A post on DU worthy of FOX news. How sad. I thought "we" were better

than that.

Allowing forensic evidence photos to be posted on what is one of the most well known public board for Dems is disgusting.

First of all, let me tell you how sanitized these photos look...they do not even remotely represent the horror of a murder scene. The "shock value" is lessened--all these photos are going to do is further desensitize people to mindless violence. That's it. Nobody is going to be persuaded to change their minds on Tookie.

Second of all...we have NO clue who their relatives are....or if they are reading DU. Friends...workers who had to go to that scene.

This is just sensationalistic crap, and frankly worthy of Fox news.

Shameful.

Skinner and admins.. do the right thing and pull that thread---even though you will be a day late and a dollar short, it's better than nothing.

Stephanie

taht those photos were not nearly close to the reality of a murder scene.

And I wholy agree with you

If inflicting death is so bad, and death is so horrible that the state must remain forever above it, how can it FORGIVE it at all? Should we FORGIVE Bush for a few hundred thousand deaths in Iraq?
Eventually we have to look death square in the face, and realize that we are all, every one of us, going to die. Then we can not spend so much time worried about fucking tookie, when we realize that 40,000 people die every day, all over the world. Its a gross distortion of priorities to give that much of a fuck for somebody who murdered those people with a shotgun while children are starving to death, or being bombed in Iraq. Showing those pictures put that into perspective and I'm glad they were posted.

did you really need to see them to understand what a person killed with a shotgun looks like?

Are Al Pacino movies not enough for you?

dead. very small thing to do to someone without their permission, without allowing for the fact that they were dessicrated.

They don't care about those bodies, they are no longer in them. God, the universe, whatever you call it sees to it that each one of our bodies ends up like that or worse, riddled with worms 6 feet under. I can honestly tell you that this is our destiny, yours and mine. This is God, or nature if you prefer. But death is a reality that we all have to face, and there is no sense in vilifying it to the extent that we claim we can't give it back to those who dish it out. Death is really not that bad or special.

was that people retain the right to their privacy even after they are dead.

You have no idea what these people's wishes were concerning their bodies, or ...and this sounds like the idea that you really need to understand...their relatives and friends who might be reading DU.

Just because you have identified and embraced your total lack of respect for the dead doesn't mean that you have somehow gained moral authority anywhere other than your own mind.

Stephanie

Does nature? No. It eats them with worms and maggots. Why should I respect a fucking rotting corpse? I don't, because nature does not. It is an empty vessel.

it reminds me of the reality, and the reality reminds me that its going to happen to me. Maybe tomorrow, maybe years from now. And that makes me think, what is important in life? and I think, what is important to say to you right now? This:

I am not interested in your flower photo.

I have been to more murder scenes than most people on this board...lemme tell ya...these pictures are NOTHING. Zero. Sanitized for your viewing pleasure, and the minds of the jurors.

I've worked in hospice care and seen the dead and I don't care about your self righteous indignation or claims of familiarity with death. The point is that the photos are the reality of the situation created by the murderer, so maybe we should stop worrying about the murderer!!!

see victims of violence.

Quit trying to justify your bloodlust with photos of what you percieve to be reality.

Killing Tookie isn't going to help one goddamned bit; it seems you just want more death in the US.

with such a complete lack of empathy about medical privacy slip through the system. I sure as hell wouldn't want you around my relatives.

Death seems pretty entertaining to you.

I'm going to sleep so I am going to try to put this as clearly as I can. The point is that death is something we all have to face, and sometimes seeing it makes a powerful reminder, it reminds of what's important, what's meaningful because we see it coming to all of us. That's why I posted that rose, I was saying we have to try to get something from the current moment, from enjoying life. And I'm sorry I was mean in my last response, it brought back memories of working in hospice and a lot of feelings and that's why I reacted with anger, because it was tough stuff to deal with.
You say I find death entertaining and I don't. Its really, really tough stuff to deal with. But at the same time I feel like if we can face it, if we can find meaning even in the face of it, we have something golden. And to me its worth looking it in the face to get that golden embrace of life that seems to only come from looking at our own mortality.
I understand your point. I wouldn't want to see my mom or dad posted in a gory picture on DU. But ultimatly, facing the our own mortal nature, the fact that all of our bodies will end up that way forces me to see my mom and dad as something bigger than their mortal bodies, and that to me is worth looking at death to realize. Either we are bigger than our mortal bodies or we are food for worms, there is no getting around this reality.
So I'm sorry if I offended you, it was not my intention. My intention was to look at who we are and what we are doing here in perspective. Peace and good night! Sorry :(

Liam

But, you write that you wouldn't want pictures posted like that of your relatives.

Interesting that you don't feel like these people's relatives are worthy of that same compassion you feel for yourself.

Think about what you just wrote while you are sleeping.

And I will leave you with a parting thought. Have we become a society that hides death? If we really knew the ramifications of a single death on a family, would we tolerate for a second what is going on in Iraq, or has death become so fictitious that we only understand it through the lense of hollywood, and the reality is something so distant that even a single photo of the real thing disrupts us, when we know 100,000 have died in Iraq?

I don't have answers, I just want you to see where I am coming from. Peace and good night. Thank you for your conversation.

Liam

when someone commits a horrible crime, i mean when I commit a horrible crime, it's obviously because of mental illness or moral sickness, it certainly aint a healthy psyche doing it, so what's this dp solution bit? when a society tolerates a bush incorporated (aka murder ink) and watches as vast numbers of infants are buried alive by it, then that society is morally or mentally ill, but it still does not 'deserve to be killed' because, for one thing, killing 300 million people just is wrong, even death penalty advocates must see that.....

It has to do with whether the death penalty is a legitimate form of punishment of not, and whether Tookie Williams should receive clemency.

Posting those pictures is no different than anti-choice protesters carrying around signs with pictures of dead fetuses on them. It doesn't help discussion of the issue...it simply feeds into peoples emotions in a way that is not relevent to the debate.

Murder is murder no matter who commits it...will we be treated to photos of Mr. Williams as he is dying on the gurney? Perhaps we should televise executions as some anti-death penalty advocates say?

Post a link to the pics with a "graphic" warning by all means but don't post them on ANY of the DU forums.

I see it as an attempt (desperate or otherwise) to influence opinion - in many cases it'll just backfire. There have to be SOME boundaries around here.

Someone posted something you don't like. Happens to everyone. But that's life where there's a broad and open range of topics. Instead of accepting it, you singled it out and made a big deal of it, and in doing so, you presumed to speak for "DU" by implicitly making your position the DU position, and the other guy the FOX News position.

All the other poster did was post something he felt was relevant. You specifically started a thread to complain about another poster.

All threads started by DUers to chide other DUers are annoying. I don't CARE what people think about other posters. I don't want to know. I think it's rude to start threads about other posters. Talk about topics, don't grade the other posters on the morality of their opinions. Judging politicians is fine, but why engage in these judgmental orgies of finger-wagging aimed at other posters and their choices?

All he did was post publicly available photos. No one had to look at them, either. I know I didn't feel any need to. I exercised my ability to choose not to look at them.

while I understand your point... your framing in the title of your post seems to do the same thing that you reject.... defining what is worthy or not worthy of DU :shrug:

Frankly, I believe that when one chooses to post something controversial, than it should be expected, and allowed, that others might express an opinion objecting. I have never quite understood in such exchanges - why the first (offending to another - as evidenced by a response thread) is considered "free speech", while the second (response / push back) is not. As if there is a freedom to express - but there is no freedom to express an objection. second :shrug:

And I think that is the way to register dissent.

Yes, I recognized the irony, and left it out there as a gummy bear for whoever found it.

gummy bear :-)

I am not involved in the issue. I chose NOT to look at the photos, knowing they were there.

To me, this is about censorship by characterizing the posts of another as immoral and failing to meet DU standards. If the thread is UP and the mods have obviously seen it, then it must meet DU standards. So, what we are really talking about is the OP's standards and how OP wants them to be DU's standards.

People who are shot look terrible. It's an infringement of their rights to look at them like that. But it's part of society, and it's out there. We each choose to either look at it or not look at it. We don't need to castigate those who use the photos exactly the same way prosecutors do.

the use of the pictures seems more like sensationalism to make a point on a political board - and thus disrespectful to those who died, and their families. I think it is a fair point to raise - and one that extends beyond this particular posting... one thing to post a link to where the pictures can be found - and make the same argument... at least that is onen step removed.

I support the right of DUers to be distasteful.

I also support the right of other DUers to ask if this is how we, as a community, chose to "make our points" (ala sensationalism without regards to respect of the dead and their families).

It is how a community periodically norms itself (discussing what the norms of a group are - which can only happen when norms are quesiton and then discussed.) Sociological phenom of growing communities.

This thread could have been such a discussion, but it's not.

When a person characterizes his or her view as the "DU" view, and the other guy's as the "Fox News" view, that's a lame attempt at besmirching by association. Fox News wouldn't show the photos, so the comparison fails there. But it wasn't used by the OP because it's accurate, but because its disparaging and judgmental.

It's a judgmental original post, and it doesn't speak for DU, it speaks for the OP and those who voice agreement, which so far isn't very many.

to have this conversation.
I am glad it was brought up.

great points Salin

why should somebody have to do that to discuss this?

From the Iraq war or Abu Gharib? I really don't understand this thread.

It wasn't long ago that DU was strewn from hell to breakfast with grisly photos of white phosphorus victims. I guess the decency standards have to do with how acceptable is the opinion that the photos are meant to support.

And, for the record, I have long been opposed to the death penalty, and remain so, but the antics of the Tookie Fan Club are way over the top.

why some family members and dead people deserve respect and others don't.

I didn't look at the pictures because I chose not to, I don't need to see photos to make up my mind about Tookie.

that the original poster thinks that threads of pictures of the war dead is okay. Upon what is this based?

The point is that there was no significant griping when those other gruesome images were posted, but now that someone has posted photos of Tookie's victims, there's widespread hysteria of the Helen Lovejoy sort. Seems a bit inconsistent and suggests that maybe local standards of decency have more to do with the correctness of the poster's opinions than the horror of the images themselves.

Or, to be blunt about it, I think the objections have a lot to do with the way those photos make a lie of the very carefully cultivated myth of St. Tookie that some people here are pushing.

but that I get where the objection comes from... I stand as an example of one who objects - without an agenda, and thus as an example that is an outlier to your presumption per those objecting.

I guess I just didn't get why the OP's point when I've seen graphic photos to support the agenda of others all over this board. I've never seen a thread like this in reference to those other photos.

human remains and makes something beautiful out of it!

I don't at all think that it's a bad idea to look at the evidence of a horrible murder, in determining what to do about the murderer. It's important to fully understand the crime. We are the jury on this crime--and the jury is still out, in a sense--because the murderer's fate still hangs in the balance, and our opinions as citizens might influence what happens to him.

I don't think we should shy away from reality. That crime IS what we are talking about, and words can't really convey it fully.

But it's quite another thing to say that, because these people are dead, and died in this horrible way, at the hands of this murderer, that society--us! we citizens--should now kill the murderer. That makes no sense to me whatsoever. A murderer needs to think about his crime and achieve full remorse for it, which may take years. How does killing him accomplish that? It doesn't; it RELIEVES him of the need for full remorse and for recompense. How does cold, methodical STATE killing improve things--make the world a more peaceful, beautiful place, contribute to human progress and make us all feel safer and more secure? "Capital punishment" says that people who commit murder cannot change; cannot be redeemed; cannot be transformed; all hope is gone. This is a deeply fascist view.

In the case of this murderer, in particular, we have someone who seems to be on the way toward full remorse and is trying to make recompense. Should we stop that vital process by killing him--merely to gain some sort of illusory vengeance for his crime?

The idea that murder avenges murder is, I think, the very thing we need to overcome in the world, if ever we are going to have a peaceful world. It is an outmoded concept. And the state doing the murdering does not relieve the act of its vengeful nature. It is revenge. And, to my mind, it is a short step from revenge to pre-emptive revenge. ('I am going to murder you because you are an American and your government murdered my family,' or, 'I am going to murder you because you are an Arab, and Arabs killed 3,000 Americans on 9/11,' or 'I am going to murder you because you are a member of the Capulet family, and I am a member of the Montague family ("Romeo and Juliet"), and that's what we do--we murder each other.').

And then, of course, it's just another short step from pre-emptive revenge to mass murder of innocents and looting their resources, because they dare to own the oil that we want to make a big profit from.

The "logic" of violence itself needs to be exposed, in order to stop violence and war, and create peace. And if we succumb to that crazy logic, as a society, then we are that much further away from ever achieving the peace and the justice that we all crave.

Can we presume that this murderer was rightfully convicted--knowing what we know about our extremely unjust legal and prison system? And if we are absolutely sure of that (say, the murderer confesses and we are convinced that it was un-coerced), do we have such penetrating insight into the human soul that we know, for certain, what the level of guilt is, and what the level of sanity was at the time of the crime? Many of us posit a God who knows such things. But do WE?

We have presidents and vice presidents and secretaries of defense who commit equally bad crimes, on a much larger scale, every day. Is pulling the trigger any different than ordering the trigger to be pulled? Is torturing ANY prisoner--convicted or not even charged--any different that ordering torture to be committed? And what is the difference between this murderer--whose fate is in the balance this week--and those who are ruling our country? Money. Race. Privilege.

You might want the same fate for Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld. I don't. I want them to be removed from power and to have to think about their crimes for a very, very, very long time, and to achieve remorse and make recompense (MONETARY recompense, in their cases--and lots of it). And I believe that that is possible. That's how much of a progressive and a liberal I am. I think that even they are redeemable. More violence CANNOT stop the cycle of revenge that they have pulled us all, kicking and screaming, into.

I guess I don't understand why DU members should not be permitted to post relevant information about an issue that is very big right now.

We have rules about the posting of graphic images:

"Do not post graphic images of violence, gore, pain, or human suffering. If you have a legitimate political purpose for posting graphic images, you may do so provided that you include a clear warning in the subject line of your post."

The moderators deleted a number of posts with graphic images which did not include adequate warnings. And they will continue to do so. Please click the alert link when you see such posts.

But the thread in question includes a clear warning about the content of the thread. Any reasonable person who read the thread title would know that it would likely include pictures of murder victim(s). The thread, therefore is in compliance with the DU rules. Members regularly post images on DU of carnage from the Iraq War, with nary a peep of protest.

The moderators are aware of members' concerns. If at any point they decide that the thread needs to be shut down for any reason, they will certainly do so.

Until then, members are free to take advantage of the "hide thread" function and the "ignore user" function.

Skinner
DU Admin

with proper warning as you say, I suppose it is better allowed.
There have been many terrible pictures from Iraq posted here and that has been important because they have been hidden from America.

I do sincerely hope though that people refrain from making a habit of posting crime scene photos from every DP case in the news. :scared:

I don't see the problem.

Tough isn't it.
Having to tolerate what you do not like.. Freedom of speech can be a bitch sometimes. It is no less disgusting than the attempts to paint tookie as a poor innocent victim..

But you are entitled to your opinion,
So have a nice day.

When an admin steps into a thread and takes your side on a relatively high-profile dispute, don't step into that thread and start thumbing your nose at everyone. Because it makes the admin look like a fool for defending you. And we don't really like being made to look like that.

Locking.

Skinner
DU Admin