Hollywood and the Government

This week the topics have been centered around the influence Hollywood has at controlling what the public thinks through the movies they release. Today, we will get much deeper into the how and why they make the movies they do.

Throughout history, propaganda is used to influence the public on what to think, especially during times of war. No one likes war except the military. Because war is used so often by governments to accomplish many of their objectives that probably would not be possible otherwise, news stories (and movies) are engineered to say what they want them to say, to justify their actions.

Before we look at the influence of Hollywood's propaganda in war, let's examine some basic psychological perspectives. Sigmund Freud introduced the idea that humans were in a struggle with their animalistic natures and if this goes unchecked then people will run around naked destroying things and society will fall apart. This idea was widely accepted especially in the upper classes thus confirming of the fear that Democracy left unchecked could destroy their society. If the people could not be trusted to control their basic animalistic nature, then how would they know how to vote?

So now comes along Freud's nephew, Edward Bernays. Propaganda during war was nothing new, but Bernays saw an opportunity to use the unconscious desires of humans to manipulate the masses in times of peace also. Bernays believed that by fulfilling the unconscious desires of people would change a potentially unruly population into a controlled docile one. Bernays invented the much used term “public relations", and used it to turn the population of the United States into consumers.

Before Bernays worked his magic, the American population only bought goods according to their needs. It was practically unheard of to buy something for any other reason. Bernays made it acceptable to make a purchase based on desires. Using Hollywood through product placement, and the media, he changed the population into an easily placated self-absorbed group where before they were actively participating. Over the years, this has changed Democracy from a function of the entire society into less than a passing diversion.

Bernays, being approached by the tobacco company, effectively double their customers with one wave of his wand. He had asked a few women to light up after a march in front of the press and two prominent actresses were instructed to smoke and almost overnight erased the stigma of women smoking. After this victory and his ideas tested and proven, Bernays was ready to move onto bigger things. He was involved in all sorts of advertising and promotion from the automobile industry to governmental agencies that needed public support.

Although there have been many attempts to oppose these methods as unethical, they have gone largely unopposed. As long as industry is making money and politicians are passing the laws they are pushing for the industry, they will continue to go unopposed. This is pure propaganda and is intended to be a psychological attack at the essence of humanity to evoke a non-response to governmental malfeasance and other societal issues as well as to evoke a gluttonous consumer based society. If that seems to sum up much of how the world seems to consider most Americans, at least we can now tell that it is not by accident.

Let's take a look at several popular movies over the last 20 years to prove the point on how much we are influenced by deceptive propaganda. During the filming of Black Hawk Down, the Pentagon persuaded its producers to change the name of Army Ranger John Stebbins, portrayed by Ewan McGregor, because the true-life "patriot" had been convicted to a 30-year prison term for the sexual assault of a 12-year-old girl. In the movie, "John Grimes" stands in for pedophile Stebbins. Despite this and numerous other revisions to the record of the famed Somali military fiasco, Black Hawk Down met with widespread acclaim. The film's Washington premiere was attended by Vice President Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Oliver North and a division of generals. It grossed $75.5-million in its first three weeks.

Actor Tom Cruise met with CIA officials to discuss ways of polishing the agency's image in the Mission: Impossible 3. In 1999, the Central Intelligence Agency opened its headquarters to Showtime and Paramount for the making of In the Company of Spies. The program aired on Showtime. To celebrate the completion of this collaborative project, the CIA's George Tenet invited everyone involved to a private screening at CIA headquarters in Langley. "Never," noted the Washington Post, "has the CIA so fully embraced a movie."

This is an agency, mind you, with two faces: an international Gestapo that has trained death squads around the globe, assassinated a score of foreign leaders, plotted coups, conducted illicit human experimentation, peddled LSD and heroin and cocaine, sprayed disease on Cuban crops, dragged the country into Vietnam, created bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, etc.

Also consider the very popular Jason Bourne trilogy starring Matt Damon as the successful rouge superspy. Then, there is the 'true' story of Flight 93 that supposedly crashed in Shanksville, Pennslyvania on 9/11. You get a very different version of this flight on the LooseChange911 movie that I mentioned once before in this blog. This movie was made by two students, not Hollywood or the government.

Just for comparison purposes, watch the Flight 93 movie that Hollywood released to memorialize the passengers that overcame the hijackers. Then watch the other version of Flight 93 on the LooseChange911 movie. See which version you believe.

To see this movie, go to the following link www.loose-change-911.com/loose-change-3.html

Sanitizing war has always been the primary aim of the patriotizing media. The War on Terror is no exception. When the bombs began to fall in Afghanistan and Iraq, killing and mutilating innocent civilians, a policy of suppressing the body count (or "propaganda") was adopted by Donald "Precision Bombing" Rumsfeld and the government's "information warriors."

The proliferation of pro-American films and television programs might be described as a cynical mind control operation, a psyop (psychological operation). John Rendon, a "strategic communications" firm hired by the Pentagon (at $100,000 a month) in the war on terrorism, describes himself as "an information warrior and a perception manager."

In November 2001, senior White House advisor Karl Rove and several dozen studio executives met in Beverly Hills to discuss the war on terrorism. The thoughtful movie moguls represented CBS, HBO, MGM, Showtime, Dreamworks, Viacom and other multinational cartel dream factories. The New York Times assured, "several executives emphasized ... that they were not interested in making propaganda films." But the truth is, the nation's political and entertainment capitals had been on intimate terms for decades when the studio moguls issued their denials.

"For many years," Canadian media critic Doug Saunders writes, "Hollywood's most prominent products, its major studio films and TV series, have been almost indistinguishable from government-funded propaganda. With rare exceptions, whenever men in uniform appear on-screen, Hollywood has been singing Washington's song from the beginning. ... If Bush were to erect a soundstage on the White House lawn, he could not do a better job getting the official line across than movies and TV shows have been doing for years."

Do you still believe that the government does not influence Hollywood? We will ultimately pay for believing the lies fed to us. Wake up America! As always, the choice is yours.

"Then they will call to me but I will not answer;
they will look for me but will not find me.

Since they hated knowledge
and did not choose to fear the LORD,

since they would not accept my advice
and spurned my rebuke,

they will eat the fruit of their ways
and be filled with the fruit of their schemes.

For the waywardness of the simple will kill them,
and the complacency of fools will destroy them;

but whoever listens to me will live in safety
and be at ease, without fear of harm." Proverbs 1:28-33 (NIV)

If you have comments or questions, please feel free to contact me at the address below.
Email: DeltaInspire@panama-vo.com