Anti-Anti-War Protester Heckling Anti-War Protesters

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The limit of silliness indoctrination.Sorry, but I can't see it different.

A bit of explanation. He was the lone heckler across the street from an anti-war protest. I leave the interpretation to the viewer.

Curious, from long years ago I was thinking deeply time after time why americans has such an obsession with their flag taking shots of it time after time too. As far as I can see there aren't another peoples in the whole world doing that. At last, your right is your right of course, but when we talk about photography in order to discuss on artistic values or aesthetic concepts then we must start looking for a subject, an interesting one. And flags aren't an interesting one, doesn't matter which country is and doesn't matter the good or bad taste of the composition. Please, forgive me about that (and my horrible english too!!). But the deep mistery about americans, flags, and photography still being there waiting for an answer, at least for me. I hope not offend to no one, and if I did then forgive me again, it is not my intention.

This is only my observation of his statement. A photograph is only a frame. Americans are actually very conflicted about their flag. If you see it often in their photograph it is because they are trying to understand their relationship with it. The photograph does not wave the flag, it only displays it.

 

Again, I leave the interpretation to the viewer.

Sorry Edward, but I must disagree with you, a photograph is not just a frame (are books just paper?), a photograph is mostly an interpretation of the reality loaded with more or less strong emotions , and sometimes (just sometimes) a subjective document of the reality.

 

On the other hand, I heard and I saw in your country (I've been at the States four or five times) your inner conflicts because some contradictions are outcropping from the very heart of your society.

 

But my comment is aiming to another point. I am talking about your obsession with your flag, painting it, sticking it, waving it in every things possibles, from your planes to your underwears, crossing for your buildings, cups, tables, cars, shirts, hats, and the list still too long. In the particular case of PN you will appreciate a lot of national flags photographs coming out exclusively from... american photographers, and this is my point. Intriguing, curious fact.

 

My question is posted in order to make a comment about this, just this. But be careful please, because I am not judging you, I am not saying "good" or "bad". Just a question for a mystery, a social one if you do prefer. If I must say something close to a critique to it then I do it from the exclusively photographic point of view.

I think that flags or national symbols (doesn't matter the national origins) in photographs aren't artistic facts, but politics statements diminishing the aesthetics and conceptual value in sites as PN or other places with artistic aspirations, where those facts perhaps shouldn't be as a "leit motiv".

At all, thanks a lot for your time and your answers.

I agree with Edward on this one. This is a great photograph, worthy of a 7/7 because it presents the subject in the height of almost orgiastic passion making a statement that, though you may disagree, he appears to hold very deeply and sincerely. You can complain about his message--as many have--but there is no denying that the expression appears pure and deeply felt, and the photographer has done a wonderful job of capturing.

 

As for the subject, he appears from his age to be a relic of Vietnam, and the last few of a dying breed. His t-shirt refers to Jane Fonda's visit to Hanoi, one of the more polarizing moments in America's VERY LONG history of making war on poor defenseless peoples around the world, a history that continues today in the DAILY mass murder of generally defenseless Iraqi villagers. One may share the revulsion in this dubious and uniquely American vision of the world--again, most of the world does--but this gentleman, in all his cartoonish sincerity--is nothing more than a product of that well-known Orwellian American media, where truth is an afterthought. To him, the only thing that exists outside the United States of America are tiny little beings who DESERVE his sneering down at them from the brow of his Chinese-made high caliber automatic rife, and their lot is to flee before him as he descends upon them much like cockroaches scatter in the wake of the latest bug spray. That they would stop and fight back is something entirely beyond his VERY LIMITED worldview, drummed into him by repeated trips to the movies where the likes of James Cagney, John Wayne, Lee Marvin, Kirk Douglass, Gary Cooper, and Cary Grant had been mowing them down to huge ecstatic applause from the gallery for decades.

 

So, when the Vietnamese DID fight back, and at a great human cost to them, managed to repulse the American invasion of THEIR country, to this man and his mates, it was not simply the triumph of numbers, and all the technical advantages that comes from fighting at home, but a sure sign that he was sabotaged, and one scapegoat were developed in his mind to justify this inexplicable--to him--turn of events. This Judas Iscariot, of course, was Jane Fonda.

An interesting (and funny) photo. Let us not forget that it is categorized as news/journalism, where we should expect to see photos of political and patriotic themes.

I feel it is a great capture of the moment. I am an American and I do love this country despite its many various social problems. I lived most of my life in a part of America where this guy would absolutely HATE the average citizen... northern California... lots of hippies and pot growers and war protesters. He'd likely make poor assumtions about my character just for having lived where I did and having the friends I do. Yet I'd bet that if I were to sit down with this fellow and talk about non-political subjects, we'd probably have a good conversation about common interests... food, hobbies etc. I'm an American who's not extreme to either side... not a flag-waver or a protester. I just go to my (legitimate) job, pay my taxes and live my life. I hate reading posts where others in the world lump all Americans together as if we were all the same. Every person in the world is an individual and cannot be blamed for where they were born, who their parents were, etc.

Carlos has a good point that our consumerism 'spams' the flag on everything. A countries flag should be just that... a flag to be flown on a pole. Otherwise it tends lose its meaning and becomes a decoration more than anything.

There was a time in this country when people like the guy in the picture would have been beaten up for desecrating the flag by wearing it as clothing (especially underwear, hehe). Forty years ago he probably would have contributed to such a beating. Now he's the one desecrating the flag while simultaneously waving it proudly.

I love the irony.

One final note just to confuse the issue. The man in the picture is NOT an American. He is from Kosovo, a veteran of the Kosovo resistance, and he came here to show his "support" for the US. No joke.

 

To editorialize for a moment, I suspect that for him the US army will always be liberators, and those whom he sees as opponents of it are enemies of liberty.

Your last little rejoinder was NOT meant to "confuse" the issue, but to try to frame the discussion, and in so doing, you betray your agenda, which calls into question many, many things about this picture.

 

 

When I rated it 7/7, I assumed it was an unposed pic, that you were driving along the road and came across this guy and snapped the pic, perhaps from out the window of a car. That is generally how these types of pictures are taken.

 

Your having some minute and intimate details about the guy--he being from Kossovo, and being here to "lend support" to the US soldiers--70% of whom oppose our current TWO imperial wars, and ALL of whose opinions are sanitized from the state run US media--and how, to him, US soldiers will ALWAYS be "liberators" gives me a stinking suspicion that this picture was posed and deliberately posted to advance a very pro-war agenda. Such minute biographical information about someone as eccentric as this fellow, and certainly not a native English speaker, simply sounds too improbable to have been acquired by chance.

 

 

Secondly, his t-shirt message about Jane Fonda simply becomes nonesensical, if in fact he fought for the Kossovo Liberation army, since this was a conflict that took place 30 years after Fonda's visit to Hanoi. Besides, Fonda has been so decidedly pro-war for at least three decades that she is simply a false prophet for the anti-war crowd. This guy may not know that, but it is more probable he doesn't know of Fonda at all.

 

 

All these factors lower this picture in my eyes from legitimate journalism--look at the pictures of John Gaylon--to the realm of cheap propaganda, and certainly worth the 3/3s others much sharper than me gave it. But, I will let my rating stand because that was what I felt at the time I gave it.

The was an un-posed pic. I learned he was from Kosovo not from him, but from the anti-war protesters across the street. Seems they had been talking to him, trying to figure out what he was all about. Many of the protesters talked about him very respectfully. Sometimes life just doesn't fit into any sort of pre-conception.

 

And, indeed, I WAS driving along, looking for a church that I wanted to photograph, when I saw him.

 

Well, I might as well stop being objective and tell you my own thoughts on the matter. I 100% disagree with his politics but, as Voltaire said, I would defend with my life his right to say them. This was in Litchfield CT, about as blue a state and town as you can find. Quite a few people had stopped to stare at him, and no small number were laughing at him (but none of the protesters) yet he continued in his Quixotic display. I do have to admire that. There is a certain bravery in being willing to embarrass yourself totally for something you believe in.

 

I agreed 100% with the protesters, but since they were protesting in a blue town in a blue state, they were all preaching to the converted. Without the heckler it would have taken no courage at all on their part. I think that's why they liked the guy, he at least gave their protest a symbolic importance.

 

Well, that's my two cents. This was a once-in-a-blue-moon picture, out of nowhere everything came together. I'm also finding the responses here very interesting. As I said, in real life pre-conceptions just don't fit things.