Let me get this straight, Bricker comes in and gnashes his teeth screaming “Won’t somebody think of the children?”, and he doesn’t get laughed off the board? He cries about some anti bush artiste heaven forbid making little kids cry, saying thats all he was pitting, had nothing to do with politics. Bricker you scare me, bud.
As I read the OP, the people being condemned are people that are so anti-Bush that although they normally would find making a child cry for a photo to be distasteful, if it were done to further the rabid anti-Great-Leader cause then it would be OK.
I’ve yet to see any of these people identified.
Well Elvis, I have to say I’m not so upset, please take a chill pill.
I do think now that both sides were wrong regarding the evidence on the politics of the piece based solely on the article linked in the OP. After seeing so many getting a different interpretation, I do think in the end we have a lousy article here (nowhere in the article it is mentioned that the title of the exhibit is “end of times” or has a link to the other pieces). I did see that her original piece was not created with the intention to bash Bush, that is the truth; it is also the truth that indeed other pieces were created geared towards the theme, but that was not clear until later.
What is clear also is that **John Mace ** jumped in and agreed with the OP glaringly ignoring the trollish aspects of it, He has (after some prodding) acknowledged the straw man, my beef still was that **Bricker ** did the idiotic straw man by assuming the left would jump in the defense of the act of making the babies cry.
The important thing though is that this is no way stops the left from pointing out the now painfully obvious joke the extreme right is becoming: They consider that pieces of art that are titled “torture” and obtained by making children suffer mildly are a more worthy cause to pit than the leaders that condone real torture.
Shucks! I was willing to dismiss **Elvis **, but then you had mention that. in your first rah rah post to Bricker:
That clearly implies an agreement with the OP that all the kids were made to cry, and so it was the first kid.
No, it doesn’t imply that, since she did have make some of the kids cry. I was wondering why she couldn’t find as many “naturally” crying children as she needed to make as many photos as she wanted. Obviously, though, she needed them to cry under her controlled lighting conditions, etc. But I never once said she made the first kid cry. My second post contains the quote from her in which she explicitly states that the first kid cried on his own.
And anyone familiar with my posting history would know that I’ve taken **Bricker **to task on numerous occasions about his propensity to post gotcha type OPs littered with strawmen. I even pitted him once for doing it. The fact that I only did so here after “prodding” is inconsequential, if you’ve seen how many times I’ve been the first one to do so in other threads.
I once made my cousin Kenny eat a bug. Yeah, it was pretty cruel, and no, I wouldn’t do it again, not even if it made a stunningly useful propaganda tool against The Man Who Fell Up. If it meant that the Bushiviks would be swept out of Congress on a progressive tsunami…well…hmmmm. Kenny? Look, guy, nothing personal, but…
Really? In which post? Is that a quote? Or are you paraphrasing/backpedalling like crazy to cover your ass?
Here are your first two quotes on the subject:
Now, the second quote is excerpted from his synopsis of the creation of the project (post #41) in which he correctly notes that the child whose crying inspired the project was not induced to cry even though once the project was under way, other children were induced to cry.
The first quote is excerpted from his earlier post (post #`15) in which he describes the overall approach to the creation of the art show–a description that is clearly supported by the statements of the artist: she made (some) children cry in order to get photos to use in a political art show that targeted President Bush and his policies and supporters.
At no point does he attempt to identify any particular child who was made to cry. Some unidentified number of children were induced to cry during the creation of the project and John Mace has never said anything else. So where is your
claim coming from–aside from your desperate need to call people names?
You are amusing, (although your schtick is getting boring). Your desperate gambit of crying “Persecution!” whenever I happen to point out your errors will not intimidate me to refrain from pointing out those errors.
I’m not sure that I would wish to use the sort of tenuous grip that you have on the facts, even to fuck with them as you do.
Get over your persecution complex; you’re getting pretty shrill.
Drat, hit Submit instead of preview:
Show us any post on this thread that has limitred the discussion to only the one photo on the link in the OP.
Bricker referred to multiple toddlers.
The article to which he linked referred to multiple toddlers in both the title and the text.
At no point does anyone limity the discussion to the particular photo in the first linked page (except when an earlier poster erroneously confused that photo with the photo of the child whose cryinf inspired the project–a point that John Mace corrected by noting that the girl in the photo could not be the boy who inspired the rest of the work.
Now you appear to be simply making it up. “Get a grip”? You cannot be serious.
Your baby cries all the time?
Babies aren’t supposed to cry all the time. They’re supposed to cry if they have a reason to, like if they’re hungry or tired or have to be changed. My baby doesn’t cry all the time for no reason. What’s wrong with yours?
It’s Bush’s fault, obviously.
Regards,
Shodan
Supposing for one second that the anxiety about crying babies extends to babies that are actually suffering, and still holds true when one can’t point a blaming finger and some smug liberal awtist, I hope everyone who finds this woman to be “cruel” and a “sick monster” will start backing social legislation so that babies are properly fed, clothed, and sheltered, and have proper medical care.
There’s a decent point that has been overlooked in the followup to Bricker’s shrill, badly documented, baiting OP. And it’s this:
It is sleazy, if not downright unethical, to use children to promote a position on a social or political issue when they are too young to form a reasoned opinion on that issue.
In that sense I am critical of the photographer in this case, as well as anyone who parades young kids in demonstrations on behalf of any cause - protests against Bush, anti-abortion rallies etc.
Adults should fight their own battles.
As to John Mace, who has typically been positioning himself in this thread as the arbiter of precise debating - let’s not forget that you were the first to jump in to pat Bricker on the back and bait anti-Bush posters.
Yeah, that’s the voice of reason and propriety. :dubious:
Just for argument’s sake, I’ll assume that these babies were deliberately induced to cry in order to create anti-Bush posters.
Sure, I’ll condemn such an action. No prob.
So, Bricker, what does this prove? Some person I’m guessing none of us had ever heard of before criticized Bush in an unethical manner.
Among all the millions of Americans who are fed up with Bush, it was possible to find one who went as far as making a baby cry to express her feelings.
Well, golly bum.
We lefties are upset with Bush, Cheney, DeLay, Rumsfeld, Rice Gonzales, and people like that. You folks have to dig down to the Ward Churchills and Jill Greenbergs of the world to find people to demonize.
There should be a lesson there.
I’m not sure I agree that I deserve the criticisms leveled against me here.
What I said was:
In rereading this, ready to concede that I may have been “shrill” or “over the top” or “baiting” in some way… frankly, I don’t see it, although I remain open to being convinced.
As long as she can trash Bush, really, making toddlers cry is not a high price to pay, right? My line here was intended to summarize her view of the situation, as expressed in the interview and podcast she did. I don’t find it to be a completely unfair summary of what she said. Perhaps a FAIRER summary would have been simply that making toddlers cry to produce photographs is not a high price to pay. But since the whole idea for the series came from an accidentally-crying toddler and her concept to wed that image to despair over Bush’s influence over the direction of the country, it didn’t seem unreasonable to comment upon that underlying motivation as well.
I thus stand by the first paragraph of the OP.
The next paragraph’s first sentence said:
I did hope that her tactics receive universal condemnation on this board. To me, there seemed to be no real question: she acted cruelly, and while she wasn’t scarring these kids for life, I though - and think now - that it’s just mean, and cruel, and wrong to do. I hoped everyone that read this would say things like Jackmannii’s last post:
That’s precisely the sort of condemnation I expected from this board, and I expected it would be universal.
But, sure enough, the second phrase in that sentence was prophetic: some of the more visceral anti-Bush crowd here are supportive of this woman’s tactics. That’s clearly true. Several posters started out miscasting the project as involving only one child, or denying that it had anything to do with Bush, and several still appear to take the position that what she did is not big deal; that it’s perfectly acceptable.
So I stand by this statement as well.
Really - why, then, is my OP coming under attack? It accurately characterizes the woman, accurately condemns her, accurately expresses hope that all readers would also condemn her, and accurately predicts that some posters would give her a pass.
Are y’all mad 'cause I was right?
Or am I seriously missing the great wrong done by this OP? Please – explain it to me. I’m willing to admit error; I’ve done it here depressingly frequently. Tell me specifically what’s wrong with this OP. Don’t attack me - tell me what’s wrong with what I said.
This strikes me as at least a reaonable response, although I don’t quite … er… feel any p[articular antipathy in the tone of the condemnation offered. It’s a very academic condemnation. But I guess I’ll take what I can get.
I’m not sure there’s a lesson here. I’m upset with this woman because she choses to make toddlers cry in order to make political points. I really didn’t think reasonable people could disagree that such tactics were wrong.
I do believe, however, that reasonable people may disagree about whether Bush, Cheney, et al, are, in general, doing the right things – although undoubtedly each person on that list has individual sins that all reasonable people would condemn. But in general, it’s possible to be a reasonable person and support, in general, this administration, at least to the extent of saying, “I’d rather have them in charge than the alternative the Democrats presented.”
But I’m willing to be convinced that I’m wrong with respect to the photographer – that reasonable people CAN disagree about what she’s done.
And I suppose I’m willing to be convinced that no reasonable person can adopt support for this administration as well, although that’s a harder hill to climb, in that most posts on this board take that position and I’m not convinced yet.
The artist said the way they made the toddlers cry (when they didn’t cry on their own) was to give them candy then take it back from them. That’s hardly cruel. Toddlers cry over everything. I just took a toy car from my little boy and said “My car” and he started crying. I handed it back and he went back to smiling. It’s that easy.
Actually, there were two ways: the candy business, and, when that didn’t work, telling parents to leave the room so the toddler would cry at the sight of his or her parents leaving him or her alone.
I think any time you deliberately make a todder unhappy, for no necessary purpose, it’s cruel. I think it’s not evil, heinous, or a great wrong… but I do think it’s wrong.
You obviously disagree. So perhaps my error is that: that reasonable people CAN disagree over what this woman is doing being cruel.
Wrong, but in a pretty small way.
Yeah, it’s bad, but running a red light is a lot worse, even if no accident happens as a result.
I won’t even get into the stuff in the news.
I would indeed take the position that the time when reasonable people can defend Bush et al. on the big-picture stuff has passed, but arguing that here would turn this thread into far more of a Bush free-for-all than it already is, so I hope you don’t mind if we save that debate for another day.
I disagree, and here’s why: running a red light is a mistake. It’s not something that one sets out to do, it’s something that you do by accident, did not not wish to do, and do not plan to do again.
(Unless you meant someone who deliberately runs red lights – in which case I agree completely.)
You’ve apprently never driven in Baltimore.