Hollywood Propaganda

In the television show "Homeland," Mandy Patinkin plays Saul Berenson, the head of CIA operations in Europe. In the January 29, 2017 episode, "The Covenant," Berenson goes to visit his sister, who lives in a Jewish, West Bank community. (Berenson and his sister are Jews.) The sister had moved with her now deceased husband from Indiana to Israel. She complained to her brother Saul that he should have tried to be more understanding of her husband.

Saul: "There's no bending with a fanatic." Sister: "Moshe (the husband) made me proud to be a Jew." Saul: "He turned you against your family. He brought you to live in a place that's not yours. Where you don't belong." Sister: "Please, Saul, let's not do this." Saul: "Haven't you driven enough people from their homes already? Bulldozed their villages. Seized their property under laws they had no part in making."

Sister: "This land was promised to Avraham (Abraham)." Saul: "Promised? A covenant with G-d made thousands of years ago. Doesn't that strike you as a form of insanity?" Sister: "You don't understand Saul. You never have. I love the life that G-d has given me." Saul: "How can you love making enemies? How can you love knowing that your very presence here makes peace less possible?" Sister: "I have a family, a community, a life filled with faith and purpose. Saul, what do you have?"

So there you have it. In a rather short scene, we get to hear that Israel has no right to any land in the West Bank, that Jews are the reason there is no peace between Israel and the Palestinians, and, of course, no belief in the Jews' biblical/historical ties to the land. All the left-wing positions regarding that part of the Middle East.

In yet another scene in the same episode, we see Saul interrogating a money man for the Iranian government. He claims to have used much of the millions to which he had access as a down payment for the purchase of the latest Russian anti-ballistic missile system. He then added this: "Something you should know. Iran doesn't want a nuclear weapon. Never did...Three decades of sanctions are killing us. We had to find a way to get them lifted. So we started spinning centrifuges. That got some attention. So we start some more - even more attention. In the end, all we had to do was negotiate away a program we never wanted in the first place."

While Saul does not seem to believe the man, the point was made. The Iranians really do not want nukes. So, I guess there is little point in enacting further sanctions; and certainly no point in ever using military force. You got that, Trump? Don't create another Iraq. At least, that's the message.

I get the fact that this is TV. It's fictional. But here, the subject matter addressed some major real world issues of our time. So, I think it is fair to ask - how many people are sucked into this left-wing propaganda, as if it is the truth? At the end of each day my wife and I usually watch a one hour drama. There are many instances where I will pause a show and point out yet another, often subtle, gratuitous left-wing talking point. These shows often act as vehicles for allowing the expression of left-wing views. The same biases can be seen on a daily basis in the mainstream media; and can be heard regularly from left-wing professors at our colleges and universities. No one should underestimate the power of propaganda. No one should underestimate the left's ability to sway people's views by repeating the same thing over and over - especially given their ability to communicate those views in so many different forums.