighting the growing unease at events. The mounting death toll and particularly events such as the mutilation of four private security contractors in the city of Fallujah have broken the taboo on showing US victims, media experts say. Many US dailies showed a picture last week of US marines praying over the body of a member of their unit after he died from his wounds at a first-aid point in Fallujah. The USA Today daily splashed a picture of a wounded marine gripping the hands of comrades as he awaited treatment. US officials have sought since the Vietnam War to control media use of conflict images. Since the 1991 Gulf War, they have banned photographers from covering the return of military coffins to the US. "It's really moving towards a more normal situation, to publish pictures of the dead, because after all a war is about killing," Jim Naurekas, of the media analysis organisation Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting, said. "Throughout the war the media were extremely reluctant to publish any images of wounded or dead American soldiers; that's been one of the major taboos of the conflict," Mr Naurekas said. "There is the idea that to publish pictures of wounded soldiers would diminish support for the war. Particularly at the height of the fighting last year, there was a sense that doing anything that might erode the public backing for the war was unpatriotic. There's a great deal of self-censorship." Robert Thompson, director of the Centre for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University in New York, said events on the ground in Iraq and political changes in Washington had altered media coverage. "American journalists and TV channels are probably a little less reluctant now to report some of the stuff in more detail and showing more pictures than they were before, when there was all this national unity," he said. The killing of the contractors in Fallujah "sort of eroded the taboo". The charred bodies of two of the Americans were mutilated and strung from a bridge. Gruesome pictures were widely shown in the US. CNN repeatedly showed pictures last week of a soldier, with the lower part of his body covered in blood, being evacuated on a truck and of wounded marines escaping from their tank. Several newspapers also showed the picture of a marine in the town of Ramadi carrying over his shoulder the body of a dead comrade in a black body bag. Pictures of troops in tears as they learn of the deaths of fellow soldiers and a female medic holding the hand of a wounded marine after an ambush have also been given prominent exposure. "It could affect people and their perception of the war to see the reality of it," Mr Naurekas said. "It's pretty well understood that images have a much more emotional impact than words do." Mr Thompson believes the impact will only be serious if the flow of conflict pictures is prolonged. "Any one set of images is not really going to change public opinion significantly," he said. But "a few more weeks like the one we just had, where all these images begin to come together, and that's where the change really occurs". Mr Thompson cited the large number of "pretty scary images" in the Vietnam War. "But it wasn't until we'd been there for a while and the images just wouldn't stop that public opinion began to change significantly." theage.com.au

To: cnyndwllr who wrote (14269)	4/13/2004 9:59:36 AM
From: Chas.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 81568

reading this post you sound like John Kerry himself and a little bit of Jane Fonda........ We placed ourselves in the middle of a civil war(Communist North Vietnam against Corrupt South Vietnam) in SouthEast Asia. you have such compassion for your NVA buddies, have you ever seen what they can do to an entire village of RVN that dont want to become VC...? It makes Pol Pot and Cambodia look like a walk thru the park. So your experiences have led you to become a peacenik, maybe a pacifist....Noble, Worthy, Idealistic. Unfortunately the world does not work that way, and just as unfortunately, we can't just sit by whilst crazies fly our own jetliners into our World Trade Centers. You are also absolutely dead right that it is the leaders that pull the strings and push the buttons, not the little people......so whadda ya gonna do......cry some more, philosophize some more, intellectualize a little...... lot of places to go.....eh. the bottom line for all time is to hit him back using a bigger club...sorry but that is the way it works, right or wrong. case in point you wouldn't be typing on your computer today, here in good ole USA, if your great, great, great,European grandfather hadn't moved here from some other country and then clubbed the crap out of some Indians to get their land and "civilize" the place, over a 100 years of course. Now the crazies want us all to attend their Mosques and wear Robes and Burkas and all you can say is, "No mas, No mas.... get in the real world will you,protect your right to be a bully.... regards from Chucky