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In Perspective, Planet: A Mass Murder Probed from the skies: Democratization of Spy Satellites?

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
When the American of African origin, Rodney King was viciously beaten by white police officers in near dark by the side of a road, the police thought they were free to repeat this whenever they fancied.

Then riots followed the local courts letting off the guilty police, burning and devastating much of the areas where blacks and latinos lived and shopped.

However, federal courts followed and a citizen's video camera grainy images was enough to convict the perpetrators. That shocked america and opened our eyes to the universalization of the power of reporting the news, even in places one thought were safe from reporters!

That was a landmark event in modern American history.

Now we have the worst and most evil massacre in modern times. not only were civilians shelled by artillery and tanks, but then killers went from home to home shooting folk at point blank range and slitting the throats and cutting holes in the eyes of everyone they found, including mostly children!

taldoumassacre_976.jpg


Read how the massacre unfolded here and the satellite pictures available it seems to everyone, are being analyzed here

In both the Rodney King case and in the Homs case, the merciless behavior of men are open to discovery. That, at least might help us constrain such cruel behaviors of our "civilizations". That's our hope.

But also, there's a failure of major cultures to really indoctrinate against such merciless attacks in the first place. Thanks to photography, we can have witnesses and detectives everywhere!

Asher
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
I must say I am sick to the stomach that we have not progressed much, but perhaps the fact that we can not hide what we do nowadays, shame will force us to stop horrors.

Trouble is that anything we in the West do is going to be interpreted as imperialist and to some extent that will be true as motivations are often mixed up!

Asher
 

Bob Latham

New member
......but perhaps the fact that we can not hide what we do nowadays, shame will force us to stop horrors.
Always assuming that we don't become so desensitised so as not to feel the shame in the first place.

I think back to horrors that occurred when I was a child and find similar acts are now so commonplace that they're no longer horrors. Each unprecidented event only serves to diminish the magnitude of previous events.

An example without human perpetrators (to avoid contention)
In the 1950's, a DeHavilland Comet crashed near Elba in the Mediterranean with 35 people perishing. In the 1960's, airliner capacity had risen such that 100-150 fatalities were the norm and earlier disasters were 'downgraded' in our minds. Then, in the 1970's, two Boeing 747's collided on Tenerife with the tragic loss of 583 lives.
It's not the passage of time that has soothed away the loss of the Comet and all on board, it was the sad event in Tenerife some 20 years later that 'de-horrified' it.

Bob
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Always assuming that we don't become so desensitised so as not to feel the shame in the first place.

I think back to horrors that occurred when I was a child and find similar acts are now so commonplace that they're no longer horrors. Each unprecidented event only serves to diminish the magnitude of previous events.

An example without human perpetrators (to avoid contention)
In the 1950's, a DeHavilland Comet crashed near Elba in the Mediterranean with 35 people perishing. In the 1960's, airliner capacity had risen such that 100-150 fatalities were the norm and earlier disasters were 'downgraded' in our minds. Then, in the 1970's, two Boeing 747's collided on Tenerife with the tragic loss of 583 lives.
It's not the passage of time that has soothed away the loss of the Comet and all on board, it was the sad event in Tenerife some 20 years later that 'de-horrified' it.

Bob

I'm still locked in to the spitting on a line of catholic school children, (about 7 years old, neat in uniforms with little lunch boxes or colored backpacks), braving a gauntlet of spitting and cursing protestant, "Orange" women. The just wanted to go to school. I don't allow myself to be healed of that cruelty. That being my reference, I'm never numbed to visions on the news.

It's the preachers, priests, politicians and the like who spew venom that have to be held accountable for the eruptions that cause brutality.

It's fundamental.

If we teach that others are worth less than us, or we alone have the secret to salvation, then massacres follow.

Last rant for today!

I'm so grateful for mass produced cameras and eyes in the sky. Man is becoming god and being "all seeing", with no sin beyond knowing!

Asher
 

Michael Seltzer

New member
I am glad for the grainy video that helped in the Rodney King case, and if there are personal photos and videos that will help find some justice in the Syrian massacre, I am grateful for that as well. But this brings up for me something of some concern, too.

If we are coming to rely (too much?) on personal photography as a means for prosecuting criminal behavior, I think that could indicate a failure in the "normal" methods of investigation and protection that a free press and the relevant parts of government were designed to give us. Is something happening, possibly in the political attitudes, in our societies that is leading to this? Or is it, as so often gets said, simply that we are more aware of these events because of television, et al? I know I have less faith in our press than I once did, and certainly trust the motives and skill of our politicians less than before. But I'm not entirely sure how much of that is real, how much simply that I'm turning into a grumpy old man (get off my lawn, kid!).

What concerns me, though, is that there seems to be some tendency out there to want to enlist us all in these, policing, activities. (To be a bit hyperbolic, a movement from "Am I my brother's keeper," to, "Am I my brother's jailor"? Btw, and not entirely related, I think I saw a bit of that attitude with what happened to Joe Paterno at PennState, though nothing to do with photography.) When we "encourage" people to become aware of the potential surveillance possibilities of their photography, we turn everyone in to police. When that happens, we will live in a police state.

Well, these issues are complex, and I did say I was being a bit hyperbolic. Nonetheless, I worry there is a "new" attitude that is troubling.

On a different note, nice quote (in red). Is it yours?
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
I know I have less faith in our press than I once did, and certainly trust the motives and skill of our politicians less than before. But I'm not entirely sure how much of that is real, how much simply that I'm turning into a grumpy old man (get off my lawn, kid!)............

What concerns me, though, is that there seems to be some tendency out there to want to enlist us all in these, policing, activities. (To be a bit hyperbolic, a movement from "Am I my brother's keeper," to, "Am I my brother's jailor"?


Michael,

Until now, advertising revenues and political affiliations acted as an underhand filter of news. Now, this is less possible. There are obviously two parts to this, the fruit is "less chance that citizen abuse can be hidden or denied" but the cost is "less privacy". To me, that's an apple worth taking! :)

On a different note, nice quote (in red). Is it yours?

Yes!


Thanks for the complement!

Asher
 
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