The Picture

[Daveparts still]

The Picture

<http://open.salon.com/blog/david_cox/2010/02/25/the_picture>



I want you to look very closely at this picture and try and keep it in your minds eye. This was a perfectly healthy twenty two-year-old young man who in the service of his country got half of his head blown off. I think that’s important, I think that’s newsworthy. Let me tell you how newsworthy I think it is. I think that it’s more important than chocolate cake recipes and far more important than comic book reviews. It is more important than who fell and whose swell at the winter Olympic games.

It is far more important than any self-serving load of crap banged out by Pseudo doctor Amy. It is more important than American Idol or Lost or any other mindless goat droppings the public chooses to chew on. This is some American mother’s son, her little boy, he may be gay or straight or transgender but his life is fucked forever.

How did this come to happen to this poor mother’s son? It came to happen because the people in the media who are supposed to foster a public debate on such public issues as war but instead used their franchise to promote articles about chocolate cake and comic book reviews. They see their free press as free to choose not to look when bad thinks happen. They feel no need to explain to his parents or to anyone that the war that blew off half of this boys head was based on out and out lies.

It was a war perpetrated by people who hoped to gain from it be it in oil or pipelines or service contracts and like the media they don’t care that this mother’s son is mangled and mutilated. Do you care? I’ve been married twice for a combined twenty-five years and in that time I doubt my wives ever baked a chocolate cake. I don’t read comic books or watch goat crap TV but you see I’ve got a son about this boy’s age. My heart aches and my mind fills with rage because the people that have the power and authority to show this picture would rather talk about American Idol and from where I sit that makes them and accomplice to a war crime.

Because not content to ignore the current victims they support more crimes and call for more wars. Several years ago in Iraq parents waited for their children at a bus stop. An errant coalition missile struck the bus stop and blew the elementary school age children to pieces. Needless to say this wasn’t widely reported but the parents in a frenzy began fighting over the pieces of their children. Little arms and legs, little headless torsos identifiable only by the shirt or dress they were wearing. Imagine the horror, imagine the type of people who could do such a thing. How do they live with themselves? How do they sleep at night?

They do it by watching Lost and American Idol and by eating chocolate cake. They read comic books and watch sports. It makes life easy because the media will not intrude on their fantasy world but instead will promote the fantasy. Oh, but who won the gold metal in curling and who was eliminated on American Idol.

Iraq war Coalition Deaths 4,696
Injured 30,000

Iraqi civilian deaths and injured, 1,366,650

Afghanistan coalition Deaths 1,659

American taxpayers bill as of today $964,044,305,874

[pleah]

1. K&R

[proudohioan]

2. Words escape me. n/t

[jimshoes]

3. First, thanks to this young man for his sacrifice,

and second, I hope he and his family are able to cope with such a thing, thirdly, I hope for peace to come to this soldier and his family.

Wonder if the un-rec asswipes have the balls to un-rec this thread?

[Daveparts still]

4. Sure they do

On Open Salon I was taken to task for exploiting this young man.
As if I did this to him. The photo won an award and I found it in a German magazine not an American publication

[DemReadingDU]

6. Thank you for writing about this.

I can't believe some of the comments at Open Salon. Exploiting? Far from it. Too many Americans live in a fantasy world addicted to mindless tv, video games, iPods. They can't deal with real.

[Raster]

43. No, Dave. You would not find this photograph in an American magazine.

It hits far too close to home.

[Mira]

5. I can't look at this today. But I read your words, and the entire sentiment

is in my heart as well

recommended

[laylah]

36. ...

:cry: I have forwarded to local editors, asking them why THEY don't report such stories about the REAL impact of this bs in Iraq/Afghanistan. I am so sorry for this young man and his family.

[Lost Jaguar]

7. That photo has haunted me...

...since I first saw it a few weeks ago. Bless you, Dave, for passing it along. To those who are offended by its publication, like those on Salon, the ugly cost of war must be presented to us every damn day if only to end it. Supporters of the invasion of Iraq and the counter-insurgency in Afghanistan should be especially conscious of this dreadful vortex of bad karma.

I read once, perhaps in Barbara Tuchman's "Guns of August," that Britain's top general was reluctant to visit the French front in WWI because it might have dimished his will to win if he saw the terrible price the young men were paying. Would that he had! If I had my way, every supporter of our "War on Terror" would be in a rotating cycle of those who had to inform next-of-kin of the loss or serious wounding of their loved one. Every commercial break for American Idol would begin with tape of people dying or suffering in this bullshit war.

Own it, you bastards. You wanted it, here it is.

[patrice]

8. My link to this photo over in another thread just got deleted. nt

[FailureToCommunicate]

9. The sacrifice of our young men and women and military families is always huge and

always hidden away after the flags and drums ceremonies. Always for all wars thru history; planned and directed by old leaders with our young people doing the dying and suffering.

Wounded war vets face a lifetime of facing a public that would rather not be reminded, by their broken bodies and minds, of wars' results.


(We should always try to 'greet the man', not the disability)

[winyanstaz]

10. K & R a trillion times infinity.......

End the wars....if you care at all ..get off your ass and DO something to stop the madness.

[icee]

11. Mind numbingly accurate. One day we will all stop posting on

bulletin boards and/or sending letters to political jackasses, and walk out of our houses and band together for real action, knowing we can never look back. And posts like yours will cause this to happen. Thank you.

[Uncle Joe]

12. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Daveparts

[Paper Roses]

13. I am too upset to leave a lucid comment. K&R

[yurbud]

14. the first word out of Dems' mouths when they talk about the wars should be ''oil contracts'' and...

''pipelines.''

Since they aren't, they tacitly approve.

[era veteran]

15. Thanks young soldier

So sorry for him and his mom. What price glory shrub? Chickenhawks work results.

[silversol]

16. K&R

Damn it all

[bertman]

17. So horrific yet so commonplace. And we Americans NEVER see the true cost of these

wars unless we tune in to the foreign media.

I understand that we have the medical wherewithal to save someone who has been wounded that grievously, but WHY would they do it? It's almost like some hideous medical experiment.

[Oldtimeralso]

18. K & R and proud to help the truth to be revealed. n/t

[OnyxCollie]

19. Faulting American Idol and Lost for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

is like faulting American Bandstand and Hee Haw for Vietnam.

The problem is when the "news" decides commercials for American Idol and Lost are more newsworthy than stories on Iraq and Afghanistan.

[rpannier]

25. True

But people don't want to be reminded of the cost in lives (lost and shattered)
For many, it's too damned difficult

During WWII everyone was affected so people paid closer attention.
If you didn't have a family member serving, that probably meant everyone else in your neighborhood did

I don't think people pay attention, because it means they'd have to come to grips with it

I'm not saying diversion and entertainment are bad things
People would go crazy, if all they ever did was focus on the horrid and cry for/with every victim

But there are people whose job it is to inform us (Media, Gov't,etc) and they've chosen not to

[DesertFlower]

20. OMG. nt

[emsimon33]

21. There is a special place in hell for those who support these wars

[tango-tee]

22. I agree.

Good Lord, the misery and pain, the death toll. How can the war mongers sleep at night?

[JournalistKev87]

23. Photo looks almost fake

I know it isn't but it looks Photoshopped. It's hard to face the truth; maybe that's why I want it to be Photoshopped. I feel so horribly bad for this young man. Sadly though, the wars won't stop. The USA bigwigs believe that they can police the world at the cost of our friends and family. Their own won't fight the wars because they know that it's just for show.

Nobody wins these things anyway--we all just loose.

:cry:

[rpannier]

24. I had to look several times

I just found it so incomprehensible

Words escape me

[patrice]

32. The brain stem and the hind-brain are intact, so he's still alive, or at least he was at

the time of this photo. Most of the functions that you need to run your body are in the lower back of the brain near the spinal cord.

I pretty much know all of the justifications that ANYONE might give. I even understand the rational ones to some extent, but I STILL absolutely cannot fathom why "we" tolerate this sort of thing. I cannot.

[pasto76]

26. yeah, this is real..but warn the rest of us will you

the version of PTSD I was issued makes seeing my troops like this really really distrubing.

SGT PASTO

[Fire1]

34. Uh, Sgt. Could you try re-typing your comment again. Not too

clear.

[Skittles]

41. he was perfectly clear to me

[Fire1]

44. Ok, then YOU explain it, smart guy! n/t

[Skittles]

50. he's asking the OP to place a warning (on subject line) on such pictures

because he suffers from PTSD - and such pics could possibly be a trigger - actutally a warning on any disturbing picture is warranted

[DisgustedInMN]

27. If I could find the words..

.. to express how this hurts my very essence and tears out my soul, I would post them.

This world NEEDS some John Lennon desperately right now.

[swilton]

28. A Big K&R

The post registered with me on a lot of levels - I have two sons in their early twenties - one enlisted in the AF, the other is unemployed...

If our economy was centered more on communities rather than corporations both would have jobs

I can proudly say that I do not own a TV - the technological revolutions occurring to television watching in June didn't phase me - I have never watched the following to name a few - American Idol, Seinfeld, Freiends, the list goes on - I do watch Netflix.

[wellstone dem]

29. I just wish I could sit here and rec and rec and rec

Thank you fo rposting this.

[RedRoses323]

30. Thank you Daveparts for posting this....

:cry: :cry: :cry:

[AlecBGreen]

31. this is the one I will never forget

W destroyed more lives than he will ever know.

[Fire1]

33. I see Mr. Cox took the 'blue' pill! n/t

[Cartoonist]

35. There's a bigger picture

Words won't serve me here as I am not a great communicator, but I take issue with the attack on art. I don't disagree with the basic charge against war and the complicity of the media, but comic books and American Idol are not the problem. Feel free to look down your nose at either, I do with regard to American Idol, but both forms represent to some degree, ART. Without ART, I feel that humans are nothing more than animals. It is ART that makes humanity something worthy of preserving. If you want to go off on a tear at the evils that mankind commits, leave ART out of it.

[LibDemAlways]

37. It speaks for itself. Horrific. And our country is

draining its treasure not only on sending men and women off for no good reason so that they can potentially end up like that, but also on feeding the war machine with more bombs, bullets, armored vehicles, etc, so that we can inflict the same carnage on other human beings far from our shores.

[AwakeAtLast]

38. "They see their free press as free to choose not to look when bad things happen. "

Most powerfully true sentence in this very powerful piece. Had the MSM done the job that they were supposed to do, that young gentleman may not have been so tragically injured. I don't even know how he was able to survive. :cry:

[bjjblackbelt]

39. ...

Our "leaders" are corrupt, vile monsters, both sides of the aisle. Truly sickening! I wonder when people will wake up to this fact?

[classysassy]

40. Our citizens are all on prozac

When we let those crooks in washington use our tax dollars to fund their wars of conquest and deny its citizens proper health care,good schools,clean air and water,think about it,if you could keep getting elected to congress with the status quo,would you change any thing?We listen to the paid hucksters,Limbaugh,Beck,Palin and the rest of that ilk,nothing will change until we the peole change them by with holding our votes.

[Raster]

42. "...the war that blew off half of this boys head was based on out and out lies."

And it still continues, and NO ONE responsible for this illegal and immoral war has been held accountable for their illegal and immoral actions.

[Shining Jack]

45. Mainstream medias are to the corporations...

what Pravda* was to the Communist regime in the USSR.But far more efficient and appealing to the population.

*And all the propaganda machine.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

46. This is the truth.

[Blue_Tires]

47. ttt

[Eric Condon]

48. This is what I've been trying to tell people for years

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3018795

This OP was my first-ever post at DU, and it basically lays out how I feel.

The economy, HCR, jobs, all these things are important. But the first thing on any liberal's agenda should be to END THESE FUCKING WARS. How many 9/11's worth of people have died for absolutely nothing?

Bush's illegal bloodbath, coupled with torture, shredding of the constitution, and myriad other atrocities, wasn't enough to convince people to vote him out in 2004, apparently (voter fraud suspicions aside). But suddenly when the economy tanks and middle class Americans who thought they were rich because they bought into the bullshit American Dream™ suddenly can't pay the mortgage on their McMansion, THEN suddenly yeah, let's throw the bums out.

As I said in my first post, it doesn't even matter who the president is. It's not a partisan issue. All that SHOULD matter is the fact that people are dying in multitudes, and SOMEONE has to stop the killing. Unfortunately, I'm not holding my breath.

[inna]

49. kick

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7827619

[dixiegrrrrl]

51. Kicking

every day if needed.