man vs. tank

[zimv20]

i find these kinds of photos oddly fascinating. talk about having balls...

(palestinian photo from here (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/20/international/middleeast/20CND-MIDE.html))

[SlyHunter]

I would call it either a lack of intelligence or a cheap consideration of ones own life.

[amnesiac1984]

I would call it either a lack of intelligence or a cheap consideration of ones own life.

the first photo is very famous. Its from a video and is often used to symbolise the bravery of peace loving people, and hte lengths they are willing to go to to get the point of peace across. You obviously don't appreciate it.

[pseudobrit]

the first photo is very famous. Its from a video

IIRC, that is not video, but indeed a photo. The photographer was shooting from his hotel balcony and had to rush to get the shot and as such was unable to change lenses, hence the blurriness.

It is a very powerful photo and we are fortunate he didn't wait to change lenses; he never would have captured it.

[Don't panic]

I would call it either a lack of intelligence or a cheap consideration of ones own life.

I think the tienamen photo is extraordinary. one of the most powerful symbols I have ever seen. I thought you were a libertarian. How can you not appreciate the greatness of that gesture?

[amnesiac1984]

IIRC, that is not video, but indeed a photo. The photographer was shooting from his hotel balcony and had to rush to get the shot and as such was unable to change lenses, hence the blurriness.

It is a very powerful photo and we are fortunate he didn't wait to change lenses; he never would have captured it.

perhaps I am getting confused with some other video I had seen.

[mactastic]

There is video of that incident isn't there? I'd swear I've seen video of the tank swerving to go around the guy and him moving to block it again...

[Don't panic]

perhaps I am getting confused with some other video I had seen.
i'm sure there also were videos of the scene, but the one I have in mind was from the ground level

[Thanatoast]

I would call it either a lack of intelligence or a cheap consideration of ones own life.You know, I was on a conservative bulletin board once for gun owners, and they all said pretty much the same thing, but in regards to the girl who died in Palestine doing the same thing. It seems to me they valued self-preservation over principle. Or maybe that self-preservation was their only principle. It's a problem I think is endemic in American society today and has led us into our current troubles in the Middle East.

I think it's a great pic.

[pseudobrit]

Here's video (http://edition.cnn.com/video/world/2001/06/01/tank.html) of it.

Here's the story behind the photo:
Fifteen years later, a photograph of an anonymous protester facing down a row of tanks in Beijing's Tiananmen Square still inspires astonishment. The photograph may not be beautiful or artistic, but it is nothing short of heart-stopping.

There he is, a thin young man dressed in a white shirt and dark pants squaring off against a line of tanks, a lone human figure daring a great nation's military to mow him down in plain sight. The setting is Beijing's Tiananmen Square, the world's largest public plaza, now well remembered as the site of the climactic showdown between student protesters and China's socialist government 15 years ago this June.

The protesters had gathered to oppose government corruption, restrictions on free speech and joblessness, which led the government to send tens of thousands of troops from the People's Liberation Army. They rumbled to the square in armored personnel carriers.

Jeff Widener, then a 33-year-old American Associated Press picture editor based in Bangkok, was photographing the melee at about 1 a.m. on June 4 when a brick, thrown by a protester, hit him in the face. With a bloody nose and a concussion, he bicycled the two miles to the AP's Beijing office and then to his hotel.

Still woozy the next day, he headed back to the square, crossing streets littered with burned buses and smashed bicycles. He'd heard that soldiers were using electric cattle prods to force photojournalists to surrender their equipment, so when Widener stumbled upon a visiting American, a student he knew only as Kurt, he asked to take pictures from the young man's room on the sixth floor of the Beijing Hotel, not far from Tiananmen Square.

Out of film, he hastily borrowed a roll from Kurt and watched the crucial event unfold about half a mile away on a street leading to the square.

"The protester walks out and I'm thinking, 'This guy is going to screw up my (photograph),"' Widener told Smithsonian's Dana Calvo. "That's how messed up I was. I knew they were going to shoot him, so I got focused and waited for them to shoot him. Then he started to walk up to the tank."

Only after Widener had squeezed the shutter a few times did he realize his camera's setting was wrong for the borrowed film. Too late: Several students grabbed the protester and pulled him out of the tanks' path.

Widener gave the film to Kurt, who stuffed the roll into his underwear and bicycled past soldiers to the AP office. After being developed, the grainy photograph was transmitted on the AP news wire within hours.

A decade and a half later, Widener's photograph retains all of its potency. "It's an urgently important message about what you can do if you have the guts to do it," says Mickey Spiegel, a China specialist at Human Rights Watch in New York City, who has hung the photograph in every office she has occupied since 1989.

Richard Baum, director of the Center for Chinese Studies at the University of California at Los Angeles, says there's "an emotional legacy to that shot. I think that has cost China more in public image than any other single image in modern times."


I can't find the original source of this article.

[zimv20]

It seems to me they valued self-preservation over principle. Or maybe that self-preservation was their only principle.
"give me liberty. unless it means death."

if someone cannot imagine themselves squaring off against a tank, i submit that person cannot understand the struggle for freedom. that the palestinians are attacking such modern weaponry w/ nothing but rocks should be inspiring, when considering how much these people simply want freedom. i question anyone who scorns it or can't see their desperation.

[SlyHunter]

You know, I was on a conservative bulletin board once for gun owners, and they all said pretty much the same thing, but in regards to the girl who died in Palestine doing the same thing. It seems to me they valued self-preservation over principle. Or maybe that self-preservation was their only principle. It's a problem I think is endemic in American society today and has led us into our current troubles in the Middle East.

I think it's a great pic.
That little girl wasn't keeping a bulldozer from running over a house as first reported. But was trying to prevent a bulldozer from running thru a shrub in the front yard of a house that turned out to be camoufladge over an underground tunnel used for smuggling weapons.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=7361

One event, two radically stories. Two radically different Tom Hurndalls. But which is true? We simply don't know. Right now an inquiry is underway, but conclusions have not been reached. One might be tempted to prefer the International Solidarity Movement's version, just based on its popularity in the American press. But the American press has not told us all we need to know. Often Hurndall's organization, the International Solidarity Movement, has not even been
mentioned.

This media silence is unfortunate, for the International Solidarity Movement has been very active lately. Three of their members have been killed or seriously injured in less than a month; Tom Hurndall was only the latest. Another member, Brian Avery, was wounded on April 5th while breaking a curfew in the Palestinian settlement of Jenin. Milling with young men throwing rocks at the Israeli Defense Forces, Avery was wound by the debris thrown up by a warning shot near his feet. While Avery will live, some of the debris tore into his face, and he will require plastic surgery for his wounds.

The first incident was the most serious, and the most reported in the press - the March 16th death of twenty-three year old Rachel Corrie, crushed beneath a bulldozer in Rafah when its operator failed to see her. Corrie was attempting to prevent the destruction of a Palestinian home, as the press widely reported. But most of the press (but not FrontPagemag.com) failed to report the presence of extensive tunnels underneath the homes of Rafah, used to deliver arms across the Egyptian border to the terrorist Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Houses involved in such smuggling are demolished as a matter of course. And when Corrie was killed, according to a Israeli Consulate media officer in San Francisco, the bulldozer was not even attempting to raze a home - just remove shrubbery used to hide a tunnel. Rachel Corrie died for nothing. An inquiry into her death found that she and other members of the International Solidarity Movement had engaged in "illegal, irresponsible, and dangerous" behavior. Indeed - by blocking the destruction of these houses, the International Solidarity Movement may have contributed to the arming of terrorists and the murder of innocent people.


Lots of people from that very same group have been killed are they being targetted or are they purposely putting themselves into situations and pushing the lines between what is legal and what is not legal and thus responsible for their own deaths.


Wasn't this the same group that falsified photographs showing Carrie as wearing a bright orange suit right before she was ran over when in fact they showed a picture of her in an earlier incendent where she was not run over. And that at the time she was ran over she was wearing drab clothes and the driver very well might not have seen her. But instead of telling the truth and broadcasting the correct picture the so called solidarity movement distributed the wrong picture? It was a traitor in their own organization who gave the correct picture to the press most of whom refused to correct their earlier error.

[SlyHunter]

found another one

I was just double checking my facts, and finishing my rewrite on my research paper due Thursday when I came across this page and it blew me away! Just to show I really do look at both sides I will post what I just found. Keep in mind, this truly happens on both sides and does not show one side right or wrong. (Sly)

WHAT REALLY HAPPENED TO RACHEL CORRIE?
A Peace Activist Intentionally Murdered – Or Not

http://www.btnhboard.com/~scrub/corrie.htm

On March 16, 2003, an activist with the International Solidarity Movement was run over by an Israeli bulldozer attempting to tear down a Palestinian house. Her name was Rachel Corrie.

It was not long after when many began to accuse Israel of “murder” of an “innocent peace activist”. The ISM chose to misrepresent photos to fit their agenda, give several conflicting accounts of her death, and gave a new meaning to “guilty ‘til proven innocent”.

THE MEGAPHONE PHOTO
One of the things used most was to ‘prove’ that Rachel was intentionally murdered was a photo of her in front of a bulldozer with a megaphone. Many took that out of context to believe that that was the bulldozer she was hit by, and she was in that position while hit. Michael Rivero of WhatReallyHappened claimed that the photo was taken “moments” before she was hit.

http://image1ex.villagephotos.com/pubimage.asp?id_=2199341

The ISM, however, never claimed the photo was taken moments before, but did absolutely nothing to solve the confusion. The photo was labeled by them as “A clearly marked Rachel Corrie, holding a megaphone, confronts an Israeli bulldozer driver attempting to demolish a Palestinian home.” Notice that the caption never says that she was hit by this bulldozer, and even says “an Israeli bulldozer”, not “the Israeli bulldozer”.
The bulldozer she was hit by is clearly a different one, as this photo reveals:

http://image1ex.villagephotos.com/pubimage.asp?id_=2199342

Joe Smith, an ISM activist and a friend of Rachel Corrie, chose to reveal the truth, which is not stated on ISM’s website. “Smith said that no one was on the spot with a camera before Rachel Corrie was mauled by the bulldozer, and that the picture of Rachel with the megaphone had been taken many hours earlier.”

The Christian Science Monitor also claims that it is “moments before”.
The photo could not have been taken moments before she was hit, as a camera was not present at the scene until she was hit. The photo was taken hours, not moments before she was hit.


[/i][/b]

[Sparky's]

Why is it so many of these "Current Event" threads turn into heated political debates, Think before posting, or at least post in the "Political Discussion Forum" EDITSorry I got lost, I AM in the political discussions forum. disregard previous statement.

I remember seeing that video shown on TV many years ago, during the time of the student protests in China. One man’s stand to try and represent what the entire population was afraid to say.

Yeah, he had balls... and then some!!!

[SlyHunter]

Why is it so many of these "Current Event" threads turn into heated political debates, Think before posting, or at least post in the "Political Discussion Forum" EDITSorry I got lost, I AM in the political discussions forum. disregard previous statement.

I remember seeing that video shown on TV many years ago, during the time of the student protests in China. One man’s stand to try and represent what the entire population was afraid to say.

Yeah, he had balls... and then some!!!
Um this is the political discussion forum.
editjust saw your edit can't delete the post :(

[zimv20]

EDITSorry I got lost, I AM in the political discussions forum. disregard previous statement.
no worries. if you're wondering, i did start it here. i.e. it didn't get moved


Yeah, he had balls... and then some!!!
that he did

[SlyHunter]

"give me liberty. unless it means death."

if someone cannot imagine themselves squaring off against a tank, i submit that person cannot understand the struggle for freedom. that the palestinians are attacking such modern weaponry w/ nothing but rocks should be inspiring, when considering how much these people simply want freedom. i question anyone who scorns it or can't see their desperation.
Why don't they face down Hamas and stop the suicide bombings?