Robert Koehler wrote:
> [when evil is] presented with such a clear face? We are not seeing a
> media image, santized for our consumption; to the contrary, we are seeing
> the image of the act as it actually happened.
>
I disagree Robert: we are not seeing the act as it actually happened at
all as "images framed and
> captured yesterday on cameras owned and operated by everyday people"
as you say: we are presented, by way of a medium that is itself highly
codified (come on, this is CNN!), with the image/act again and again and
again. This (repetition) changes fundamentally the way in which that
image reaches us. This image is, thereby, "sanitized for our
consumption". This is how news television behaves at all other times -
why would this occasion (despite its apparent magnitude) be any
different?
And I do not agree that to discuss the video footage in (Gary's) terms
of a mediated image that generates mainly emotive response is thereby
'intellectualising' the issue, to the detriment of understanding what
happened, as you imply.
To understand what happened it might be necessary to turn off the TV and
instead think the whole thing through (as one of many manifestations of
the problem of global hegemonic power). Ignore the impulse to name the
act as 'evil': there's truly no point.
I think Castro's is one of the most readable and encouraging responses
so far among world leaders. If Castro's response is 'mere rhetoric', as
you suggest, then what is Bush's?
Rose Woodcock
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