Iwo Jima Veterans Blast Time's 'Special Environmental Issue' Cover

[Angel Heart]

It's not their picture bucko. It's taxpayer property.

The photograph was taken by a AP employee. It's property of the AP.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Rosenthal

 

[manifold]

Jesus fucking tapdancing Christ!!!


This is just as bad as the over-sensitive lefties getting their panties in a bunch over an inncuous boy comment.

 

[doeton]

as far as like important issues of the day.

i agree it's like on the bottom.

but it's what the thread is about no?

 

[jillian]

Jesus fucking tapdancing Christ!!!


This is just as bad as the over-sensitive lefties getting their panties in a bunch over an inncuous boy comment.

You know, that was my first reaction. And then I thought about it... one of my pet peeves is people co-opting language that has particular meaning and applying it to something which isn't similar. I find that's done to both diminish the initial imagery and advance a lesser one. The examples I always use are that only the nazis were nazis, only the holocaust was the holocaust and only slavery was slavery. Using those words to apply to other circumstances diminishes the importance of the words and the unique horror they represent.

I personally wouldn't have responded that way to the Iwo Jima picture. But I can see where someone military might think that co-opting the imagery would do a disservice to it.

Personally, I think it's bad journalism because I think it's not a very good metaphor, but that's besides the point.

 

[M14 Shooter]

Green is actually the new socialism. It's just a new way to pass all of the socialist ideas into law.

Yes. Environmentalists are like watermellons:
Green on the outside, red in the middle.

 

[M14 Shooter]

Why are war heroes always such retards?

John Kerry, anyone?

 

[KungFusion]

John Kerry, anyone?

Well, maybe YOU think he's a hero . . . i just think he's a retard.

 

[KungFusion]

I personally wouldn't have responded that way to the Iwo Jima picture. But I can see where someone military might think that co-opting the imagery would do a disservice to it.

I just hate the way people on the right are always talking about the left being so "politically correct" on this or that issue, but the SECOND you say anything about the troops or do anything that might even remotely, possibly, rub a veteran the wrong way, youre suddenly a "chickensh!t coward", or doing someone, somewhere "a disservice", or whathaveyou. That's the real bullsh!t that surrounds this issue . . .

Being good at following orders doesn't make you a saint, no matter how historically important you'd like to think your war was.

 

[jillian]

I personally wouldn't have responded that way to the Iwo Jima picture. But I can see where someone military might think that co-opting the imagery would do a disservice to it.

I just hate the way people on the right are always talking about the left being so "politically correct" on this or that issue, but the SECOND you say anything about the troops or do anything that might even remotely, possibly, rub a veteran the wrong way, youre suddenly a "chickensh!t coward", or doing someone, somewhere "a disservice", or whathaveyou. That's the real bullsh!t that surrounds this issue . . .

First of all, to whom are you speaking?

I'm not on the right, for one. I WAS applying what you might call "political correctness" to the issue. And I was expressing an understanding for how the military folk might feel.

So want to explain your post?

 

[KungFusion]

do i WANT to? - no, not particularily. but you are a sensitive one and i knew that, so i should have been more clear about where i was going with the post, sorry.

i know youre not on the right, and i know youre just expressing some empathy for how it might make someone feel - i'm not criticizing you in either regard.

I was merely using your statement that they might feel as though they had been done "a disservice" as a launching point for how silly it is for THEM to feel that way. It wasn't a statement about YOU at all.

 

[jillian]

do i WANT to? - no, not particularily. but you are a sensitive one and i knew that, so i should have been more clear about where i was going with the post, sorry.

i know youre not on the right, and i know youre just expressing some empathy for how it might make someone feel - i'm not criticizing you in either regard.

I was merely using your statement that they might feel as though they had been done "a disservice" as a launching point for how silly it is for THEM to feel that way. It wasn't a statement about YOU at all.

Fair enough. Thank you.

But I still don't like co-opting imagery from things that are totally unique.

 

[manifold]

But I still don't like co-opting imagery from things that are totally unique.

That doesn't leave much at all.

Perhaps it's just imagery itself that you dislike.

 

[jillian]

That doesn't leave much at all.

Perhaps it's just imagery itself that you dislike.

Nah... a good metaphor rocks.

 

[manifold]

Nah... a good metaphor rocks.

Like I said, perhaps you don't care much for imagery at all. I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that you know that a metaphor isn't the same thing as imagery.

 

[jillian]

Like I said, perhaps you don't care much for imagery at all. I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that you know that a metaphor isn't the same thing as imagery.

Yes, I do... I was probably using the words interchangeably based on impact when I shouldn't have. my college english professors would be so disappointed in me. ;o(

I like imagery. But like I said, I think there are things that shouldn't be diminished. Slavery is slavery. Nazis are nazis and the holocaust is the holocaust. I hate when those words/images are used with reference to lesser things.

Maybe to someone military Iwo Jima is Iwo Jima.

I thought it was a bad image with respect to the subject in any event.

 

[KungFusion]

But I still don't like co-opting imagery from things that are totally unique.

understood, and i see where youre going with that and agree to SOME extent. but, if i may respectfully disagree in at least this one case, i think that the image in question has been in circulation for so long, is so widely recognizable, and has been used in such a variety of contexts that it's not unreasonable to take it as being fair game for something like a Time magazine cover - even if there isn't a total consensus upon how apropos the anology implied by its use was. the public is critical enough of media messages that we don't have to worry about any big harm being done by this - anymore than we have to be worried that holocaust survivors are being done a disservice by Seinfeld's "soup-nazi" jokes (all IMO, of course).

 

[Meemer]

Why should the vets be upset? The "famous photo" was staged!

I see their point but that photo was inspirational to the folks back home. Using the photo to inspire someone to plant a tree may symbolize the planting of justice on Iwo. It's possible, isn't it?

I think some people have way too much time on their hands to nitpick every thing that comes along!

 

[manifold]

I like imagery. But like I said, I think there are things that shouldn't be diminished. Slavery is slavery. Nazis are nazis and the holocaust is the holocaust. I hate when those words/images are used with reference to lesser things.

Personally, I think it would be worse to forget about these things.

 

[BrianH]

Why should the vets be upset? The "famous photo" was staged!

I see their point but that photo was inspirational to the folks back home. Using the photo to inspire someone to plant a tree may symbolize the planting of justice on Iwo. It's possible, isn't it?

I think some people have way too much time on their hands to nitpick every thing that comes along!

The actual photo was not "Staged". Staged is inferring that the entire incident never happened. The Photo everyone sees was a second photo taken with a different flag. Simple as that. And it means alot to veterans who served there. If you saw a photo-shopped picture of your family used in an advertisement for a TV show about a polygamist family, you would be slightly mad at the least. This photo represents alot for the veterans, and they have every right to question its use for things it has nothing to do with. They mind as well start giving out purple hearts in every box of Lucky-Charms.

 

[Meemer]

No, Brian, I cannot agree with you. Sending people to replant a flag so it could be seen from the ships is staging. Staging is what Bush does with every speech in the public forum. Therefore, I believe the second flag raising was staged and the survivors were used to sell war bonds. They knew they weren't the real heroes who had planted the flag. That fact drove Ira Hays over the edge.
A family photo of mine used as a polygamist family is an absurd parallel, the point of which I do not get and will not pursue further.

I think the parallel between the flag on Iwo and a tree is a positive that symbolizes giving and caring and unselfishness.
Apparently it all depends upon one's perspective.
And no one respects the men and women of WWII more than I. That's where my father and uncle were; one in the ETO, the other in the PTO. A family friend (a new father by less than two weeks) took a bullet between the eyes on Omaha. A co-worker of my father's didn't come back. A neighbor's father who just turned 90 last week jumped into Germany. We bowled with a man who left a leg in France, and I golfed with a woman whose husband's shoulder was saved but the cancer that developed in the shoulder eventually took his life. He was part of Patton's division, rushing into the Bulge. An artist I know never met his father who was shot down flying the Hump. Respect? I'd say I have respect, knowing how many lives were affected and changed.