https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018...-influence-and-supervision-department-defense A year ago we featured a detailed report by authors Tom Secker and Matthew Alford exposing just how vast the Pentagon and CIA programs for partnering with Hollywood actually are, based on some 4,000 new pages of formerly classified archived documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. The report noted at the time that "These documents for the first time demonstrate that the US government has worked behind the scenes on over 800 major movies and more than 1,000 TV titles." Reviewing the ever expanding list, the average movie watcher might be in for a shock at what films are actually included — there are the more predictable ones like Black Hawk Down, Zero Dark Thirty, and Lone Survivor; but also entirely unexpected ones that apparently needed the military-industrial complex's propaganda touch like Earnest Saves Christmas, Karate Kid 2, The Silence of the Lambs, Twister, the Iron Man movies, and more recently Pitch Perfect 3. When a Hollywood writer or producer approaches the Pentagon and asks for access to military assets to help make their film, they have to submit their script to the entertainment liaison offices for vetting. Ultimately, the man with the final say is Phil Strub, the Department of Defense’s (DOD) chief Hollywood liaison, who has been at the helm of this formerly semi-secret department going all the way back to 1989. If there are characters, action or dialogue that the DOD doesn't approve of then the film-maker has to make changes to accommodate the military’s demands. If they refuse then the Pentagon packs up its toys and goes home. To obtain full cooperation the producers have to sign contracts, called Production Assistance Agreements, which lock them into using a military-approved version of the script. David Sirota
This this this. You talk, re-talk and attack but do you really act? Do you put in motion your words and thinking cause I only see attacks and bullys of yours towards others in here. Prove you are acting upon your own thoughts and philosophies. Prove you are actually defying the system... PROVE IT!
Some things you should know before vilianizing the USA. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-death-of-stalin-russia-bans-satirical-film/ https://americanfilmmarket.com/working-in-film-in-china/ Read this. This is what happens when you use someone elses name without their express written permission. https://www.twincities.com/2018/02/...-story-docu-gets-a-jolt-from-stars-own-words/ So, to answer your question, useless to those of us who understand a little bit about civil law.
Civil law? I think this has to do with thinking, frankly... Serious thinkers have written about this long ago, of course, it's just that now we have the docs from the US gov proving all this in no uncertain terms - but hey, some are just impervious to facts and reason... And no, I was not thinking about Chomsky, although he wrote tons on US propaganda and just how vile and vicious it is, especially given it is not done overtly (like Stalin's agitprop)... but OK... some people just can't be helped...
Please do name or find one govt that does not promote propaganda about itself or to put negative views on some other govt. You state how bad the U.S. uses propaganda but is their any other civilized country that has not ever done such things? As far as the U.S. propaganda machine works, it is much more subtle that other countries, Speak the way you speak about the U.S. in China against China and you'll end up being a liver donor for some wealthy foreigner from some other country. You'll just be gone and nobody will know anything more
Oh, dear... Tonga! For a better example, ask Germans who came a generation after the WWII what they thought of their country, their people, especially the generation that preceded them, even their own parents, their attitudes, principles they espoused and see if they "did the same as any other gov"... How can someone's/some state's evil exonerate, justify another person's or state's evil? What is this, a race to the bottom of the barrel?!? I thought Humans were made as Humans (as opposed to beasts) when trying to go in the opposite direction and that is what makes us truly Human. To be at our best, not at our beastly-most... But OK, you have different "ideas"... I must say, it's amazing how lots of people choose to be tribal and spineless when it comes to "their own". Where I come from there is a similar effort by the right, of revisionism and blind adherence to "authority", because it's "our own" - but mercifully about a third of the population is not awfully happy to go along with this. In fact, some of these countries are depopulating, rather than being universally "over the Moon with their country" and signing the bianco cheques to their govs to do their worst... In America, I am happy to report, there are also loads of people who are also resisting, so your point is - what exactly?!? That you are happy to go along with being brainless and spineless and proud to be one? No, not all the world is the same as an average Jo Amurica and the US gov s/he is "happy with". If we are going to put it into historical etc. context, then we must say not all the states and peoples have a superiority complex, imperial and colonial strategies, not all states are equally orientated towards militarism, spreading their "way of living" to the rest of the world. Back to school for you and anyone around the world who "feels like you"!
John, Frank comes after the Frankfurt School, the "Authoritarian personality" studies and their critique of the "entertainment and dream industry" etc. etc. http://www.ajcarchives.org/main.php?GroupingId=6490 See this, for instance:
To be a bit more descriptive, these are some of the traits they were looking for as preconditions to Fascism/authoritarian society: https://www.psychologistworld.com/influence-personality/authoritarian-personality Blind allegiance to conventional beliefs about right and wrong Respect for submission to acknowledged authority Belief in aggression toward those who do not subscribe to conventional thinking, or who are different A negative view of people in general - i.e. the belief that people would all lie, cheat or steal if given the opportunity A need for strong leadership which displays uncompromising power A belief in simple answers and polemics - i.e. The media controls us all or The source of all our problems is the loss of morals these days. Resistance to creative, dangerous ideas. A black and white worldview. A tendency to project one's own feelings of inadequacy, rage and fear onto a scapegoated group A preoccupation with violence and sex https://solidarity-us.org/atc/187/p4900/ According to Adorno et al, if you strongly agreed with the following statements, you might not be a fascist right now, but you would be the kind of person who would probably fall for a fascist demagogue when one came calling: • There is too much emphasis in college on intellectual and theoretical topics, not enough emphasis on practical matters and on the homely virtues of living. • Homosexuality is a particularly rotten form of delinquency and ought to be severely punished. • Human nature being what it is, there will always be war and conflict. • There are some things too intimate or personal to talk about even with one’s closest friends. • There are some activities so flagrantly un-American that, when responsible officials won’t take the proper steps, the wide-awake citizen should take the law into his own hands. • No insult to our honor should ever go unpunished. • Every person should have a deep faith in some supernatural force higher than himself to which he gives total allegiance and whose decisions he does not question. • Too many people today are living in an unnatural, soft way; we should return to the fundamentals, to a more red-blooded, active way of life. Now, one could easily go into Hollywood products and read-out many of those characteristics in what is being sold as "natural order of things"... But rather than this being "Modernity" or "Post-Modernity" epitomised, I would argue that what is being paddled in many of such products is actually "Pre-Modernity", i.e. that this is falling to a pre-Enlightenment era and thus it is way more insidious, indeed a dangerous stage of development, given the fact that these products are aimed at the very youngest in our society, who can not critically absorb any of this. Rather, they are prepared for uncritical attitude to authority from the youngest age in many ways... Hence the thread...
The concept of "engineering consent" was originally described Edward S. Bernays in his book "Propaganda", published in 1928. From the book: “The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.” “Universal literacy was supposed to educate the common man to control his environment. Once he could read and write he would have a mind fit to rule. So ran the democratic doctrine. But instead of a mind, universal literacy has given him rubber stamps, rubber stamps inked with advertising slogans, with editorials, with published scientific data, with the trivialities of the tabloids and the platitudes of history, but quite innocent of original thought. Each man's rubber stamps are the duplicates of millions of others, so that when those millions are exposed to the same stimuli, all receive identical imprints. It may seem an exaggeration to say that the American public gets most of its ideas in this wholesale fashion. The mechanism by which ideas are disseminated on a large scale is propaganda, in the broad sense of an organized effort to spread a particular belief or doctrine.” "People are rarely aware of the reasons which motivate their actions." Shortly after publishing this book, he was hired by William S. Paley, who was the founder of the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS). This was prior to television broadcasting, when CBS was still a network of radio stations. Imagine that.
"People are rarely aware of the reasons which motivate their actions." Yes, Freudian concept. Or even Hegelian, if one wants to nitpick... "Manufacturing consent" is subsequently widely publicised by Chomsky...
@gorski - Not surprising that he uses a Freudian concept to describe peoples' motivations, since Edward S. Bernays was the nephew of Sigmund Freud. In my opinion, the difference between the two men was that Sigmund Freud sought to analyze and influence the mind of the individual, where his nephew attempted to go a step beyond that, trying to understand and control the minds of a society or a nation.