Turns out the camera is a very effective anti-fascism tool

[Andrew - EOSHD]

Unusually, Petapixel and DPReview have found a backbone and posted some interesting stuff in relation to the Minneapolis protests.

https://www.dpreview.com/interviews/6336791578/john-abernathy-pierre-lavie-protest-photographers-ice-minneapolis-thrown-leica

Imagine for a moment if smartphones and this Leica didn't exist.

All we'd have to go on is the lies coming out of the federal government and they'd easily be able to smear the dead and do the big cover-up operation they're attempting to do now.

But the images all around social media tell a different narrative.

And I for one commend the bravery of the folk on the streets with their cameras.

The truth is constantly being debased and it really took the biscuit last week with Trump's denial of British and NATO troops service in the Gulf War, Iraq War and Afghanistan. They were on the front lines and gave their lives for it.

To anyone still thinking of voting Reform in the UK, or for those who voted for Trump at any point, surely your eyes are not still CLOSED after what you are seeing in recent weeks? If yours are, I'd be fascinated to know why.

[fuzzynormal]

I wish video documentation would stop it.  But if you're here you'd kind of know it's not gonna stem the tide in my nation.  Shame and reality are irrelevant now; doesn't move the needle.  As an American it's pretty easy to see that the collapse of our ideals post WWII society is inevitable.  The capitalists want it and they have the power, they control the narratives.  And the narratives don't offer rationality--they just offer ideological excuses.   Not exactly sure why the powerful want this.  Maybe they're just cruel people?  Maybe they know climate change is coming and will cause crisis so they need to lock things down with fascism to have societal control while covering their asses(ts)?  I don't know.  I do know I'm sad.  I would've rather not lived through this.

[Andrew - EOSHD]

1 minute ago, fuzzynormal said:

I wish video documentation would stop it.

I'm more optimistic than you on this front.

[fuzzynormal]

2 minutes ago, Andrew - EOSHD said:

I'm more optimistic than you on this front.

I want to be wrong...but my own family...man.  It's not good.

[Snowfun]

And, unfortunately, it is becoming too easy to blame AI for the creation of material we don't like. 

[Ilkka Nissila]

9 hours ago, fuzzynormal said:

I wish video documentation would stop it.  But if you're here you'd kind of know it's not gonna stem the tide in my nation.  Shame and reality are irrelevant now; doesn't move the needle.  As an American it's pretty easy to see that the collapse of our ideals post WWII society is inevitable.  The capitalists want it and they have the power, they control the narratives.  And the narratives don't offer rationality--they just offer ideological excuses.   Not exactly sure why the powerful want this.  Maybe they're just cruel people?  Maybe they know climate change is coming and will cause crisis so they need to lock things down with fascism to have societal control while covering their asses(ts)?  I don't know.  I do know I'm sad.  I would've rather not lived through this.

Fueling hatred and chaos allows ordinary people's attention to be redirected from the fact that ever larger part of the money goes to the super-rich, and by having the working class and regular people fight with each other they cannot organize and demand fair wages and working conditions, and solutions to regular people's problems. The billionaires just want all the money to themselves and they want to bypass democracy using technological means. And now they have an autocrat who does their bidding. Yes, they are cruel people. They behave like they wanted to use up all the planet's resources before all things end (which they will not see in this current generation of billionaires, but their children or grandchildren might). 

 

However, only a part of the population believes the lies. Better education accessible to everyone is the solution. In Europe, education is a lot more egalitarian.

[Andrew - EOSHD]

Look at the difference between societies with widespread smartphone camera use and functional internet, compared to somewhere like Iran where over the last few weeks 12,000 citizens, women, young men, murdered by the regime but hardly any images or footage coming out = world ignorance. I barely saw any news coverage at all.

If the only purpose of the camera is to create shock and outrage, that's one thing. More useful, is it keeps a watchful eye on what the authorities get up to and when they lie it's harder for them to pass off their bullshit.

Also the Leica M10 is a documentary camera that just so happens to also create stylish art, rather than the hyper clear smartphone look, so the stuff that produces is fit for the history books - which cherry pick the most iconic images.

Of course number one objective must be to stay safe but if you have a chance to open your eyes and look around in these historic times, never pass it up.

[Ilkka Nissila]

2 hours ago, Andrew - EOSHD said:

Look at the difference between societies with widespread smartphone camera use and functional internet, compared to somewhere like Iran where over the last few weeks 12,000 citizens, women, young men, murdered by the regime but hardly any images or footage coming out = world ignorance. I barely saw any news coverage at all.

There is not that much in terms of news coverage from Iran in European and North American media even in normal times let alone when there are demonstrations and the regime is trying to subdue them (and cut off internet connections). I would guess that the government of Iran probably doesn't especially welcome journalists from the West and the European and North American populations are used to not seeing much coverage from that area, apart from the news about major war, missiles flying etc. We tend to want to see news from areas which are close to us geographically and similar to ours so we can understand and feel some closeness to it. There isn't that much news from South America or Australia, either. I would, to be honest, be happy to see fewer news from the USA and have the media focus on our own region and ignore Trump's latest deeds. But it seems that our media get much of their material from the US sources and so this is constantly coming up. 

 

What would be good, of course, is to have correspondents living in different parts of the world and living among the people there are really report what is happening from the perspective of the people living there. This includes Iran. But I suppose it's expensive to arrange and there are risks, if they don't like what you've been reporting. 

[mtol]

There's an interesting conversation to be had about the limitations of images to create positive change in the world, but there's also a conversation to be had about the technical limitations of our gear. What gear is really war-ready?

I've long thought that camera manufacturers need to implement some kind of in-camera encryption for serious documentary work. Clearly, filming events like these is crucial. But what happens when your gear is seized in a politically sensitive context? What happens when a fascist state can use high resolution images that you capture to criminalize the people you're documenting, to find and hunt down other witnesses? The camera can be a liability too.

And what could be done to upload footage automatically, or a proxy, in the event that the seized gear never comes back? Other than everyone streaming everything live all the time, which carries its own risk.

We've seen now footage from people who were arrested or detained - which, I think, is fortunate but far from a certainty going forward. We're still missing a piece of the puzzle - not that ICE isn't clearly guilty of murder here - but they seized Pretti's phone, and now the fascists are the only ones to decide if that footage will be seen.

[newfoundmass]

This is how they act knowing cameras are on them, filming every thing they do, and with witnesses.

 

Imagine what they are doing when there aren't any cameras fixed on them or people watching. What horrors are they inflicting on the people they've locked up?

 

There are still people here in the US who support this. Those are people we'll never be able to get through. I wan't to think it will get better, but I fear it will need to get a lot worse before that happens.

[sanveer]

Apparently the UK has the strongest censorship for online posts. As bad the present US admin for in-person free speech. It apparently had the highest arrests per thousand in the world. 

[Ilkka Nissila]

59 minutes ago, sanveer said:

Apparently the UK has the strongest censorship for online posts. As bad the present US admin for in-person free speech. It apparently had the highest arrests per thousand in the world. 

Good! But still there is hate speech published daily online on some platforms. Hopefully European countries soon shut those sites down before someone like Adolf or Nigel or Josif or Donald gets elected here alao and does their worst.