Peace, Propaganda & The Promised Land

Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land provides a striking comparison of U.S. and international media coverage of the crisis in the Middle East, zeroing in on how structural distortions in U.S. coverage have reinforced false perceptions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This pivotal documentary exposes how the foreign policy interests of American political elites--oil, and a need to have a secure military base in the region, among others--work in combination with Israeli public relations strategies to exercise a powerful influence over how news from the region is reported. Through the voices of scholars, media critics, peace activists, religious figures, and Middle East experts, Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land carefully analyzes and explains how--through the use of language, framing and context--the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza remains hidden in the news media, and Israeli colonization of the occupied terrorities appears to be a defensive move rather than an offensive one. The documentary also explores the ways that U.S. journalists, for reasons ranging from intimidation to a lack of thorough investigation, have become complicit in carrying out Israel's PR campaign. At its core, the documentary raises questions about the ethics and role of journalism, and the relationship between media and politics.

Spinnin Round The Earth

While spinning the globe around, using Google Earth, I start to ponder the big questions. This world, this universe, this galaxy is so vast, so huge, so wide.. While our little Earth keeps spinning around, brand new solar systems are being created, and dying off, and colliding with other intergalactic bits of matter. As I'm watching the world spin on my computer screen, I keep thinking of the grandeous size of the Earth. Humans are such an insignificant part of this little planet. We've grown and multiplied times a trillion, yet the Earth is still on it's rotating course, still floating in space, orbiting god knows what.

The question this begs is, why then do we believe the center of the universe is no further than 2 feet in circumference around ourselves? Ourselves being each individual person. This brings me to stop thinking so much about myself, and start wondering about the world at large. Why does the Middle East think that their little corner of the world... their small, minute pocket of existance, is the center of all that is living, all that is holy, and all that is important in life? Why, if there is so much land on this Earth to have, do they have to keep fighting about a piece of land that is basically a pin-point in the meaning of space?

I suppose, to the small-shaped human, their worlds don't extend any further than arms reach and what those arms can obtain. Material things, emotional things, and everything in between those things. But as I sit here watching the world spin round on my desktop of my computer, I think that people could be thinking about a lot more. We aren't white, we aren't black, we aren't tan, we aren't yellow, we aren't gray, we aren't green, we aren't blue, we aren't anything. We are life organisms, we are all citizens of Earth. We all belong to the same zip code even though our little parts of the world each see their own sunset and sunrise, each day, 365 full-rotations out of the one full rotation around the sun. We still belong to the Earth. The Earth does not belong to us. Hard to grasp, isn't it?

My thoughts lead me to think that no one really cares. They'll still believe that New York City is basically a world within itself, Tokyo will convince the world it is its own galaxy, and the Middle East will continue to think that shedding blood will help control their tiny borders, in their infinitely small pieces of occupied land.

This world is too large to think about small things like getting up everyday and doing the same thing. Going to the same job, seeing the same people, eating the same food, thinking the same thoughts.

I want out. I want to be boosted into the hemisphere, out into the reaches of space... to finally be comforted by the silence that the air of nothing provides. By then, I'm sure that space would have caused me to asphyxiate and therefore die. But it would be the greatest 30 seconds of my life.

See for yourself > Google Earth