Bloodthirsty Children Or Media Missiles?

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Re: Hideous Indoctrinations and using women, too.

Postby Hugh Manatee Wins » Sat Jul 22, 2006 3:44 pm

The axis below, taken from Professor Hugh Rank's (no relation to HMW) "Intensify/Downplay Schema", is a useful tool for looking at the media coverage of war and propaganda material.<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.iwm.org.uk/upload/package/29/mediawar/techniqhome.htm">www.iwm.org.uk/upload/pac...iqhome.htm</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>Intensify own good                 Downplay others' good<br><br>Downplay own bad Intensify others' bad<br>.....                <br><br>Intensify own 'good'<br><br> * Claim that your cause is just.<br> * Talk of defending a way of life, standards of living, rights and freedoms.<br> * Emphasise the threat of losing this way of life.<br> * Rhetoric of the dispossessed - stress the grievances of the people and the threat of continued dispossession.<br> * Language and imagery are used to bond people together: to promote loyalty, unity and pride; to focus energy for action and to stir feelings and trigger action.<br><br><br>Downplay others' 'good'<br><br> * Play on the ignorance many people have of others' culture, traditions, beliefs and family life.<br> * Ban the music, art, literature and popular culture of the enemy so as to smother the portrayal of positive aspects of those people.<br> * Intolerance: refuse to consider the others' point of view or whether they may have a legitimate grievance or genuine fear .<br> * Disrespect the 'other': do not see them as equals. Mockery and sarcasm used to degrade, belittle, insult or ridicule others.<br> * Abstraction: Use abstract and general language - it is easier to kill 'things' than to kill human beings.<br><br><br>Downplay own 'bad'<br><br> * Omission: suppress and conceal.<br> * Cover-up own errors or crimes, problems and weaknesses.<br> * Use secrecy and censorship. Pressurise the press to conform to official view. Control internal critics and opposition.<br> * Euphemisms: use mild language to downplay realities of war - see Resources for examples.<br> * Confusion: use of ambiguous, vague and misleading language, unfamiliar words, jargon, etc.<br><br><br>Intensify others' 'bad'<br><br> * Use words to stir emotions: anger, fear, disgust, resentment.<br> * Use l anguage to incite hatred and legitimise acts of revenge.<br> * Dehumanisation: depict the 'other' as diabolical or inhuman.<br> * Use of atrocity stories.<br> * Warn of the threat posed by the 'other'.<br> * Intensifying fears of the loss of freedoms, possessions or territory.<br> * Intensify the threat of persecution and death - the greater the threat, the more united your people will be against it and the more urgent the successful prosecution of the war becomes.<br><br>See Professor Rank's website for more information about this "Intensify/Downplay Schema". <p></p><i></i>
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Re: Hideous Indoctrinations and using women, too.

Postby anotherdrew » Sat Jul 22, 2006 4:24 pm

tepid and small response over <!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=2399715&mesg_id=2400539">here</a><!--EZCODE LINK END-->.<br> <p></p><i></i>
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Re: Hideous Indoctrinations and using women, too.

Postby bvonahsen » Sat Jul 22, 2006 7:58 pm

I'm with you Arcadia, I never expected there were other examples of signing bombs to your enemy. And it makes it so very clear what the <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>intent</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> is. And the signer is emotionally on the hook, so to speak.<br><br>I wonder... who thought this up first? Did it start in WWII or does it go way back? Did children sign the canonballs in the civil war? Did they sign the catapults and trebunchents in the middle ages? I suppose that priests have blessed millitary arms for ages. <p></p><i></i>
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Get the facts and background before you judge

Postby Avalon » Tue Jul 25, 2006 11:53 pm

Before pontificating on an editor's choice of a photographer's choices of what happened in one onehundredandtwentyfifth of a second, it's good to get all the facts. In this case, about how this photo has been misinterpreted and misrepresented.<br><br>Lisa Goldman spoke with reporter Shelly Paz, who was there when this photo was taken.<br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>The image above caused a huge storm of outrage in the Arab blogosphere. Huge. You wouldn't believe how huge. The widely-read Gulf-based Palestinian blogger who was the first to post it received so much traffic that he had to move the photo to another server. Many others, including several I know personally, posted it and expressed their disgust. Israeli children taught to hate! Lebanese children are dying and they're happy! They're no better than... (fill in the blank, I don't want to go there). <br><br>Below is the story behind the photo - from the source.<br><br>I phoned Sebastian Scheiner, the Israeli photojournalist who took the photo for Associated Press (AP), explained that the image had given a really terrible impression and asked for the context. He sketched it out quickly and fluidly, but asked me not to quote him. So I spoke with Shelly Paz, a Yedioth Ahronoth reporter who was also at the scene and agreed immediately to go on record. She was quite shocked to learn how badly the photo had been misinterpreted and misrepresented; and she told me the same story Sebastian did, but with more details and nuance.<br><br>The little girls shown drawing with felt markers on the tank missiles are residents of Kiryat Shmona, which is right on the border with Lebanon. And when I say "on the border," I'm not kidding; there's little more space between their town and Southern Lebanon than there is between the back gardens of neighbouring houses in a wealthy American suburb. <br><br>No, how close is it really? <br><br>Well, there's a famous story in Israel, from the time when the Israeli army occupied Southern Lebanon: a group of soldiers stationed inside southern Lebanon used their mobile phones to order pizza from Kiryat Shmona and have it delivered to the fence that separates the two countries.<br><br>Anyway.<br><br>Kiryat Shmona has been under constant bombardment from South Lebanon since the first day of the conflict. It was a ghost town, explained Shelly. There was not a single person on the streets and all the businesses were closed. The residents who had friends, family or money for alternate housing out of missile range had left, leaving behind the few who had neither the funds nor connections that would allow them to escape the missiles crashing and booming on their town day and night. The noise was terrifying, people were dying outside, the kids were scared out of their minds and they had been told over and over that some man named Nasrallah was responsible for their having to cower underground for days on end. <br><br>On the day that photo was taken, the girls had emerged from the underground bomb shelters for the first time in five days. A new army unit had just arrived in the town and was preparing to shell the area across the border. The unit attracted the attention of twelve photojournalists - Israeli and foreign. The girls and their families gathered around to check out the big attraction in the small town - foreigners. They were relieved and probably a little giddy at being outside in the fresh air for the first time in days. They were probably happy to talk to people. And they enjoyed the attention of the photographers. <br><br>Apparently one or some of the parents wrote messages in Hebrew and English on the tank shells to Nasrallah. "To Nasrallah with love," they wrote to the man whose name was for them a devilish image on television - the man who mockingly told Israelis, via speeches that were broadcast on Al Manar and Israeli television, that Hezbollah was preparing to launch even more missiles at them. That he was happy they were suffering.<br><br>The photograpers gathered around. Twelve of them. Do you know how many that is? It's a lot. And they were all simultaneously leaning in with their long camera lenses, clicking the shutter over and over. The parents handed the markers to the kids and they drew little Israeli flags on the shells. Photographers look for striking images, and what is more striking than pretty, innocent little girls contrasted with the ugliness of war? The camera shutters clicked away, and I guess those kids must have felt like stars, especially since the diversion came after they'd been alternately bored and terrified as they waited out the shelling in their bomb shelters. <br><br>Shelly emphasized several times that none of the parents or children had expressed any hatred toward the Lebanese people. No-one expressed any satisfaction at knowing that Lebanese were dying - just as Israelis are dying. Their messages were directed at Nasrallah. None of those people was detached or wise enough to think: "Hang on, tank shell equals death of human beings." They were thinking, tank shell equals stopping the missiles that land on my house. Tank shells will stop that man with the turban from threatening to kill us.<br><br>And besides, none of those children had seen images of dead people - either Israeli or Lebanese. Israeli television doesn't broadcast them, nor do the newspapers print them. Even when there were suicide bombings in Israel several times a week for months, none of the Israeli media published gory photos of dead or wounded people. It's a red line in Israel. Do not show dead, bleeding, torn up bodies because the families of the dead will suffer and children will have nightmares. And because it is just in bad taste to use suffering for propaganda purposes.<br><br>Those kids had seen news footage of destroyed buildings and infrastructure, but not of the human toll. They had heard over and over that the air force was destroying the buildings that belonged to Hezbollah, the organization responsible for shelling their town and threatening their lives. How many small children would be able to make the connection between tank shells and dead people on their own? How many human beings are able to detach from their own suffering and emotional stress and think about that of the other side? Not many, I suspect.<br><br>So, perhaps the parents were not wise when they encouraged their children to doodle on the tank shells. They were letting off a little steam after being cooped up - afraid, angry and isolated - for days. Sometimes people do silly things when they are under emotional stress. Especially when they fail to understand how their childish, empty gesture might be interpreted. <br><br>I've been thinking for the last two days about this photo and the storm of reaction it set off. I worry about the climate of hate that would lead people to look at it and automatically assume the absolute worst - and then use the photo to dehumanize and victimize. I wonder why so many people seem to take satisfaction in believing that little Israeli girls with felt markers in their hands - not weapons, but felt markers - are evil, or spawned by an evil society. I wonder how those people would feel if Israelis were to look at a photo of a Palestinian child wearing a mock suicide belt in a Hamas demonstration and conclude that all Palestinians - nay, all Arabs - are evil. <br><br>And I wonder why it is so difficult to think a little, to get it into our heads that television news and photojournalism manipulate our thoughts and emotions.<br><br>Links to anti-Israel websites with that photo placed prominently next to the image of a dead Lebanese child have been sent to me several times. Someone has been rushing around the Israeli blogosphere, leaving the link to one particularly abhorrent site in the comments boxes. And it makes me really sad that the emotional climate has deteriorated to this point.<br><br>The moderates of the Middle East are locked in a battle with the extremists. And look what they did to the moderates. Without blinking, without thinking, we fell victim to the classic "divide and conquer" technique. We work hard for months and years to build connections, develop our societies, educate ourselves, promote democracy and free speech... And they destroy it all, in less than a week. And we let them.</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://ontheface.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2006/7/20/2142505.html">ontheface.blogware.com/bl...42505.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>You'll note that even after Shelly says it was an adult or adults who wrote the words, people who ostensibly read the article and reply below it keep saying the kids wrote the words. Sigh.<br><br>Thanks to Gail Beckerman of the Columbia Journalism Daily<br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.cjrdaily.org/behind_the_news/about_those_photos_of_little_g.php">www.cjrdaily.org/behind_t...ttle_g.php</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> <p></p><i></i>
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Re: Bloodthirsty Children Or Media Missiles?

Postby yesferatu » Wed Jul 26, 2006 12:13 am

<br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>That is fucking disgusting. I've been saturated in apologist war opinion since 2003 by army personel and I've never seen anything that fucking approaches this level of neolithical savagery..<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>I've yet to see a picture of Hitler youth that transcends the depravityof these pictures. <p></p><i></i>
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Re: Hideous Indoctrinations and using women, too.

Postby yesferatu » Wed Jul 26, 2006 12:20 am

<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr> wtf..Ok, someone get me off this fucking rock already, I've had enough.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>haha.....I just said the same damn thing to myself!!<br><br>christ...i mean really, y'know?<br><br> <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=yesferatu@rigorousintuition>yesferatu</A> at: 7/25/06 10:21 pm<br></i>
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Re: Hideous Indoctrinations and using women, too.

Postby anotherdrew » Wed Jul 26, 2006 1:01 am

so first thing I notice from the 'context'... Isreal left this town be shelled/rocketed for more than 5 days stright and did NOT evacuate citizens too poor to leave on their own, then finally - after 5 really bad days, the Isreali military finally arrived to shoot back? seems like a non-characteristic response to me.<br><br>and<br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>You'll note that even after Shelly says it was an adult or adults who wrote the words, people who ostensibly read the article and reply below it keep saying the kids wrote the words. Sigh.<br><hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br>If someone looks at the three pictures they see the kids with the business end of some writting implement touching the shells, why woudn't people think they're writting on the shells? Perhaps they didn't write EVERYTHING on the shells, but they are clearly making some kind of mark on the shells. <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=anotherdrew>anotherdrew</A> at: 7/25/06 11:05 pm<br></i>
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