Just another reason the Statesman sucks

[Deej 76797]

15 minutes ago, Larry T. Spider said:

I’m curious about the unwritten rules for the media in which pictures are shown. It seems that they do have a line that they typically don’t cross. Usually the face isn’t shown but the body with the scene to give context is. I also wonder how the internet has changed things as people have become desensitized to graphic images. Some of those images from 50 year ago were so powerful because people hasn’t seen stuff like that in print.

A bit of this. I was always fascinated by the old HBO Autopsy shows. Looked up crime scene photos. Visited the old rotten.com. It has always fascinated me. (I think part of that was being raised in the Catholic church, where Jesus is always hanging there on a cross. And most people I know like me were raised Catholic.) Unfortunately, I am so desensitized to it. The images don't move me like they should. It's all very clinical, at this point. Now seeing something horrible in real time I can't handle, but the aftermath doesn't move the needle.

Edited June 26, 2019 by Deej

[WBT 20573]

How do you play through a water hazard?  I don't get it.

[JohnnyRage 1617]

A lack of photos is why we have allowed our government to be at war for 20 years.

[Judge Roybeanbag 11819]

22 minutes ago, JohnnyRage said:

A lack of photos is why we have allowed our government to be at war for 20 years.

This is a really interesting observation.  Why have there not been more pictures of the reality of the war?  

[conVINCEd 21469]

43 minutes ago, WBT said:

How do you play through a water hazard?  I don't get it.

First you take off your socks and shoes...

[Deej 76797]

21 minutes ago, Judge Roybeanbag said:

This is a really interesting observation.  Why have there not been more pictures of the reality of the war?  

The photos of the Highway of Death did make us shut down the first Gulf War pretty quickly. 

[MissingInAction 25080]

And the only shit that does get through are videos of fanatics executing people.

Edit: brown fanatics. Not us except for the police.

Edited June 27, 2019 by MissingInAction

[Larry T. Spider 1746]

1 hour ago, Judge Roybeanbag said:

This is a really interesting observation.  Why have there not been more pictures of the reality of the war?  

Limited media access after Vietnam. Can’t have joe public seeing what he supported. Just keep liking the military Facebook posts and move along.

[El Diablo 4232]

3 hours ago, El Diablo said:

Fairly familiar, my nephew was born there and is now a US citizen.

Upon further reflection and since you asked, I'd like to continue this just a bit further. I was raised Catholic and a Texas Democrat, this upbringing played a role in how I viewed the events in El Salvador as they happened. Maybe you're familiar with the assassination of Archbishop Romero? That happened the same month that I went to the recruiting office and signed up. The government had snipers at his funeral by the way, they shot 42 of the mourners. Or maybe you're familiar with the rape and murder of the 3 American nuns? That happened while I was in boot camp in December of '80. This all coincided with the election of Ronald Reagan and he would go on to provide around a billion dollars in aid to the El Salvadoran government, much of it military aid. To suppress the peasants. The peasants were not to be denied though and in 1992 a peace agreement was signed in Mexico City putting an end to the civil war.

My niece's husband was born there shortly before the peace agreement was signed and the father who died with his daughter trying to cross a dangerous river was born shortly after that.   So I do know a little bit about El Salvador pre-war, during the war and post-war and their government and our own governments involvement there.

The first question that popped into my head when I heard my niece was dating a guy from there was "Is he in a gang?". I feared the worst because post-war the larger problems haven't been by government repression and economic policies it's been the crime by criminal gangs. Government corruption is a problem too but it's the crime that affects so many on a daily basis.

Luckily Jorge is a fantastic father to my 3 great nephews and a hard working husband for my niece. He works in the fracing industry and it's not uncommon for him to put in 70-90 hours a week on the job, on the road away from his family. They're huge Texas Rangers fans and make it to a few games a year.

I'm not sure what the question you asked about my knowledge of the El Salvadoran government was leading to but I hope that I've given you enough to chew on and perhaps even swallow a little bit of it without choking. 

If you're tying to make some point about how it's the US governments fault that he left El Salvador and died trying to cross a river to gain illegal entry into the US then I'm afraid you're trying to connect dots that don't form a straight line.

Look, people have been doing stupid, dangerous shit to get into this country illegally for centuries and some have died doing it. Trying to politicize their stupidity or plain bad luck is pretty reprehensible. jmho. 

Conditions in El Salvador still suck. A lot. My niece, nephew and their 3 kids still go visit there a couple of times a year. But don't blame that cartoon sitting in the White House for this kids death, that's just lazy.

[atomheartbevo 89674]

1 hour ago, Judge Roybeanbag said:

This is a really interesting observation.  Why have there not been more pictures of the reality of the war?  

American mainstream media normally won’t print the stuff - probably wanting to keep access to the Pentagon or a White House news pool, , etc. plus not wanting to lose advertising because Aunt Edna got upset.

But it’s out there if you want to look.  Plenty of stuff that American/NATO troops filmed or photographed themselves in Afghanistan, as well us US troops in Iraq.   Way too many smartphones and GoPros floating around.   I’ve got a buddy who probably has 250 hours of himself on patrol, with about 245 hours of it being the guy in front of him or the ground, with a few hours of combat.   

If you want a time sink, YouTube has probably thousands of hours of combat footage, from helicopters hitting large targets to guys on the ground fighting in little villages or on mountainsides.  From what I’ve seen, you can’t show graphic stuff (unless it’s newsworthy or whatever their criteria is) or the video gets removed.  

[atomheartbevo 89674]

2 hours ago, Larry T. Spider said:

I’m curious about the unwritten rules for the media in which pictures are shown. It seems that they do have a line that they typically don’t cross. Usually the face isn’t shown but the body with the scene to give context is. I also wonder how the internet has changed things as people have become desensitized to graphic images. Some of those images from 50 year ago were so powerful because people hasn’t seen stuff like that in print.

We are prudes in America.  Get outside of the country, and you will find plenty of graphic stuff makes it in the media.  Hell, Mexican publications will show beheading victims.  You can find their websites full of photos from cartel violence.  

[hobbes2702 13034]

6 hours ago, TXLNGHRN10 said:

I don't think they should be showing pictures of dead children in the news. 
 

 

What is it you think the news should show you? 

[MissingInAction 25080]

I for one would like to see tits. A lot of tits.

[MaybeACoordinator 8349]

10 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

We are prudes in America.  Get outside of the country, and you will find plenty of graphic stuff makes it in the media.  Hell, Mexican publications will show beheading victims.  You can find their websites full of photos from cartel violence.  

American media has only been like this recently. Newspapers and magazines used to routinely run pictures of bullet-riddled outlaws. 

[Bone3421 716]

What about all the ones I just posted? Particularly the last one which I believe correlates the best. 

Could you expand on why you believe it correlates the best...if you already have ill read it shortly

[Hanrahan 1306]

How many pics of dead border crossing children were import enough to publish during the Obama administration? Because border crossing was illegal then and kids died trying to illegally cross. Or is this just a Trump thing because we don’t like Trump and are willing to twist logic to make him look bad?

[justhookit 4191]

12 hours ago, Ghost of LL said:

Can we just speak frankly for a minute, because we seem to be dancing around something important.

Is it that you think a photograph of a dead child should never be photographed, no matter how newsworthy?

Or is it instead that you don't want to see a photograph that lays bare the consequences of our country's abhorrent and inhumane treatment of refugees?

I guess I missed it in the article. This family was a refugee from what?

[Asithappens 974]

19 hours ago, TXLNGHRN10 said:

How many pictures of a dead toddler do you need to see? I don't think there is a need to show one, much less two. 
Are they going to show pictures of every child that dies tragically ?

Maybe you need to lead group to change the law then, comrade.

[TXLNGHRN10 341]

The border crisis has been going on in for or another since 1836. Or even before that from the Mexico stand point with Anglos coming to Tejas.
Will there be a border crisis if the Republicans win the next election? Yes 
Will there be a border crisis if the Democrats win? Yes
Now it's a picture of a dead 2 year old that's going to change it?  
It won't.
Neither political party in DC or Austin has addressed this seriously and showing that will not make them address it.
Why is it so hard to come into this country legally? I seriously don't know.  We came to America in the early 1700's when the rules were different.
Do we need to set up a new Ellis Island down in Laredo to process who ever walks over? 
The government does not want to make the process easier. 
There are lots of crisis in our country.
I don't see media running pictures of opiod deaths on the front page. I don't see DWI deaths photos. Is it an agenda? Is it because these crisis aren't as shiny as the border region because of who's in the white house? 
I'm not some snow flake who can't handle "graphic images". I've been on this site and the one before. I've seen plenty of graphic shit.
Like we say in the Vic thread or elsewhere "spoiler that shit" put a fucking disclaimer up, do something, other then posting the picture on your front page where it was the first thing you see.  Hence my statement about it being sensationalized. I feel it was done for shock value. 
 

[Mojo Hand 4580]

20 hours ago, TXLNGHRN10 said:

How many pictures of a dead toddler do you need to see? I don't think there is a need to show one, much less two. 
Are they going to show pictures of every child that dies tragically ?

Clearly you need to see more than just the two.  No, we don't need pictures of every child who dies tragically.   But we do need to see the ones that die as a result of policy decisions that are being made by the president right now.  This tragedy is part of the cost of Trump's decision to block processing of desperate asylum seekers who LEGALLY present themselves at a port of entry, even though we have the capacity to process twice as many people.   You may be a heartless bastard who has no problem with that awful policy or its cost, but you can go fuck yourself with the notion that the rest of us should spare you having to see it with your own eyes. 

[Mojo Hand 4580]

7 hours ago, Hanrahan said:

How many pics of dead border crossing children were import enough to publish during the Obama administration? Because border crossing was illegal then and kids died trying to illegally cross. Or is this just a Trump thing because we don’t like Trump and are willing to twist logic to make him look bad?

We can't stop every tragedy, but we can prevent the ones that our policies are causing.  While kids died trying to cross the border before, kids didn't die because the president was preventing them from lawfully presenting themselves for asylum at ports of entry.   In fact, Obama tripled the processing of asylum seekers at ports of entry.   This father and daughter tried to seek asylum lawfully at a port of entry, but weren't allowed to because Trump slashed processing in half for no reason other than his bullshit claim that "America is full."   (Not to mention that not a single child died in ICE custody under Obama, and 6 have died in the last 6 months under Trump.) 

[Bone3421 716]

In 1963 the awareness of what was actually going on in Viet Nahm was at best limited. For average citizens due to US policy the soldiers were fighting Communism and that was good. 
The reality was the bombing had already begun and the death toll was starting to escalate. No pics of dead people including kids were coming out, but be sure they existed.
That single photograph brought an awareness theretofore had not existed. Not just in the US but internationally. The specific issues were not seen in the photo, but WHY anyone, specifically a peaceful monk would make such a "statement" was certainly asked. 
Now you are possibly familiar with the hippy antiwar movement, which parts of can easily be criticized. (Namely how they treated returning soldiers) However, not wanting US foreign policy to result in deaths of women and children in a foreign country over essentially bullshit was a noble cause. The photo not only strengthened that group but brought in support, if less committed support, from a much larger swath of US citizen. At the worst, it started conversation and had some folks asking WTF is going on.
Awareness of bad US policy was generated or at least awareness that some were fully committed to ending that terrible policy. Why did this happen?
I'm not sure another photo in history outside of the 911 towers created as much conversation in the US. 
It's just my opinion but you asked. 

Thats why i asked...Thich Quang Duc's protest had nothing to do with the war.
His self-immolation was to bring awareness of the way Buddhist were being persecuted by the South Vietnam Govt. Which was led by a catholic.

The pic did lose diem support of his allies and led to a coup.

The protest was before the Vietnam War as we know it. Usa had maybe 10k(advisors) there at the time and didnt really ramp up troops until the tonkin incident in august of 64

[atomheartbevo 89674]

5 hours ago, BurntEyes said:

I'm not sure another photo in history outside of the 911 towers created as much conversation in the US. 

The Kent State massacre, and the Vietnamese girl who had her clothes burned off from a napalm strike most likely generated a lot more conversation.  

[El Diablo 4232]

2 hours ago, Mojo Hand said:

Clearly you need to see more than just the two.  No, we don't need pictures of every child who dies tragically.   But we do need to see the ones that die as a result of policy decisions that are being made by the president right now.  This tragedy is part of the cost of Trump's decision to block processing of desperate asylum seekers who LEGALLY present themselves at a port of entry, even though we have the capacity to process twice as many people.   You may be a heartless bastard who has no problem with that awful policy or its cost, but you can go fuck yourself with the notion that the rest of us should spare you having to see it with your own eyes. 

I need to see a compelling argument that this guy and his family were in such immediate danger in Mexico  that it required the measures he took. Also going to need to know more about this particular individual's need for asylum in the US  if we're going to present him as an example.

[atomheartbevo 89674]

3 hours ago, TXLNGHRN10 said:

The government does not want to make the legal process easier.

Fixed, and that’s what created these circumstances.  Political affiliation has nothing to do with it - the person in charge has stated publicly, multiple times, and I directly quote: “Our Country is FULL!”   They acted on this belief to make it harder for people to legally enter the country, and desperate people do desperate things as a result.

That is 100% news-worthy.

3 hours ago, TXLNGHRN10 said:

I don't see media running pictures of opiod deaths on the front page. I don't see DWI deaths photos. Is it an agenda? 

Those deaths are not the direct results of decisions made by our government.  Somebody pounding down a bunch of shots and wrapping their car around a telephone pole.   Some druggie doing a little too much of something.  Those are personal decisions and personal failures.  In the case of an overdose, you can argue that it’s a failing of society to take care of its most vulnerable, but it’s a lot harder to attribute any one death to a specific policy or aspect of something, such as the “War on Drugs”  

With that said, maybe it would be good to see some opioid overdoses, to get people out of their comfort zone.   Let’s talk about the War on Drugs, and how plenty of people perhaps started their spiral into death because of some bad policies.

Look at the police shootings of people who didn’t deserve to die, and the media running the footage and photos.   Cities are slowly, at least some, coming around on this.  We are starting to see more and more people (and cities) trying to hold the police accountable as a result of these shootings that we used to easily ignore (or live in ignorance of).  

[TwiceHorn 31482]

Trump deserves this for being a ham-handed, short-fingered vulgarian and general purpose asshole.

But immigrant drownings on the Rio Grande are nothing new.  https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-03-27-mn-51736-story.html

Quote

In a landmark study released earlier this month, the university estimated that as many as 270 would-be immigrants drown every year while illegally crossing the Texas-Mexico border. Many of them never are identified, the study found, blaming the "cursory and informal" procedures of South Texas authorities for hampering the identification process.

1996 for the url-impaired.

Edited June 27, 2019 by TwiceHorn

[atomheartbevo 89674]

Back in 1947, LIFE magazine ran a full-page photo of 23 year-old woman who jumped to her death.

NSFW

Spoiler

https://time.com/3456028/the-most-beautiful-suicide-a-violent-death-an-immortal-photo/

Quote

Along with Malcolm Browne's 1963 image of a self-immolating Buddhist monkand a small handful of other photos of men and women seen before, during, or after their own self-slaughter, Wiles' picture graphically and unforgettably captures the destruction—both literal and figurative—that attends virtually all suicides

Quote

This is not the place to delve into the deep, troubling universe of suicide, with all of its attendant pain, grief and lingering, unanswerable questions. But for a single moment, we can look one last time at Evelyn McHale, and remember her. Even if none of us ever knew her. Even if we'll never really know what pushed her off the building. Even if she's long, long gone, and never coming back.

Was it news-worthy?  Did it make anybody rethink their thoughts of suicide?  Hard to say, and it was LIfE magazine, and not Time or Newsweek anyways.

There’s some irony in the fact that in 1947, there was a huge depression, and probably suicide, problem.   In the previous two years, millions of Americans had left the military, with hundreds of thousands having seen heavy combat, and a good million or two having seen the immediate effects of massive death and destruction.

Back then, the government didn’t do much to help those folks - it wasn’t quite “go walk it off” territory, but damn close, and there was a stigma attached to mental illness and vets.. I didn’t know until well after his death that one of my grandfathers suffered from severe PTSD, but when I found out, about 15 different things clicked into place for me, from my experiences with him, and from what I knew of his life.  

What if instead of this beautiful young woman caving in the roof of a limousine in 1947, we instead get photos of vets who killed themselves because they couldn’t process their memories of seeing a concentration camp, or the stress of being on a bomber over a Germany of fighting on some shitty little jungle island or whatever?

That could have created a national conversation that we needed to have, just as this photo of a toddler and her dad need to create a national conversation.  

[Bone3421 716]

Did you see the quotes around "statement".
Did I ever state that the troops in Nahm where why he burned himself?
10k troops isn't nobody.
And what you have obtusely over looked is he SOCIAL impact it had in the US, which was what I was responding to in the first fucking place.
So you asked your question so you could refute a point I didn't even fucking make to be a dick all while ignoring the point I actually DID make.
Go fuck yourself.

No i was curious why you thought it correlated is all and not looking to fight. Was just stating some misconceptions about the photo as it relates to the war. There are articles even saying that brought us into the war even though we were advising since eisenhower.
Yes it stirred some emotion but it had nothing to do with bad USA policy as you mentioned or i interpreted. No worries just chatting

[sidis 9828]

18 hours ago, Judge Roybeanbag said:

This is a really interesting observation.  Why have there not been more pictures of the reality of the war?   

ask tami salicio what happened to her after she took this photo...

By April 2004, some 700 U.S. troops had been killed on the battlefield in Iraq, but images of the dead returning home in coffins were never seen.

The U.S. government had banned news organizations from photographing such scenes in 1991, arguing that they violated families’ privacy and the dignity of the dead. To critics, the policy was simply a way of sanitizing an increasingly bloody conflict. As a government contractor working for a cargo company in Kuwait, Tami Silicio was moved by the increasingly human freight she was loading and felt compelled to share what she was seeing. On April 7, Silicio used her Nikon Coolpix to photograph more than 20 flag-draped coffins as they passed through Kuwait on their way to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. She emailed the picture to a friend in the U.S., who forwarded it to a photo editor at the Seattle Times. With Silicio’s permission, the Times put the photo on its front page on April 18—and immediately set off a firestorm. Within days, Silicio was fired from her job and a debate raged over the ethics of publishing the images. While the government claimed that families of troops killed in action agreed with its policy, many felt that the pictures should not be censored. In late 2009, during President Barack Obama’s first year in office, the Pentagon lifted the ban.

 

as for the op...good lord.  apartheid...

nazis

civil war

 

and speaking of correlation...

It’s easy to ignore the plight of refugees. They are seen as numbers more than people, moving from one distant land to the next. But a picture can puncture that illusion. The sun hadn’t yet risen on Thanksgiving Day in 1977 when Associated Press photographer Eddie Adams watched a fishing boat packed with South Vietnamese refugees drift toward Thailand. He was on patrol with Thai maritime authorities as the unstable vessel carrying about 50 people came to shore after days at sea. Thousands of refugees had streamed from postwar Vietnam since the American withdrawal more than two years earlier, fleeing communism by fanning out across Southeast Asia in search of safe harbor. Often they were pushed back into the abyss and told to go somewhere else. Adams boarded the packed fishing boat and began shooting. He didn’t have long. Eventually Thai authorities demanded that he disembark—wary, Adams believed, that his presence would create sympathy for the refugees that might compel Thailand to open its doors. On that score, they were right. Adams transmitted his pictures and wrote a short report, and within days they were published widely. The images were presented to Congress, helping to open the doors for more than 200,000 refugees from Vietnam to enter the U.S. from 1978 to 1981. “The pictures did it,” Adams said, “pushed it over.”

 

[C-Man 27230]

On 6/26/2019 at 2:24 PM, Ghost of LL said:

Or is it instead that you don't want to see a photograph that lays bare the consequences of our country's abhorrent and inhumane treatment of refugees?

[GringoSalado 1651]

2 hours ago, El Diablo said:

I need to see a compelling argument that this guy and his family were in such immediate danger in Mexico  that it required the measures he took. Also going to need to know more about this particular individual's need for asylum in the US  if we're going to present him as an example.

According to the Daily Mail 

Spoiler

• Oscar Alberto Martinez Ramirez, 25, left El Salvador with his wife Tania, 21, and their daughter Valeria, one, on April 3 
• They lived with Tania's mother and were surviving on $10 a day which he earned by working in a Papa Johns pizza shop 
• Tania had quit had her job as a cashier at a Chinese restaurant to look after their daughter
• Their dream was to move to the US and save enough money to buy a house 
• In April, they arrived in Mexico and got a humanitarian visa which allowed them to work there for a year while awaiting news of their US asylum request 
• Tired of waiting, they made their way to the border on Sunday to try to push their case forward
• When they arrived, the consulate was closed and they were told they would have to wait weeks or months anyway because so many were in front of them
• Oscar decided to try to cross illegally, taking Valeria with him first and dropping her safely on the US side of the river
• When he turned back to get his wife, Valeria jumped in the water after him and they were swept away  

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7183475/Tragic-story-El-Salvador-father-daughter-drowned-crossing-Rio-Grande.html

 

 

[GringoSalado 1651]

I'm from El Paso and people have been dying crossing the Rio Grande (even before crossing and dying in the AZ desert became a thing) for the entirety of my life and I've never seen anybody really give a shit about it. If it takes Trump to create enough outrage for this issue to finally be addressed then I suppose that's a good thing

[TwiceHorn 31482]

23 minutes ago, GringoSalado said:

I'm from El Paso and people have been dying crossing the Rio Grande (even before crossing and dying in the AZ desert became a thing) for the entirety of my life and I've never seen anybody really give a shit about it. If it takes Trump to create enough outrage for this issue to finally be addressed then I suppose that's a good thing

Right. It might finally give some group the political will to fucking do something one way or another.

[Ghost of LL 15531]

7 hours ago, TXLNGHRN10 said:

I don't see media running pictures of opiod deaths on the front page. I don't see DWI deaths photos. Is it an agenda? Is it because these crisis aren't as shiny as the border region because of who's in the white house? 
 

Aaaaaaand there it is.  You don't want to see it because you view it as an implicit rebuke of this Administration's monstrous policies.

Well, Trump--and, by extension, you--stand rebuked.

And don't think for a minute that you can just hide your eyes and avoid culpability.  You know.  And if you didn't know, now you know.

[TXLNGHRN10 341]

Aaaaaaand there it is.  You don't want to see it because you view it as an implicit rebuke of this Administration's monstrous policies.
Well, Trump--and, by extension, you--stand rebuked.
And don't think for a minute that you can just hide your eyes and avoid culpability.  You know.  And if you didn't know, now you know.

Negative
I do not support Trump
But thanks for jumping to conclusions



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[GringoSalado 1651]

40 minutes ago, Ghost of LL said:

Aaaaaaand there it is.  You don't want to see it because you view it as an implicit rebuke of this Administration's monstrous policies.

[Ghost of LL 15531]

4 minutes ago, TXLNGHRN10 said:

Negative
I do not support Trump
But thanks for jumping to conclusions



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

For a non-supporter, you seem very eager to defend him against the purported agendas of the media.

Sorry, but your denial just isn't ringing true.

[TXLNGHRN10 341]

For a non-supporter, you seem very eager to defend him against the purported agendas of the media.
Sorry, but your denial just isn't ringing true.

Where did you see that I was supporting / defending him?
JFC



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Ghost of LL 15531]

8 minutes ago, GringoSalado said:

I can draw conclusions based on evidence.  It's not exactly a superpower.

1 minute ago, TXLNGHRN10 said:

Where did you see that I was supporting / defending him?
JFC



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

When you complain that this photo was published "because of who's in the white house," you adopt a right-wing meme that the media is out to get Trump.  You're certainly careful not to say it outwardly, but it is the undercurrent beneath all of your posts.

[TXLNGHRN10 341]

When you complain that this photo was published "because of who's in the white house," you adopt a right-wing meme that the media is out to get Trump.  You're certainly careful not to say it outwardly, but it is the undercurrent beneath all of your posts.

I asked a question. I did not complain the phot was published because of who’s in the White House.
And I can easily say you are adopting a left wing meme by your reaction.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Ghost of LL 15531]

I know.  You're just asking questions.

[GringoSalado 1651]

I know.  You're just asking questions.

Txlnghrn10 you are SO busted.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

[achooloco 1072]

On 6/26/2019 at 4:36 PM, El Diablo said:

The governments of El Salvador or Mexico? The deceased was born in one of them and had sanctuary in the other.

the one where cruelty is the point and i can actually affect elections? but hey, i'm a realist.

[achooloco 1072]

On 6/26/2019 at 9:46 PM, El Diablo said:

Upon further reflection and since you asked, I'd like to continue this just a bit further. I was raised Catholic and a Texas Democrat, this upbringing played a role in how I viewed the events in El Salvador as they happened. Maybe you're familiar with the assassination of Archbishop Romero? That happened the same month that I went to the recruiting office and signed up. The government had snipers at his funeral by the way, they shot 42 of the mourners. Or maybe you're familiar with the rape and murder of the 3 American nuns? That happened while I was in boot camp in December of '80. This all coincided with the election of Ronald Reagan and he would go on to provide around a billion dollars in aid to the El Salvadoran government, much of it military aid. To suppress the peasants. The peasants were not to be denied though and in 1992 a peace agreement was signed in Mexico City putting an end to the civil war.

My niece's husband was born there shortly before the peace agreement was signed and the father who died with his daughter trying to cross a dangerous river was born shortly after that.   So I do know a little bit about El Salvador pre-war, during the war and post-war and their government and our own governments involvement there.

The first question that popped into my head when I heard my niece was dating a guy from there was "Is he in a gang?". I feared the worst because post-war the larger problems haven't been by government repression and economic policies it's been the crime by criminal gangs. Government corruption is a problem too but it's the crime that affects so many on a daily basis.

Luckily Jorge is a fantastic father to my 3 great nephews and a hard working husband for my niece. He works in the fracing industry and it's not uncommon for him to put in 70-90 hours a week on the job, on the road away from his family. They're huge Texas Rangers fans and make it to a few games a year.

I'm not sure what the question you asked about my knowledge of the El Salvadoran government was leading to but I hope that I've given you enough to chew on and perhaps even swallow a little bit of it without choking. 

If you're tying to make some point about how it's the US governments fault that he left El Salvador and died trying to cross a river to gain illegal entry into the US then I'm afraid you're trying to connect dots that don't form a straight line.

Look, people have been doing stupid, dangerous shit to get into this country illegally for centuries and some have died doing it. Trying to politicize their stupidity or plain bad luck is pretty reprehensible. jmho. 

Conditions in El Salvador still suck. A lot. My niece, nephew and their 3 kids still go visit there a couple of times a year. But don't blame that cartoon sitting in the White House for this kids death, that's just lazy.

i have 7 to blame on him, care to refute that fact?

[achooloco 1072]

14 hours ago, TXLNGHRN10 said:

The border crisis has been going on in for or another since 1836. Or even before that from the Mexico stand point with Anglos coming to Tejas.
Will there be a border crisis if the Republicans win the next election? Yes 
Will there be a border crisis if the Democrats win? Yes
Now it's a picture of a dead 2 year old that's going to change it?  
It won't.
Neither political party in DC or Austin has addressed this seriously and showing that will not make them address it.
Why is it so hard to come into this country legally? I seriously don't know.  We came to America in the early 1700's when the rules were different.
Do we need to set up a new Ellis Island down in Laredo to process who ever walks over? 
The government does not want to make the process easier. 
There are lots of crisis in our country.
I don't see media running pictures of opiod deaths on the front page. I don't see DWI deaths photos. Is it an agenda? Is it because these crisis aren't as shiny as the border region because of who's in the white house? 
I'm not some snow flake who can't handle "graphic images". I've been on this site and the one before. I've seen plenty of graphic shit.
Like we say in the Vic thread or elsewhere "spoiler that shit" put a fucking disclaimer up, do something, other then posting the picture on your front page where it was the first thing you see.  Hence my statement about it being sensationalized. I feel it was done for shock value. 
 

it will. it helps to change the current racist policies trump has implemented. see the evidence on the first page of this thread. pictures make a difference. there aren't as many pictures of dwi deaths bc as a country, we made a stand to try to minimalize (sp? fuck i tried 5 different ways to spell it and no dice) them and said there is a limit. but the deaths of the father and daughter are on you. trump's cruelty is the point and it's being done for you, and sadly all of us, and by your complicit acquiescence.

we as a country are trying to have fewer dwi and opiod deaths, but actively encouraging subjugation of immigration law by not allowing asylum seekers to lawfully apply. thats on you. live it. breathe it. take it in and know it is your fault next time you hug your kids bc people in your name are not following the law and killing/torturing kids. fuck your bubble.

no agenda, just the reality in 2019 USA for you and your agenda. sorry it is too real for you. it isn't sensationalized, it is simple reality. 

Edited June 28, 2019 by achooloco
edit: nvm atomheartbevo explained it way better than i could on pg 2

[atomheartbevo 89674]

I don't know that it will change policy by itself, and arguably the lawsuit filed by the federal asylum officers charged with implementing the policy will have more of an impact.

It's a damn powerful photo to me, even if I didn't have a daughter not much older than her.  I'll even admit that it sickens me.  It should be seen by the adult public at large, because otherwise, it's all too easy for people on both sides of the issue to ignore it.  

The media plays up death all the time, and so we get very desensitized to articles that mention somebody dying  - I don't give a fuck about some meth-head in Florida killing her husband with a python, or some redneck in Oklahoma killing his cousin-wife with a hay baler, but that shit creeps into my feeds, and I ignore it.  But when I saw that photo of the girl and her dad, I had to stop and read.

Hell, a part of me wishes some of those photos of those who die in the desert would be released - it might put pressure on ICE to stop emptying out jugs of water and destroying packages of food that people leave to help those folks make it through the desert.  

The Kent State photo - that led to 4 million college students shutting down their colleges, 100,000+ people marching on Washington.  This little bit from Wikipedia was interesting:

Quote

Not only was the President taken to Camp David for two days for his own protection, but Charles Colson (Counsel to President Nixon from 1969 to 1973) stated that the military was called up to protect the Nixon Administration from the angry students; he recalled that "The 82nd Airborne was in the basement of the executive office building, so I went down just to talk to some of the guys and walk among them, and they're lying on the floor leaning on their packs and their helmets and their cartridge belts and their rifles cocked and you're thinking, 'This can't be the United States of America. This is not the greatest free democracy in the world. This is a nation at war with itself.'"[10]

President Nixon and his administration's public reaction to the shootings was perceived by many in the anti-war movement as callous. Then National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger said the President was "pretending indifference". Stanley Karnow noted in his Vietnam: A History that "The [Nixon] administration initially reacted to this event with wanton insensitivity. Nixon's press secretary, Ron Ziegler, whose statements were carefully programmed, referred to the deaths as a reminder that 'when dissent turns to violence, it invites tragedy.'" Three days before the shootings, Nixon had talked of "bums" who were antiwar protestors on United States campuses,[49] to which the father of Allison Krause stated on national TV "My child was not a bum."

 My gut says the timing of the photo of the little girl and her dad is such that it will have little to no impact, because too many distractions are constantly occurring in Washington.

Things like the Kent State photo - that portion of the nation's population that ramped up massive protests was already zeroed-in on Vietnam being The One True Issue in their lives.  Right now, we are distracted by half a dozen major issues.

[El Diablo 4232]

6 hours ago, achooloco said:

the one where cruelty is the point and i can actually affect elections? but hey, i'm a realist.

Realist? It seems that you don't even want to assign responsibility to the person who tried to swim across a river with a 2 year old. Dude.

[Mojo Hand 4580]

1 hour ago, El Diablo said:

Realist? It seems that you don't even want to assign responsibility to the person who tried to swim across a river with a 2 year old. Dude.

The girl successfully crossed.  The father went back to help others, she got scared and tried to swim back across alone, and they died while he was trying to save her.  It was a tragic accident borne of tragic circumstances.  We don't have the information to determine whether the risks that family took were justified, but we do have the information to conclude that our policies are adding to the desperation that is leading people to take such risks, and for no good reason.  

['stache 21816]

15 minutes ago, Mojo Hand said:

The girl successfully crossed.  The father went back to help others, she got scared and tried to swim back across alone, and they died while he was trying to save her.  It was a tragic accident borne of tragic circumstances.  We don't have the information to determine whether the risks that family took were justified, but we do have the information to conclude that our policies are adding to the desperation that is leading people to take such risks, and for no good reason.  

Why does anyone need to subjectively nit-pick whether the "risk was justified"? A family wanted a better life and the USA offers that to anyone willing to work. The fact that they took a risk at all is enough to convince me their home circumstances were problematic.  It shouldn't be so fucking difficult for law-abiding people who simply want to work to do so without years of redtape to do so "legally."

[Mojo Hand 4580]

3 minutes ago, 'stache said:

Why does anyone need to subjectively nit-pick whether the "risk was justified"? A family wanted a better life and the USA offers that to anyone willing to work. The fact that they took a risk at all is enough to convince me their home circumstances were problematic.  It shouldn't be so fucking difficult for law-abiding people who simply want to work to do so without years of redtape to do so "legally."

Sadly, because we're facing sociopathic policy rationalized by limited-empathy assholes.