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catscradle Mar. 24th, 2003 06:46 am)
catscradle Mar. 24th, 2003 06:46 am)This is about the only time I've ever loved the Oscars. After having seen Michael Moore at the university a few weeks ago, I knew this was an event I couldn't miss. He kept saying "Don't let me up on that stage in March!" And now we know why.
Thanks for not copping out, Mike.
Thanks for not copping out, Mike.
"Whoa. On behalf of our producers Kathleen Glynn and Michael Donovan from Canada, I'd like to thank the Academy for this. I have invited my fellow documentary nominees on the stage with us, and we would like to — they're here in solidarity with me because we like nonfiction. We like nonfiction and we live in fictitious times. We live in the time where we have fictitious election results that elects a fictitious president. We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons. Whether it's the fictition of duct tape or fictition of orange alerts we are against this war, Mr. Bush. Shame on you, Mr. Bush, shame on you. And any time you got the Pope and the Dixie Chicks against you, your time is up. Thank you very much."
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You'll have to tell me who else won. (No, I didn't watch. I don't do Oscars. ^_~)
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Have you heard about censorship that doesn't allow TV to show in USA the images of wounded northamerican soldiers? It was in the news here today, and Lara posted about it in her LJ. There were some images that Al-Jazeera (sp?) TV has been showing.
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Do you mean the prohibition on depicting the "humiliation" of prisoners of war (such as the footage of American PoWs first braodcast by al-Jazeera, and then across Western television networks) under the Geneva Convention? Because, to myself at least, that is a 'good' sort of censorship; its purpose is to protect PoWs, not to keep people ignorant.
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As you say, steps can be taken to protect soldiers' identities, but, in the British media at least, not everyone seems responsible enough to do this. Blair appears on television, suggesting that, basically, Iraqi mistreatment of PoWs is a good example of exactly why we are at war -- "Sometimes when people ask me is it really necessary to get rid of Saddam, I say look at the things he does. Parading people in that way is contrary to the Geneva convention." -- and when the humiliation of the captured soldiers is continued by a news station, they get their wrists slapped.
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If the United States government gave a rat's ass about the men and women, they wouldn't have been sent to Iraq at all. This has very little to do with the Geneva Convention and everything to do with propoganda and not letting the American people see what's going on there. The Protests here have escalated - do you think they want the people sitting on the fence to jump over to the anti-war side? In Vietnam, the protest didn't escalate until the body bags started to pour in and people got images of what was really going on there. You take away that coverage and people feel removed from the reality of war.
As I said, if showing their faces is a concern, you can keep the identity hidden. We don't need to know who they are and where they live. But not showing this at all - that *is* censorship. That's keeping back information that we have a right to know. To think that the military is holding back on these pics for the good of those soldiers is naive and exactly what they want you to think. If *I* can think of obscuring the footage to potect the rights of the soldiers, then why couldn't they? It's in fact standard proceedure in most interviews with people you don't want their identity revealed.
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I'm sorry for being unclear. My position is that the footage should be shown, with steps taken to censor the identities of the soldiers. I feel this should apply to footage of both Coalition and Iraqi PoWs. I agree with your position that people should not be shielded from the horrors of war. I am against any censorship which takes place for the purpose of concealing these horrors. At the same time, I am concerned by the lack of responsibility shown by certain members of the media, the hypocrisy we are expected to view as natural and acceptable behaviour, and the attachment of a negative value to a neutral word.
Once again, I am sorry that I was not clear at first, and hope that I have managed to be more so here.
~Psyche
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I agree, that can be done, but we all saw their faces down here. Many times. The rest of the world saw them too.
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I also saw images of US soldiers being brought to Germany. Some were seriously wounded. Also I have heard repeatedly that the British plane lost in the area could have been hit by mistake by a US patriot missile. That is not certain yet, though.
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I heard the CNN spokesman the other day telling what he believed a "cute story": He said the boys - USA soldiers - were disappointed because they advanced through the desert and found no one to fight them, or no Iraq inhabitants thanking them for saving them. Then one of the soldiers saw something ahead and prepared for war and it was a Bedouin family with some goats. When they met the Bedouins the soldiers found they didn't care about Hussein. So the boys were disappointed.
I cannot understand where is the "cuteness" in that tale...
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