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As our industry is currently under fire and free speech is at risk, issues related to the (illegal) war in Iraq are very relevant to free speech issues.
The media has presented only a sanitized package of what the war is about - if the population which were financing this war with their tax dollars had a more honest and graphic view of what they are funding, they may wise up enough to act and now is the best time.
I understand there is/was a website which offered soldiers free memberships in exchange for photos of dead Iraqis. This was done in a very disgusting and dehumanizing format in that it promoted hate against the Iraqis by captioning the photos with stupid remarks which only a soldier in Iraq bent on killing and feeling good about whom they are killing would gravitate to.
What was potentially a legitimate explicit insight into this ignorant war became more ammo against the adult biz because it was such an offensive approach - not the dead bodies, but the attitude towards them.
On the other hand..
I think a humanity-biased campaign of shaking up the funders of this killing game (US:26,000+ points, Iraq:2,000 points) has the potential to make some serious and honest political waves at this very time.
I believe any websites which would post photos of dead victims (Iraqi, US, Martian, whatever), but ALL sides of the casualties in the most explicit ways for the SOLE purpose of showing how disgusting and brutal war is and let the taxpayers rethink whether they want their hard earned money financing it and their once-honoured country continue being the laughing stalk of the planet.
The sites should be labelled with ICRA to indicate that they have gory detail.
The sites must not accept any considerations for obtaining the photos - this only undermines the message.
The sites must be non-partizan - this is strictly about let's stop this killing. Period.
The sites must not be used to promote their own memberships.
This must not be about turning people on with gore - it must be about turning people off with the TRUTH.
To avoid getting baited/trapped with fake photos (discreditation is the first wave of assault on any off-main-stream message) - there should be a disclaimer which makes clear that the validity of the photos is not guaranteed. At worst, it will look just like any other kid's video game you can (regrettably) buy off the shelf today. But it does reflect the messiness of killing people (which you can also watch on mainstream corporate sponsored entertainment programs/tv/movies).
The above points are not new by any standard. The mainstream media does show bombings and casualties for subjects which don't seem to undermine the agenda of the current (failing) executive.
Mainstream media even pays to obtain casualty content.
Mainstream media uses death and human misery ("if it bleads it leads") to sell ads to mainstream companies and multinationals.
In Canada, now that the Federal government is no longer partnering with the tobacco industry the way they had, we are forced to look at the most digusting real life depictions of cancerous bodies and body parts in public places (corner stores) on packages of cigarettes. Blood and guts is the vocabulary of our modern day culture.
If you question whether showing the REAL results of the american destruction of Iraq would change peoples minds, why would it be a legal offense (as it is) to publish photos of dead soldiers? National security? Respect? Right.
Even the US casualty reporting is sanitized by including only totally 100% dead counts - not the orders of magnitude more of citizens whose lives have been permanently and irreversably destroyed through serious injuries. If those numbers where posted daily in the news (before the weather report), the attitude of those who can *democratically* make a diff would change very quickly.
Anyone who is interested in working on a campaign of not-for-profit explicit real information related to this, originally promised slam dunk war (by a proven liar), is invited to contact me.
Canadian webmasters are especially invited to help our American cousins (even though they still owe us over $4 billion for softwood lumber overcharges according to the courts we be agreed to abide by in NAFTA) - we'll let their debt ride for a bit longer while they get their country back on track.
There has never been a more potent time in human history to apply technologies (Internet) as legitimate democratic agents of necessary change!
-Dino
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