The Photograph Thing
May. 5th, 2011 11:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mishalakI do not care very much if the photos of Osama Bin Laden after he was killed are released or not. I am confident it will not make a difference one way or another on people believing or not believing Bin Laden is dead and I do not see how it will make things worse or better. Did the death video of Saddam Hussein make any difference that people can point to? How about the photos of Che Guevara? Or Jesse James?
I think in some ways that Barack Obama is a person very much like me. His instinct is that of someone who thinks that restraint and dignity matter. Releasing the photos would seem crass and that, I think, is at the root underneath the justifications and arguments advanced by the administration.
But this is a very crass world. People love to view such things even if they will not admit it. I can be just as much a hypocrite as anyone. I have sought out images of real deaths to see how they compare with the stylized images presented to us by Hollywood and television. I think it says something good about the President that his instinct is to try to act as if it were a better world than it is and not pandering to people's less charming instincts, but it is probably futile. These photos will be leaked sooner or later and while not released the provide yet another pointless sideshow.
I think in some ways that Barack Obama is a person very much like me. His instinct is that of someone who thinks that restraint and dignity matter. Releasing the photos would seem crass and that, I think, is at the root underneath the justifications and arguments advanced by the administration.
But this is a very crass world. People love to view such things even if they will not admit it. I can be just as much a hypocrite as anyone. I have sought out images of real deaths to see how they compare with the stylized images presented to us by Hollywood and television. I think it says something good about the President that his instinct is to try to act as if it were a better world than it is and not pandering to people's less charming instincts, but it is probably futile. These photos will be leaked sooner or later and while not released the provide yet another pointless sideshow.