Normally, I'm not the sort of blogger who shows much concern for readership figures. If a hundred people show up on any given day, great. If a million, great. But something odd has happened, and it points to an issue that goes far beyond my personal situation.
For quite a few months, this blog has had a core audience. I won't discuss exact figures; suffice it to say, the numbers fluctuated within certain predictable limits. Last Thursday, however, the readership dropped dramatically -- nearly by half.
No, folks didn't go away because I said harsh things about red-staters and fundamentalists. Usually, the numbers tick up after a posting of that sort.
So what happened on Thursday? I published horrifying photos of Iraqi civilians who had died from white phosphorus attacks by Americans.
I gave the photos "in your face" placement because without them, the arguments over WP had become far too abstract. Over on the conservative blogs, people who reacted with deep outrage over the charred American bodies hanging on that bridge seemed unconcerned about children and housewives in that city who died in an unquenchable fire.
White phosphorus isn't really a chemical weapon, the folks at (say) Wizbang pronounced in dry and nerdish tones. It's really an incendiary. Unfortunate, but not a treaty violation...
This pseudo-academic nonsense even infected much of the writing on Daily Kos.
I thought: 'They wouldn't dare make such arguments if their words adjoined photographs of the victims. Let's see them try to explain away the visual evidence that flesh and bone had burned while clothing didn't.'
I'd sure hate to be the one defending that stance while readers looked at those images.
So the pictures went up on the site, even though I could barely look at them. And the next day, this blog received only half its usual load of Friday visitors.
I'm not worried on a personal level. Folks will come back once word gets out that I've written something particularly juicy, as I soon will. And even if they don't come back, I still have far more than enough readers to make this project worthwhile.
The larger issue is this: Are people -- even progressive people -- willing to face an unpleasant reality?
Many years ago, I spoke to a high school "Health" teacher. She described the major difficulty of trying to get across an anti-smoking message: If you show hard-hitting evidence of what smoking can do -- photos of blackened lungs, interviews in cancer wards -- the audience stops listening. The message gets through to fewer people.
The same difficulty confronts anyone attempting to send an anti-war message. Casual readers don't want to view stomach-turning horror while munching on their morning corn flakes. Yet if we don't force the audience to see just what happened in Fallujah, the argument will remain abstract and right-wing casuistry will win the day.
People believe what they prefer, not what is.
And that's a genuine problem, a problem confronting our whole damn culture -- a problem that goes far beyond my petty concerns over the Statcounter report.
So today, instead of subjecting you to pics of what our noble lads in uniform have accomplished, I've decided to upload a photograph of my dog. Cute, isn't she? Enjoy your corn flakes!
13 comments:
Hey, I'm still here and I saw the photos. They gave me nightmares; I cried for these people, who are,after all just like us. Do they not love their children, just like us? Do they not have to go to work earna living and feed their bodies, just like us? Who are these criminals who can dismiss such evidence of deliberate cruelty with such a cavalier attitude. If they believe in God, surely they believe they will reap what they sow, hopefully sooner rather than later
I really can't believe half of your core audience felt compelled to take a few days off, Joseph. Come on, aren't they used to you by now? Kind of makes you wonder what sort of folks make up that section, doesn't it? I'd kind of always assumed that it was a collection of people who perhaps don't vote Blue, or even Green, but were at least opposed to the war, and opposed to it for the correct reasons (ie; the carnage anyone who opposes it should know is utterly senseless). Maybe I was wrong.
Denial is a human characteristic --allowing us to live with the unlivable. Don't judge too harshly. The country is beginning to observe.
I cry -- and then I call the White House. Sometimes I call every day. Once I told the guy who answered that I felt very badly for him having to work at a place that was destroying the America I knew. There was a long pause and then he said, very quietly, "Thank you, M'am."
White House phone: 202-456-1111
Anon 3:02, about your WH experience--damn. Really? Usually the WH people in particular seem to have no more emotion to me than the man who runs that place.
I can't imagine people suddenly turned away as a result; even if they were made terribly uncomfortable (and who wasn't,) I just don't think people would therefore turn away for any length of time. BUT, for anyone who comes to your blog directly, rather than through an aggregator like Bloglines, maybe they didn't want to risk surfing over and risking seeing the offending images again.
I personally am glad you posted them; ignorance of the facts doesn't change them.
Thanks for all you do.
"For those who remain" -- that has quite a connotation somehow... But very interesting observation, Joseph.
Remember, once exposed to such grim knowledge, a (humane) person feels a responsibility to ACT to remedy it. The innocence is gone. That's where the truism "ignorance is bliss" comes from. After all, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, AP, et al, not to mention every last federal politician, are in full-blown ignore mode on this and so much more -- so why should those with a heart have to take on this burden all alone? [I can hear the reasoning going.]
But it's been personalized for me: the young Arab man on the Italian RAI TV documentary "is" Fallujah for me now. And I've been reading eye-opening accounts of the conflict from those who were there (and also bravely spoke to RAI) at the blog of three soldiers who are now "veterans" of the Iraq debacle:
http://ftssoldier.blogspot.com/
Iraq has been made real for me, finally; and I'm now unable to "pretend" along with the "ruling class" that whatever sacrifices are being made, are just going to have to continue being made BY OTHERS, until who knows when. Our news should be about Iraq, 24/7, so that the ONLY way to "turn it off" would be to STOP the killing over there...
Peace.
While one could argue about whether WP "is" a chemical weapon, that is a Clintonesque sidestepping of the issue. If the Italian news clip is accurate, WP was used deliberately as an antipersonnel weapon, with the full knowledge that part of its effect would be the production of poison gas. That means it was used as a chemical weapon. If one accepts the notion that the use of chemical weapons is immoral, then one also must accept the proposition that the use of WP in the way it was used, also is immoral. It is the moral argument, not the legal argument, that I would listen to.
Who cares about the legal technicalities? Was was done, was wrong.
Joseph,
my guess is that some of these readers who dropped off are those conservative Christians who when confronted with actual pictures of Bush's good war in Iraq against the "evildoers" all of a sudden have to turn the channel or in this case go to another webpage.
anon from san fran
Take them out, dude: pilots toast hit on Iraqi 'civilians'
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/video1011.htm (to view short video copy, paste this url to your address area, of course, don't want to try an html anchored link yet)
mission accomplished
http://www.bushflash.com/prevail.html -flash animation-
Some of the heaviest damage apparently was incurred Monday night by air and artillery attacks that coincided with the entry of ground troops into the city. U.S. warplanes dropped eight 2,000-pound bombs on the city overnight, and artillery boomed throughout the night and into the morning.
"Usually we keep the gloves on," said Army Capt. Erik Krivda, of Gaithersburg, Md., the senior officer in charge of the 1st Infantry Division's Task Force 2-2 tactical operations command center. "For this operation, we took the gloves off."
Some artillery guns fired white phosphorous rounds that create a screen of fire that cannot be extinguished with water. Insurgents reported being attacked with a substance that melted their skin, a reaction consistent with white phosphorous burns.
Kamal Hadeethi, a physician at a regional hospital, said, "The corpses of the mujahedeen which we received were burned, and some corpses were melted."
@ http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A35979-2004Nov9?language=printer
)"all forms of nature were wiped out in that city"
god help us
#17)"Incendiaries create burns that are difficult to treat," said Robert Musil, executive director of Physicians for Social Responsibility, a Washington group that opposes the use of weapons of mass destruction.
Musil described the Pentagon's distinction between napalm and Mark 77 firebombs as "pretty outrageous."
"That's clearly Orwellian," he added.
http://www.rense.com/1.imagesH/dedl.jpg
http://www.brethren.org/genbd/witness/Iraqi/images/large/IraqiChildren.jpg
habeus corpus? 'quaint'?
Laws exist to protect the people from governments that would have absolutely no qualms of succumbing and resorting to unspeakable horrors Such as THIS !
i do not even have the right word to describe or comprehend it !!
Joseph,
THANK YOU for linking to the horrific war photos
http://mindprod.com/politics/iraqwarpix.html#IRAQWARPIX
Robert Fisk’s words remain seared on my heart:
“…if you saw what I saw, you would never, ever dream of supporting a war again. Ever in your life. …If you go to war, you realize it is not primarily about victory or defeat, it is about death and the infliction of death and suffering on as large a scale as you can make it. It is about the total failure of the human spirit. We don't show that because we don't want to. …if they showed you the truth, you wouldn't allow any more wars.”
On this thin spider’s ladder of his words I climb from the pit of my despair. At least there is one other human on this dung heap who shares my madness, my agony, my sanity. I am somehow comforted with the thought, that, if there is a Hell after this life, I - and all my countrymen will rot in it. At least this hope gives me some consolation that there might be just Universe.
I quote from the webpage:
“The images on this website are gut-wrenching. They show both the suffering of Americans and Iraqis. This horror is what American Senators unanimously voted to continue. Even if you are an American with a weak stomach, it would be cowardly to avoid looking at what you voted for. If you can’t bear to look, skip the pictures and read the text, and remember IF YOU CANNOT BEAR TO EVEN LOOK AT THE SUFFERING, HOW DARE YOU INSIST ANYONE ELSE BEAR THE REALITY OF IT.” (emphasis mine)
So then why don’t I rent colossal billboards, like the anti-abortion zealots, to assail the eyes of my genteel fellow men with such a meat-market, Technicolor affront to our senses?
I cannot. I will not.
My path is to write – poorly at best – day and night. This is how it will end for me.
I enclose, for you, my poem.
Peace,
Bob Boldt
Ozymandias’ Foot
With apologies to Percy Bysshe Shelly
Here lies a trunkess
Near legless foot
Cold as stone in the Iraqi sand.
I think of its owner.
I see him
Carefully tending it
Pruning the nails
Scrubbing between the toes in the shower
Generously powdering it and its twin
Before dressing to meet the day
Remembering how he stubbed its big toe one joyous wedding night.
This foot was loved as was its owner.
Now useless as an old tire
It lies
Embarrassed and naked in the raging street
Until the battle ceases.
Perhaps in a day or two
It and its dog-chewed, remnant Tibia
Bare as a shattered exclamation point
Will be lovingly returned
To the house where it once stood.
Traveler, contemplate all that remains of this once proud man.
Look upon what a miraculous machine was suddenly undone.
Wonder on the sad truth that we are all just
Such a one as this
Left hanging by a tread to be cut so sharply
So casually
So meaninglessly
By bomb and missile
Grenade and shell
Discarded, boundless and bare
Trash in the Iraqi sand.
How can we be so violently defooted
So senselessly disassembled?
I would like to have this foot for my very own.
I would place it
In all its glorious, ruinous, decomposing splendor
In a monstrance lined with satin
Red as the blood that deserted its veins.
My own two feet would gladly do the service of bearing
This holy relic
Up the steps of the Capitol in Washington.
Reverently removing the covering of this unique trophy
I would loudly proclaim to the assembled joint session:
“This is the foot of Qzymandias.
Gaze upon your work and despair.”
Iam glad you posted the picture. Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches has a whole slew of pictures from Iraq including many like the one you posted front and centre on your page. The first time I looked at them my heart physically hurt.
When people are not exposed to the consequences of war, are cut-off from viewing even the caskets returning home, nor know anyone who is serving time in Iraq muchless been killed or injured then there is no personal connection. They are free to ignore and/or disregard what is transpiring in Iraq everyday. Not the Iraqis; they have to live it, breathe it, eat it and sleep with it 24/7.
Viewing those types of photographs that depict something so horrible --beyond words-- deeply affects the core of one's being on every level: e_motionally, intellectually, and spiritually. Yet it must be done.
Otherwise this administration's future plans to attack Syria and Iran, maybe Venezuela, Cuba, No. Korea, et al may not get derailed. It has got to stop if we don't want to see WW 3, 4 & 5 commence!
Perhaps that one picture will alter the way people feel and thus change the reckless course this nation is heading.
Keep up the good work. *S*
Hello Joe. I read your blog very intriguing frequently. I too am disgusted by the photos that you posted, however I realize that people need to know what's really going on. They certainly won't get it from the mainstream media. Keep up the great work you are doing exposing these criminals that run this great country.
I have to say, seeing those pictures really turned my world upsidedown for several days.
Even so, I'm glad you posted them. This is one of those undeniably raw truths that we need to be aware of. No matter that it cuts right to the bone and gives the stomach a turn.
We need to know. Every American needs to know.
Don't fret that reader numbers were down temporarily-- it's taken me at least 3 days to even be able to think about anything without those images filling up every second of every waking hour (and a few sleeping hours as well).
I'm sure there were a few other freaked out folks having to recover from picture-shock.
Even though we all "live" in the instant realm of virtual communication and information, the "reality" or certain facts and images may take actual humans a few days to digest.
Don't hesitate to post more pictures of brutal truth, though. It's something we all need to see.
oh, and cute dog. yes.
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