Discerning the Programming - Media Shaping Your Opinions

Here is an object lesson that perfectly illustrates the previous entry. Scroll down until the caption in the picture below is covered. All you see are two distraught fathers running with their dead children. A tragedy that anyone with a conscience can imagine. Now scroll back up. Have your reactions changed?

Be HONEST.

Did you detect a twinge of sympathy more for the father on the left. Or you may find yourself subliminally thinking that the father on the right "brought it on himself". Yet nothing has changed except the words attached to essentially the same image.

There, you have just identified where your opinions have been shaped by the Zio-con control of the mass media. Now, notice the difference in reporting when sadly, children are killed on either side. The Israeli child will always be named, the families interviewed, their suffering detailed, how scared they are when the rockets come. Are there any such details given for a Palestinian child. A name? An interview with the grieving parents? No, usually it is just the number of children, because usually more than one, plus it is ALWAYS because they were unfortunate enough (or willfully stupid enough? that is always implied) to be in the "most moral military in the world" 's line of sight along with "militants".

Blue Ibis
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Victims of Israeli Collective Punishment: Gaza blackouts as fuel runs low

Aleem Maqbool
BBC News
Sun, 11 May 2008 19:25 EDT

There have been widespread electricity blackouts in the Gaza Strip after the territory's only power plant shut down.

It ran out of fuel because Israel has not allowed any fuel deliveries for the past five days, officials say.

Last year, the Israeli cabinet approved the use of fuel cuts to put pressure on Palestinian militants in the territory.

But aid agencies are warning that essential civilian services will be badly affected unless fuel shipments are permitted soon.

Gaza's power station supplies electricity to about a third of the territory's homes, with most of the rest supplied directly by Israel.

But for more than 24 hours it has been closed.

Officials there say they ran out of fuel on Saturday, and did not receive an expected shipment on Sunday.

While the fuel is paid for mainly by the European Union, as Gaza has no functioning air or sea terminals its delivery is dependent on passage through Israeli borders.

Last autumn, in response to frequent rocket attacks by Palestinian militants, the Israeli government declared Gaza a "hostile entity" and restricted fuel supplies.

The country's high court did set a minimum amount of fuel that had to be allowed in to Gaza, but aid agencies like Oxfam say that has not happened.

They warn of a serious impact on health provision if that is not rectified soon.

Israeli officials have cited security reasons for stopping fuel deliveries, but say they will resume soon.

There have been several militant attacks on crossing points in recent weeks.

The United Nations has condemned these, but, as Gaza's 1.5 million residents face frequent shortages of many everyday supplies, it has also condemned Israel's response as "unjust". [Quite the understatement]