A picture is worth a thousand words

[piliangie]

I don't know, I agree with others that the pictures have 2 sides , one is feel compassion, and the other can be for manipulating us, because this baby is like a symbol of many many cases of violence in many ways, not only in refugees, in some other areas also.
I don't know what exactly is going on, even reading the sessions transcripts, sometimes is confusing, I belong to latin America, and we are seeing things unexplicably, like the US militars arriving in PERU, and in Mexico, they allowed american police agents, wear an arm, guns' here in Mexico! things are getting very ugly...I don't like Americans anymore sorry for saying...I know theres a lot of many many good people in USA but this goverment is horrible. and the ignorant and arrogants racist people.......and here we have a very old problem , of refugees that come from south America to Mexico and want to go to the States, and US CITIZENS think that all of them are mexicans...they are so wrong....North America oringinates troubles in this countrys, and later they put down inmigrants also,disregard them, like filthy people...and don't understand that They are part of the problem also....and now! is happening in all around the world....

 

[mabar]

I don't know what exactly is going on, even reading the sessions transcripts, sometimes is confusing, I belong to latin America, and we are seeing things unexplicably, like the US militars arriving in PERU, and in Mexico, they allowed american police agents, wear an arm, guns' here in Mexico! things are getting very ugly...I don't like Americans anymore sorry for saying...I know theres a lot of many many good people in USA but this goverment is horrible. and the ignorant and arrogants racist people.......and here we have a very old problem , of refugees that come from south America to Mexico and want to go to the States, and US CITIZENS think that all of them are mexicans...they are so wrong....North America oringinates troubles in this countrys, and later they put down inmigrants also,disregard them, like filthy people...and don't understand that They are part of the problem also....and now! is happening in all around the world....

The problem with us, and citizens from whatever country, is our ignorance, I understand when you say about americans, because I used to think that way, I remember chanting slogans against americans back in 91 when the US attacked Irak, I was in high school in a march against the war, and certainly did not discriminate between those who took the decision (psychopaths in power) and citizens at large. It helps to learn to differentiate, because one thing are the citizens from US and the other is their government, and they, US citizens, are too being subjugated by their government, although many had not acknowledge yet. Yes, there are racists there, but also here in Mexico in many ways, and I assume that racism exists in Latin America as well.

piliangie?, can you differentiate between a Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Philippine, or Mongolian??, personally I think I may not be able, though. It occurred me to think, that many Americans may confuse between a Nicaraguan from a Mexican because their physiognomy and economic situation (poor and miserable) is similar as well. But this confusion is aggravated by our poor education that had taught us to be above others.

Fleeing from their country because life as they have is beyond intolerable, that's why thousands of alone children went to US http://www.sott.net/article/280841-Welcome-to-America-Human-rights-crisis-at-US-Border-detention-centers ... and I do not think the influx stop much, even with the US border propaganda's song, though. Even when there seems to not be new news about it, it does not mean that it had stopped. Bad news keep overlapping through the passing months.

It might just be the most tuneful piece of propaganda since The Simpsons' "Drop Da Bomb". La Bestia, "the beast", mimics the traditional Mexican narrative ballads called "corridos". With catchy Caribbean-style instrumentation, it tells the story of "the Beast from the South, this wretched train of death", a notoriously dangerous freight train on which migrants hitch a lift to the United States. It is currently being played on 21 radio stations in Central America. But what listeners are not being told is that the song was devised by a US advertising agency, for US Customs and Border Protection, as part of a multi-million dollar anti-immigration campaign to halt the influx of migrants from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.

Migra corridos – migra is a derogatory term for US immigration officials – have been around for a few years. In 1998, the US Border Patrol made public service announcements to warn potential migrants of the danger of crossing the border and commissioned an advertising agency to compose tragic songs such as El Más Grande Enemigo about fatal crossings in the tradition of the narco corridos, the melodramatic ballads about Mexico's drug lords.

_https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGimonYeqsk --- "La Bestia" song.

What gets me angry is that at the msm, keep saying that the influx is due to Syria civil war, and I find myself replaying at the TV/radio that is not, that psychopaths in power that call themselves governments, keep beating, bombing, bothering a country that do not had payed tribute to them. and I do not think they take responsibility any time soon.

But, I read the article below about the doings of people with conscience, and that's good news, between all of the wrongs that are in the world, is good to know about this also.

There is also the people's ethics - banners in Germany unfurled at football games to welcome refugees, convoys of ordinary British nations to Calais (France) to help feed and clothe the refugees, demonstrations of radical internationalists in Eastern Europe against the neo-fascists and the racists. There are also, in the United States, the Dream Defenders and United We Dream who fight for undocumented residents, who formed part of the massive pro-immigrant rallies that have now adopted May Day as their day. These indications of the good side of history are often ignored by the press, which has a tendency to hype up the bad side to boost ratings. Such gestures of solidarity tell us what is possible in the West.

 

[MK Scarlett]

Thank you loreta and al. for those links and Alana for your suggestions about sharing them and how to do it with just a little sentence.

All those pictures are so sad especially by knowing why they even exist. We are living a painful time and all those people are living it from the inside while we don't. So at least I do think we can (have to) share them by explaining why all this happens. It moves us while it surely does not move everybody in the World, yet, we have to share them as a consequence of the wars leaded by the Empire and its subordinates, countries in which we live at least for most of us. Knowing that our very countries are involved in a more or less deeper level into it, is revolting by itself, showing those pictures increases this revolt, at least inside myself. But we have to do what we do, as painful as it can be, because it is the only way. Hide them will not make them disappear as it will not make disappear the suffering of all those people.

 

[kujo]

These photos do speak a thousand words. Displacement, death, horror. As pointed out as well, compassion and strength.

I do wonder what makes one particular photo, the one of the boy in the red shirt, go so viral online and amongst "artists." It's been re-drawn several ways which I've seen by a few minutes of clicking. Speaking personally, I cannot find a good reason to re-iterate a photo of a dead little boy, a refugee victim. Perhaps maybe for therapy, or an expression of feelings - but to post it online publicly? It's kind of sick. Definitely some sort of attention theft.

I've been a refugee of wildfires when I was young, it was terrifying. Not knowing where you'll be next, if you'll ever be able to return... and that was only 3 weeks due to a natural disaster - I can only imagine the agony that the people who have left their country are feeling. Strength to them.

 

[loreta]

I do wonder what makes one particular photo, the one of the boy in the red shirt, go so viral online and amongst "artists." It's been re-drawn several ways which I've seen by a few minutes of clicking. Speaking personally, I cannot find a good reason to re-iterate a photo of a dead little boy, a refugee victim. Perhaps maybe for therapy, or an expression of feelings - but to post it online publicly? It's kind of sick. Definitely some sort of attention theft.

I have to say and need to say (unable tonight to sleep) that the picture of the little boy and the "publicity" around it is disturbing me. Maybe because I am skeptical and this is no good, I don't know. But me too I ask myself why this picture and not the pictures that were banned, those with 5 or 6 drowned children? We can find positive things around the picture of the little boy, and one of them is the empathy. But... next? This picture of the little boy, since the first time I saw it, made me feel uneasy. Like I was seeing something that was un-real. I asked myself: where are the lifesavers? Red Cross? When someone is on a beach, drowned, you try to save him, give him artificial respiration. With lifesavers. Where are they? When someone is dead on a beach you put a blanket on him, comes the ambulance, put the dead person on a stretcher. This guy who takes the little boy, who is he? Where he is taking the corpse? We don't see ambulances, nothing. Bodies that have drowned are puffy (I don't know if this is the right word, sorry). Where are the bodies of his brother and mother? why just him? and why him? and not the others ones that died I think 2 or 3 days before...

An interesting question that we can ask ourselves is why a picture of this little boy made people react and not pictures of refugees in Syria, pictures of dead bodies in Syria or Yemen or Afghanistan. Why people are reacting to this little boy? Is this because of the scenery? He looks so little, so small, so alone and sad in the middle of a beach, like a little dog, and I am saying this without sarcasm. He looks helpless. Maybe people are reacting to something that even them don't know, a sort of solitude inside them. They feel as helpless as this little boy.

But while people are crying this little boy, the destruction is continuing in Syria. The bombs. But nobody put pictures of dead people on the streets of Damascus. So I think the Medias are manipulating this situation. Little boys and little girls are dying in Damascus also. But no pictures of them. Why!

As I said, I am a skeptical person, maybe I should not be so skeptical in this situation, in this tragedy. I think that as in everything people are entirely manipulated by the mainstream media. And for some reason now they are manipulating the population in Europe in relation with the refugees crisis. And this crisis is like an obsession, people just talk about it. It is the subject. Again: while we talk about the refugees crisis (and we need to talk about it), we are not talking about ISIS and their masters. So nothing is changing. Maybe something will change, I don't say no to this. But I am skeptical on that point.

Sorry for these long thought. Maybe now I will be able to sleep a little, but I doubt it.

 

[loreta]

I've found this little video. It is very beautiful.

http://<iframe width="560" height="...34" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[Approaching Infinity]

I have to say and need to say (unable tonight to sleep) that the picture of the little boy and the "publicity" around it is disturbing me. Maybe because I am skeptical and this is no good, I don't know. But me too I ask myself why this picture and not the pictures that were banned, those with 5 or 6 drowned children? We can find positive things around the picture of the little boy, and one of them is the empathy. But... next? This picture of the little boy, since the first time I saw it, made me feel uneasy. Like I was seeing something that was un-real. I asked myself: where are the lifesavers? Red Cross? When someone is on a beach, drowned, you try to save him, give him artificial respiration. With lifesavers. Where are they? When someone is dead on a beach you put a blanket on him, comes the ambulance, put the dead person on a stretcher. This guy who takes the little boy, who is he? Where he is taking the corpse? We don't see ambulances, nothing. Bodies that have drowned are puffy (I don't know if this is the right word, sorry). Where are the bodies of his brother and mother? why just him? and why him? and not the others ones that died I think 2 or 3 days before...

These are all good questions, but it would be hard to find answers without some continuous video footage of the scene, or some extensive testimony from eyewitnesses to the whole thing. As it is, it's very hard to get an idea of the full context of a situation from a single photo (or a short video). That said, I can think of plausible answers to most of the questions (which is not to say they're all true - we'd need more data with which to confirm): e.g., lifesavers dealing with people still in the water, or the amount of time between when the boy was discovered and the time of the photograph being relatively short, etc.

An interesting question that we can ask ourselves is why a picture of this little boy made people react and not pictures of refugees in Syria, pictures of dead bodies in Syria or Yemen or Afghanistan. Why people are reacting to this little boy? Is this because of the scenery? He looks so little, so small, so alone and sad in the middle of a beach, like a little dog, and I am saying this without sarcasm. He looks helpless. Maybe people are reacting to something that even them don't know, a sort of solitude inside them. They feel as helpless as this little boy.

It's hard to say. But every once in a while there's a photograph that seems to speak to a large portion of humanity. Don't know why exactly, but like you said, this picture is striking: he is so small, alone, helpless. That tugs on the heart strings of normal people, and it's perfectly understandable that it would: it should. Plus, we don't often see such iconic pictures in other situations, like photos of dead bodies in Syria or Yemen, etc. The just don't get the same media attention and don't necessarily have the same viral, universal appeal.

But while people are crying this little boy, the destruction is continuing in Syria. The bombs. But nobody put pictures of dead people on the streets of Damascus. So I think the Medias are manipulating this situation. Little boys and little girls are dying in Damascus also. But no pictures of them. Why!

Because the mainstream media is purely a propaganda machine. That said, I think there are situations where the media must react to what they see as strong trends in public opinion beyond their control - like the recent surge of compassion and concern for the refugees. In that case, even by highlighting this concern, it can still be used to serve another agenda, like was discussed on Sunday's Behind the Headlines show.

As I said, I am a skeptical person, maybe I should not be so skeptical in this situation, in this tragedy. I think that as in everything people are entirely manipulated by the mainstream media. And for some reason now they are manipulating the population in Europe in relation with the refugees crisis. And this crisis is like an obsession, people just talk about it. It is the subject. Again: while we talk about the refugees crisis (and we need to talk about it), we are not talking about ISIS and their masters. So nothing is changing. Maybe something will change, I don't say no to this. But I am skeptical on that point.

I wouldn't say the people are entirely manipulated by the media. I think there is genuine (even if only temporary) compassion here. But every emotional response can be exploited and further manipulated. The recent news coverage is paying lip service to this concern. But as soon as there is another European false flag, that will be forgotten and it will be the standard demonization of Muslims immigrants. By that time, many people will forget ever seeing this photo and simply follow the program.

 

[loreta]

Thank you Approaching Infinity for your answers, they are realistic and make me put my feet on ground.
I was also thinking that a picture is not the reality of what was happening. Maybe the lifeguards were, as you say, around, maybe they were not lifeguards at all, not yet. Maybe in Turkey they act differently when there is a death on a beach. So I am conscious that my vision was not objective at all.

 

[loreta]

There is these comments by Thierry Meyssan about this picture:

The left-hand part of this photo has been widely published by the Atlantist Press. The victim, a Syrian Kurd child, Aylan Kurdi, is supposed to have been washed up by the sea. However, his corpse is perpendicular to the waves instead of being parallel. On the right-hand part, the presence of an official Turkish photographer reinforces the suggestion of a staged event. In the background we can see people bathing.

http://www.voltairenet.org/article188623.html

My question is: is he right saying the position of the body? And second question: is Mr. Meyssan someone who we should listen carefully? I remember that the C's said that Voltaire.net is a good web site but some working inside are not so good.

 

[luke wilson]

I think its part of a game plan. That picture that went viral represents a lot of high ideals. Its almost beautiful I dare say. Death personified in a beautiful picture. It makes you feel sad, but not uncomfortably sad. I personally think it's manipulation but I don't know for sure.

One thing that I see developing is an acceptance of refugees into Europe e.g. Them being welcomed into Munich quite warmly. All these is reinforcing the high idealistic views of european consciousness'. People are happy about their humanistic values. Again, not sure if it's something to be happy about or weary about because for sure, behind all this acceptance of refugees, caring about drowned kids etc, a war is still being financed by these countries against where these people are coming from.

I expect at some point as mentioned in Joe Quinns article on SOTT an event will occur that will reinforce the further idea in the European consciousness that despite them holding high humanistic values, these people don't e.g. through one of the refugees carrying out a terrorist act or something like that.

PS: I don't think its public pressure, I think its historical cultural humanistic programming being reinforced.

 

[casper]

From when I first saw the picture of the dead boy, all the time I feel like I've already seen something similar.
His body reminds me of a girl from the movie "Schindler's List".

Red jacket, red T-shirt...outside the context of this story, just something I wanted to share with you

 

[Ennio]

There is these comments by Thierry Meyssan about this picture:

The left-hand part of this photo has been widely published by the Atlantist Press. The victim, a Syrian Kurd child, Aylan Kurdi, is supposed to have been washed up by the sea. However, his corpse is perpendicular to the waves instead of being parallel. On the right-hand part, the presence of an official Turkish photographer reinforces the suggestion of a staged event. In the background we can see people bathing.

http://www.voltairenet.org/article188623.html

My question is: is he right saying the position of the body? And second question: is Mr. Meyssan someone who we should listen carefully? I remember that the C's said that Voltaire.net is a good web site but some working inside are not so good.

As good a researcher as Meyssan may be, I think that his questions are largely besides the point, and, if anything, a seeming attempt to undercut the larger truth of the story. Because, even if this picture was staged, the truth of this little boy's death is still real, the truth of the death of many thousands more children is real, the truth of many millions more Syrians and peoples of other nations feeling compelled to flee their homelands for their lives is real.

So what if Meyssan does actually come up with some smoking gun evidence that points to the picture being staged? Does that mean we're going to throw the baby out with the bath water? Does it mean that the world of people who are saddened and outraged by the picture and what it symbolizes will become dismissive of the entire refugee crises? I don't think that this will happen. This is my current take on it.

 

[loreta]

There is these comments by Thierry Meyssan about this picture:

The left-hand part of this photo has been widely published by the Atlantist Press. The victim, a Syrian Kurd child, Aylan Kurdi, is supposed to have been washed up by the sea. However, his corpse is perpendicular to the waves instead of being parallel. On the right-hand part, the presence of an official Turkish photographer reinforces the suggestion of a staged event. In the background we can see people bathing.

http://www.voltairenet.org/article188623.html

My question is: is he right saying the position of the body? And second question: is Mr. Meyssan someone who we should listen carefully? I remember that the C's said that Voltaire.net is a good web site but some working inside are not so good.

As good a researcher as Meyssan may be, I think that his questions are largely besides the point, and, if anything, a seeming attempt to undercut the larger truth of the story. Because, even if this picture was staged, the truth of this little boy's death is still real, the truth of the death of many thousands more children is real, the truth of many millions more Syrians and peoples of other nations feeling compelled to flee their homelands for their lives is real.

So what if Meyssan does actually come up with some smoking gun evidence that points to the picture being staged? Does that mean we're going to throw the baby out with the bath water? Does it mean that the world of people who are saddened and outraged by the picture and what it symbolizes will become dismissive of the entire refugee crises? I don't think that this will happen. This is my current take on it.

Not at all. The drama is real. It is not to dismissive the entirely refugee crisis, not at all. I was not thinking about it. But if the picture is fake, re-created or not real, we have to be aware of it. And why. The tragedy of the refugees is there, very real. Like the death of the little boy.

 

[Renaissance]

As good a researcher as Meyssan may be, I think that his questions are largely besides the point, and, if anything, a seeming attempt to undercut the larger truth of the story. Because, even if this picture was staged, the truth of this little boy's death is still real, the truth of the death of many thousands more children is real, the truth of many millions more Syrians and peoples of other nations feeling compelled to flee their homelands for their lives is real.

So what if Meyssan does actually come up with some smoking gun evidence that points to the picture being staged? Does that mean we're going to throw the baby out with the bath water? Does it mean that the world of people who are saddened and outraged by the picture and what it symbolizes will become dismissive of the entire refugee crises? I don't think that this will happen. This is my current take on it.

Not at all. The drama is real. It is not to dismissive the entirely refugee crisis, not at all. I was not thinking about it. But if the picture is fake, re-created or not real, we have to be aware of it. And why. The tragedy of the refugees is there, very real. Like the death of the little boy.

This seems like something out of the 'hoaxer's' conspiracy camp, like we saw happen with the Boston Bombings and Sandy Hook. There have been so, so many dead babies washing up on shores, so why stage it?

I don't see where Meyssan's comments make any sense.

However, his corpse is perpendicular to the waves instead of being parallel.

He also says:

It doesn’t matter that this photo is staged - the sea washes up bodies parallel to the waves, never perpendicular.

It's not true that bodies always wash up parallel to the waves and never perpendicular. Take a look at photos of beached whales. They're positioned in all sorts of directions.

On the right-hand part, the presence of an official Turkish photographer reinforces the suggestion of a staged event.

An "official Turkish photographer"? There are two police officers there and it makes sense that one has taken photos of the scene - that's not at all unusual.

In the background we can see people bathing.

It looks like there are two men in the background, both fully dressed. Who knows if they might have been witnesses who first discovered the child. Who knows if they were there for some other reason.

 

[Ennio]

As good a researcher as Meyssan may be, I think that his questions are largely besides the point, and, if anything, a seeming attempt to undercut the larger truth of the story. Because, even if this picture was staged, the truth of this little boy's death is still real, the truth of the death of many thousands more children is real, the truth of many millions more Syrians and peoples of other nations feeling compelled to flee their homelands for their lives is real.

So what if Meyssan does actually come up with some smoking gun evidence that points to the picture being staged? Does that mean we're going to throw the baby out with the bath water? Does it mean that the world of people who are saddened and outraged by the picture and what it symbolizes will become dismissive of the entire refugee crises? I don't think that this will happen. This is my current take on it.

Not at all. The drama is real. It is not to dismissive the entirely refugee crisis, not at all. I was not thinking about it. But if the picture is fake, re-created or not real, we have to be aware of it. And why. The tragedy of the refugees is there, very real. Like the death of the little boy.

I didn't mean to suggest that you were being dismissive of the refugee crises, only that Meyssan was muddying the waters with his dot-connecting that seems to have not connected at all. It reminds me of the saying, and I'm paraphrasing, "that to see conspiracy in everything is just as bad as not seeing conspiracy in anything".

The title of his article is 'The phony refugee crisis' and after the sentences quoted earlier he proceeds to make his case for the idea that we're being 'faked out' by the media and should see the situation in light of the following:

1.) There's always been mass migration to Europe, mainly for economic reasons.

2.) Two thirds of the migrants are not coming from an Arab Spring country or conflict zone.

3.) There are German business leaders that seek to take advantage of migrant workers.

4.) The U.S. wants to inflict damage on Europe with mass migrants.

5.) NATO might be planning a mission that has something to do with migrants.

While some or all of these points may be true, and while we know that the media and government can be very sophisticated in creating perception, Meyssan never seems to point out how many now recognize the death of this boy (and others) as symptomatic of US aggression. If - and this is a big 'if' - the picture of the boy is part of a grand scheme to employ some evil 'solution,' like justifying the US's current actions in Syria, among other things, then I believe the plotters plan to have back-fired. There are many articles like this one, that are coming out and shining a light on the migrant crisis' real causes.