Where is Matthew Brady when we need him? (Civill war photographer)

[The Straight Story]

In 1862, Brady shocked America by displaying his photographs of battlefield corpses from Antietam, posting a sign on the door of his New York gallery that read, "The Dead of Antietam." This exhibition marked the first time most people witnessed the carnage of war. The New York Times said that Brady had brought "home to us the terrible reality and earnestness of war."

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cwphtml/cwbrady.html

Our war seems almost like a video game to some people. Nothing is real. We go, we kill, we kill some more. And Iraqi's kill each other everyday.

We don't see the carnage, the coffins, the real toll.

You don't win a war, you survive it if you can.

Untold thousands mentally injured by what they have seen day to day, and all we see is...well nothing but troops returning home to families that are glad that they survived.

I said it once before in a post: Let's get those images on billboards and trucks and drive them around for people to see what war truly does to someone. Was saddam that much of a threat that little kids had to have limbs blown off, that soldiers died and were maimed, that people had the rest of their life ruined through trauma?

Hard to look at? Imagine being the one in the photos or their families.

People need to see what war really means.

OH - and if we are SO much safer - why does bush want to read our mail and have even more restrictions on us and our rights?

[jwirr]

1. One of the things that brought the end of the Vietnam War was

the fact that we could not deny the truth - it was on the television in front of us. Many think that was bad but if we are willing to go to war then maybe we should be willing to see what happens there.

[Divernan]

2. New Film: Children of Men depicts urban warfare very powerfully.

Although it is set in futuristic London & the UK, the bombings and devastation and door to door street fighting, and busses, cars and apartment buildings full of civilians being mortared and strafed are stark reminders of what is going on in Baghdad at the same time you're sitting in the theatre watching the film.

This is the fist anti-war film distributed while a war is on-going, and it hits home the way the evening news with Walter Cronkite did during the Vietnam War. The Fall of Saigon occurred on April 29th-30th, 1975. None of the major films depicting the Vietnam War were produced or distributed until after that war had ignominously ended. Coming Home and Deerhunter were released in 1978; Apocalypse Now in 1979, Platoon in ‘86, Full Metal Jacket in ‘87, Born on the Fourth of July, ‘89 - to name some of the genre. With the exception of a few, minimally viewed documentaries (Mick Jaegger’s 1970 “Sympathy for the Devil”) these films were produced too late to influence the course of the war in Vietnam.

The same holds true for such films about earlier wars - All's Quiet On the Western Front, The Americanization of Emily, the Russian "Ballad of a Soldier", Jean Renoir's 1938 WW One drama -"Grand Illusion",Das Boot, On The Beach, even anime's 1988 "Grave of the Fireflies"(WW II Japan).

What makes Children of Men not only an excellent, powerful film, but one of unique impact, is that while nominally set in 2027, it powerfully portrays the current, 24/7 hell of urban warfare in Iraq as it is experienced by the citizens and combatants in that country - at the very moment that I viewed the movie last night. It is a chilling experience to watch violence on the screen and know that on the other side of the world, similar scenes are playing out in real life - and it is promoted and funded by my country and my tax dollars. If you watch this film, you will have a much closer idea of what it was like to be in Fallujah under siege, whether you were a combatant or a resident.

There were many young men in their late teens and early 20's in the theatre last night. The film was preceded by the local theatre's ubiquitous PR promotions for the National Guard, the Army, the Marines - depicting National Guard helping elderly people out of flooded areas in the US, and showing a young Marine being handed a posy of flowers by a smiling Iraqi child. All of the people in those promotional films were unbloodied and in possession of all their limbs. The contrast between the PR puff recruiting promos and the feature film was stark.

The New York Times gave this film 5 stars; and the Washington Post reviewer said it was the best film of the year. Some viewers have trouble following the plot, or don't like the ending, and therefore dis the film. Read a review first, and then see it for yourself.

[The Straight Story]

3. Thanks for the heads up

I have heard bits and pieces about that film, will check out some online reviews for it.