MTV Banned Music Video - Faithless: Bomb

YouTube: Faithless - Bomb

MTV banned this video. They didn't want to disturb anyone. Keep sleeping people.
The U.S. economy is based upon war. Never ending war is not something you want people to question.

Meanwhile people in Europe can watch this video on The Music Factory - which is owned by MTV, but the American people would be too disturbed by the images, and thoughts presented.
.
.

YouTube: Faithless - Bomb (acoustic)

The video is too important to be banned by corporate MTV because it confronts the viewer with images which are thought provoking. The U.S. government, and the complicit main stream media have done everything they could to hide the realities, and consequences of war. It seems that lies aren't good enough - squelching the truth is needed too.

In the words of the video director, “I didn’t see the video as particularly political, pro war, or anti war. It’s actually a representation of where we are all at right now. War infects all our lives; recently it feels that this has increasingly become ‘our way of life’".

In nations around the world the U.S. occupation of Iraq is deplored, even by our allies. Despite the fact that 80% of the population of the U.S. wants our troops brought home there they will remain.

Problems With Video - But MTV Should Not Have Banned It


Family Runs on Beach With Nuclear Bomb Blast In Background

The video is very style heavy, and context poor, but what should we expect from a video made for a Euro-Dance Band? Still there is a measure of responsibility needed here. We see a nuclear bomb blowing up while a white bread family which I'm guessing represents an average American family jogs along the beach holding hands. The travel advertisement image suddenly morphs into a nuclear nightmare. That's a cold war image - something several generations of Americans, Europeans learned to deal with.

There are several scenes of what appear to be U.S. Military raids taken from scenes of the Iraq occupation. Each scene quickly morphs so that as soldiers launch into the raid they end up attacking Western looking civilians instead. The technique is well done, and accomplishes its desired affect. There is a point being made - but what?


Suburban Neighborhood Scene Morphs Into Deadly Iraq War Scene

I believe I understand the director's intent. We are supposed to ask, how would we feel if the Iraq occupation were taking place all around us, here in the West? We are supposed to walk for a moment, even if only virtually, in the shoes of the Iraqi people.


MTV - Where Is The Controversy?

There are two scenes I found disturbing. At the end of the video we see soldiers, presumably Americans, entering into a elementary school with weapons drawn. A little school boy trys to shield other little children from their impending slaughter. The director deliberately shoots the soldiers images below their shoulders, not specifically identifying them as U.S. soldiers, but it is easy to see who the finger is being pointed at throughout the video.

I'm not certain what the director is trying to say in that scene. U.S. soldiers aren't attacking schools filled with little children in Iraq. Some schools had been taken over by those fighting U.S. troops early in the war, but there were no classes being held then.

Is the scene symbolic of the attack of innocence by war in general, or is it a specific indictment of the U.S.? I'm troubled that many of those watching won't understand the deeper intent, and will instead come away believing that U.S. troops have attacked children in their schools. The reality of war is horrible enough, why portray atrocities which have not happened? The scene is desperately over the top.

The second scene which I find troubling comes earlier in the video. It is a most ingenious scene which shows a coffin draped with an American flag being walked off a military transport plane. The scene' takes place on a public beach with families, and children frolicking about. In this surrealistic scene we see the coffin being lowed by members of a military honor guard into a freshly dug grave in the sand. The grave is presumably in the same spot that a little child had been playing with toy soldiers earlier in the video. Stunned children watch the burial in depressed silence.


Children Play On A Beach Which Morphs Into A Cemetery


Is the scene's powerful juxtaposition of carefree life at a beach with the taboo and officially censored images of a military funeral too horrible of a contrast for the public to handle? I think not. Denying the consequences of war is the whole point of the video, and it was probably this scene which was used by MTV to ban it. It is the anti-war message which is being banned by MTV.

We have allowed our government, and the corrupt corporate main stream media to filter out images which show us the final consequences of war - death, and suffering, yet Americans are adept at handling images of graphic violence from an early age. Certainly MTV didn't ban the video because it felt the images were too violent - it had to be a political decision. MTV corporate supports the war in Iraq - there's no denying this.


Video's Final Scene Shows A Child's Toy Car Reverse Exploding

In the meantime the video remains banned at MTV, and the Iraq occupation continues.
.
.
Faithless - Bomb

We think we're heroes, we think we're kings
We plan all kinds of fabulous things
Oh look how great we have become

Key in the door, the moment I've been longing for
Before my bag hit the floor
My adorable children rush up screaming for a kiss
And a story they're a gift to this world
My only claim to glory
I surely never knew sweeter days
Blows my mind like munitions
I'm amazed

So much heaven, so much hell
So much love, so much pain
So much more than I thought this world could ever contain
So much war, so much soul
One mans loss, another mans gold
So much more than I thought this world can ever hold

We're just children, we're just dust
We are small and we are lost
And we're nothing, nothing at all

One bomb, the whole block gone
Can't find me children and dust covers the sun
Everywhere is noise, panic and confusion
But to some another fun day in Babylon
I'm gonna bury my wife and dig up my gun
My life is done so now I got to kill someone

So much heaven, so much hell
So much love, so much pain
So much more than I thought this world could ever contain
So much war, so much soul
Moments lost, moments go
So much more than I thought this world could ever hold

So much more than I thought this world could ever hold
So much more than I thought this world could ever hold

So much heaven, so much hell
So much love, so much pain
So much more than I thought this world could ever contain
So much war, so much soul
Moments lost, moments go
So much more than I thought this world could ever hold