I see dead people. On the news. And it sucks.

[shootingstar]

If you want to toss off a blase "so what" save it for the idiots in power/authority who send kids to take care of their business.

I'm sorry I didn't mean to toss it off casually. True the politicians (and those who profit from war, munitions, etc. And those who have financial interests to protect, ie. oil), have someone else do the dirty work..

But only if people understood living with the consequences, thereafter by taking an enormous risk.

[Crankin]

I know you are not a blasé person, ShoootingStar, but as a military mom, I kind of feel the same way as Pax. I am generally a very liberal (very) person, but I think of the high tech aspect of war as something that might actually save my son's life.
Personally, unless you have actually been in a war, I don't think we can imagine what the people think like. I know my son says, "It's my job," when he is asked about stuff like this. He is incredibly level headed, been deployed to war zones 3X (and 2 others, that were not war zones), and no signs of PTSD.
I don't know why people (bystanders) would take pictures of dead people, like Pam describes. It just seems strange to me. What kind of need does that serve?

[shootingstar]

Thanks for your kindness, Crankin.

Doesn't have to be war to experience the trauma of seeing a loved one's body or seeing an accident where someone got killed.

Just last night, a person who I know face to face in Toronto, witnessed a skatebroader death, where he got crushed by a dump truck. She herself is a victim of medical malpractice, where now she is permanently disabled by an incorrect surgery (for cancer). She was a cyclist and a mother of 2 adult children.

So a 2nd different trauma for her for this incident she witnessed:

Posted 21 October 2011 02:59 PM
i was on king s.t waiting for the streetcar around 6.20 am, streetcars are slow even in the morning and its usually busy enough but not that busy.. a young man was skateboarding past me as i stood there, i glimpsed at him, looked down at my gym bag, looked up for the westbound streetcar and saw, a garbage truck turn south on spadina, and the young man go under.. it was like he was sucked under the wheels,,, i do not know how the driver did not see him crossing nor the young man , if he tried to stop i missed it...
he was crushed.. i rushed over.. i was about 20 meters away.. and the driver was standing there, he just stood there, people behind him were rushing out of their cars and one lady was screaming... i could not see the man, just his broken skateboard, he was under the wheels..
it is so heartwrenching, thinking of his family.. did they know, where was he going, all these questions ran through my head it felt like an hour i stood there trying to figure out where he was..
lucky we have bicycle police all the time downtown and spadina is a busy road, with chinatown just the next three streets up... the firetrucks are near and were there right away, i could do nothing, i felt helpless other than telling what i saw, a youngish man, about my sons age... the skateboard, the speed he was going

i was told to leave... they found him under the back corner wheel, he did not make it

hug your family, you just never know..

[pll]

In my view, Shootingstar makes an important point. With the high tech war, it is far too easy to be removed from the consequences. What comes to my mind is the video from the US armed forces that came to light a couple of years ago after some operation in in the middle east (I don't remember where now), when a 'convoy' was bombed. The commentary from the people behind the controls in the operation was more appropriate for playing with a video game. It was appalling to hear.

Going back to the original issue of corpses in the media, in the Gaddafi context, I was more stunned by the raw brutality of the scenes. Not so much the corpse per se, but what is considered a 'celebration' in some part of the world (I am glad not to inhabit): guns blazing in the air, dragging a body.

To the question of video versus still photography, I find stills have a much bigger impact on me. Most recently, I became ill after seeing a photo of severely burned victims (alive and walking) of the Hiroshima bomb at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. I did not know that pictures were taken within the first few hours of the explosion. I later read about the photographer. He narrated that he found it incredibly difficult and almost disrespectful to photograph the victims, but felt it was his duty to document. Even then, he did not develop the film until a year later. Nowadays, with digital pictures and the daily media overload, it is hard to imagine such pictures would not be shown right away.

[PamNY]

Interesting that we are discussing this right now. One of the Occupy Wall Street protesters climbed a statue in our park and spent most of the morning up there.

I have a good view from my living room so I took some photos -- mainly because it is interesting to see what the police, especially emergency services, do in these situations.

Even though there's almost no chance he could get hurt with such a huge police response (and cushion-y things on the ground), I wondered if I would keep photographing if he did jump or fall.

[PamNY]

To the question of video versus still photography, I find stills have a much bigger impact on me. Most recently, I became ill after seeing a photo of severely burned victims (alive and walking) of the Hiroshima bomb at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. I did not know that pictures were taken within the first few hours of the explosion. I later read about the photographer. He narrated that he found it incredibly difficult and almost disrespectful to photograph the victims, but felt it was his duty to document. Even then, he did not develop the film until a year later. Nowadays, with digital pictures and the daily media overload, it is hard to imagine such pictures would not be shown right away.

I agree that still photography has more impact.

One of the NY Post photographers who shot a lot of people jumping on 9/11 claims he never even looked at the ground. While there were a lot of photos of people jumping, I never did see any photographs of bodies on the ground.

I can't even imagine the impact of what you saw at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.

[pll]

Here is the testimony of the photographer in Hiroshima, Yoshito Matsushige:

http://www.inicom.com/hibakusha/yoshito.html

He was able to take only 5 pictures. He did develop them 20 days later and they were confiscated when he attempted to publish them.

ETA: The link above does not include the pictures, just written testimony.

[tangentgirl]

It's all about context and respect.

Images in history books, like the holocaust pictures, are there so we will (hopefully) not repeat past errors. I do not have a problem with that.

The images I have been seeing lately on the news are more for sensation, to get people to look and hopefully sell ads. I get the majority of my news from Internet sources, and I strongly feel that, if you are going to show the picture of a dead human being, you should only show that to people who actively want to see it. That is, there should be some sort of <click here for graphic photo> warning. Not only am I not seeing that, I have even seen teasers for other stories that include images of dead bodies.

It's boggling that we think wardrobe malfunctions warrant huge fines but using images of the dead to sell news is ok.

[Crankin]

Believe me, Shooting Star, I know trauma is not just from war. Most of the work I do is trauma work and it is even more difficult now that I am working with families, kids, teens. It is generally unbelievable what people do to each other and this has nothing to do with war or politics. But, for some reason, I am able to deal with it, as there is a very high rate of secondary/vicarious trauma in therapists who do this work. It's probably the same reason my son can come home from a war zone and be "normal" (and I do mean this in the most general sense... ). It's really the way our brain is wired.

[PamNY]

Here is the testimony of the photographer in Hiroshima, Yoshito Matsushige:

http://www.inicom.com/hibakusha/yoshito.html

He was able to take only 5 pictures. He did develop them 20 days later and they were confiscated when he attempted to publish them.

ETA: The link above does not include the pictures, just written testimony.

Thank you. This is interesting.

[Biciclista]

My 8th grade teacher made us all read books about the holocaust and they were filled with photos. At about the same time my mother had purchased the book on Hiroshima by John Hersey. As much as we want to protect ourselves and our young, some of this is important to see.
But I still haven't seen the nasty shots of Ghadafi's body !