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When Did We Become a Nation of Ghouls?
May. 4th, 2011 09:30 pmI see no reason to release pictures of Osama bin Ladin's body. I'm not aware of any other circumstance in my lifetime where the United States government executes someone and posts pictures for people to see.
1. Releasing the pics will not stop the conspiracy theorists and Obama haters from saying this is a conspiracy. They'll comb through every pixel and challenge half of them and claim the picture was faked.
2. When did we become such a nation of ghouls? Jesus! I don't remember hearing 911 calls as part of a newscast when I was younger. Now they are a regular part of news shows and pretty much anything deals with disasters. I get a sick feeling in my stomach hearing someone's panicked phone call in what might be the worst moment of their life. I tried desperately to avoid listening to any of the calls from September 11, 2001. I felt it soiled and disrespected those who died and were injured that day as well as their families.
And now people are celebrating in the streets and demanding to see this man's dead body? Yuk.
3. I see this as something vaguely racist. No one asked to see Timothy Mc Veigh's body and committed the first act of terrorism on US soil since the Civil War. Not to minimize what Bin Ladin did, but McVeigh set off a bomb outside of a *daycare center*; I still remember the picture of the fireman cradling the dying child. No one was calling to see the bodies of the Columbine shooters. They showed the bullet ridden school but they didn't even show any blood or evidence of the violent death people suffered at the hands of these two. But the brown man, foreigner, gets killed and half of American wants to see the body so they can gloat and cheer.
Fuck that.
We don't need to be like Italy in '45 when they literally strung Mousallini(sp) and his lover up by their heels while crowds came to cheer. We don't need to be like American in the 19th century when it was great sport to hang a man and make it social event. I am an optimist and a patriot and I choose to believe Americans can be better than that.
We've seen pictures of the aftermath; those rooms that looks like slaughter houses, the bloody bodies of his henchmen. They've told us that Bin Ladin was shot once above the left eye and twice in the chest. Between the description and pictures from the compound
I can piece together what went down just fine.
1. Releasing the pics will not stop the conspiracy theorists and Obama haters from saying this is a conspiracy. They'll comb through every pixel and challenge half of them and claim the picture was faked.
2. When did we become such a nation of ghouls? Jesus! I don't remember hearing 911 calls as part of a newscast when I was younger. Now they are a regular part of news shows and pretty much anything deals with disasters. I get a sick feeling in my stomach hearing someone's panicked phone call in what might be the worst moment of their life. I tried desperately to avoid listening to any of the calls from September 11, 2001. I felt it soiled and disrespected those who died and were injured that day as well as their families.
And now people are celebrating in the streets and demanding to see this man's dead body? Yuk.
3. I see this as something vaguely racist. No one asked to see Timothy Mc Veigh's body and committed the first act of terrorism on US soil since the Civil War. Not to minimize what Bin Ladin did, but McVeigh set off a bomb outside of a *daycare center*; I still remember the picture of the fireman cradling the dying child. No one was calling to see the bodies of the Columbine shooters. They showed the bullet ridden school but they didn't even show any blood or evidence of the violent death people suffered at the hands of these two. But the brown man, foreigner, gets killed and half of American wants to see the body so they can gloat and cheer.
Fuck that.
We don't need to be like Italy in '45 when they literally strung Mousallini(sp) and his lover up by their heels while crowds came to cheer. We don't need to be like American in the 19th century when it was great sport to hang a man and make it social event. I am an optimist and a patriot and I choose to believe Americans can be better than that.
We've seen pictures of the aftermath; those rooms that looks like slaughter houses, the bloody bodies of his henchmen. They've told us that Bin Ladin was shot once above the left eye and twice in the chest. Between the description and pictures from the compound
I can piece together what went down just fine.
