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Pentagon and CIA shaped thousands of Hollywood movies into effective propaganda

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Re: Pentagon and CIA shaped thousands of Hollywood movies into effective propaganda

#441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "West" was ... not exactly on one side of WWII. It had, after all, factions on all sides of WWII. It is not the "West" as a whole that tells that myth.

Exactly, the biggest “bad guys” nations are now the core west nations: Germany, Japan, Italy. While their victims China, Russia and others are villified. It’s about manufacturing consent and dehumanizing others so that the moronic public is more in favor of killing innocent civilians.

Russia, it must be said, was no better than the Nazis, and in many ways worse. Its evils were visited mainly on Soviets (not excluding Russians), and were mostly concealed until much later.

Re: Pentagon and CIA shaped thousands of Hollywood movies into effective propaganda

#442

I suspect something similar is going on with all the cop/crime shows that show the "hero" cops completely disregard the law and due process. This always happens in situations where all the viewers completely agree that it is justified, e.g. a clear bad/evil guy (we already know he did it) and a small child that has to be saved from a prison... I think this is essentially suposed to make us conceive law enforcement as…

OMG Stuber anyone? Mr. Nanjani’s copaganda comedy

Re: Pentagon and CIA shaped thousands of Hollywood movies into effective propaganda

#443
post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were targeting USSR military bases. And it was "known" already during the cold war, not a surprise after the cold war ended. At least in Estonia, every sane person assumed that when there's a nuclear conflict, then the rocket bases and airfields of the occupation forces here would be the first to be taken down by the west because they were the most west-facing USSR military bases.

They were targetting cities that were occupied by hundred thousands of civilians. USA never had any qualms about targetting civilians. Foreigners don't have any rights.

You are correct. Just like the US was targeting military installations in Moscow, etc that had millions of civilians and USSR was targeting US cities that had millions of civilians.

I'm just saying that it was not actually something that people "found out" after the cold war and it wasn't specific to the Baltic nations nor the US or USSR. All nuclear capable superpowers had set potential targets which would have killed tens of millions of civilians. Singling out some of the countries occupied by the USSR (Estonia/Latvia/Lithuania) is minimizing the situation IMO :)

Re: Pentagon and CIA shaped thousands of Hollywood movies into effective propaganda

#444
As someone who moved from Europe to the US, the pervasiveness of the military in televised professional and college football game is incredibly jarring to me yet is so normalized to Americans. Count the number of times there is a reference to the military, a cutaway to uniformed people in the stands or by the touchline, a clip of troops watching the game while deployed overseas, flyovers etc. Still, after 10 years, my reaction is "what has that got to do with sport?".

I've always assumed this to be a very deliberate strategy to build an implicit association between the "nobility" of sport and war, to boost recruitment and win over the hearts and minds of the American public for past, current and future military action.

Now count how many times you've seen any sign of the military at a sports event in Europe - rare to never. It's not normal and it's sad to me that it is so normalized in the US.

Re: Pentagon and CIA shaped thousands of Hollywood movies into effective propaganda

#445
post #362
post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might be a language thing then. I'm reading through Urban Dictionary and most of them read to me like "I think I know the other person is dishonest or stupid". Let's take the most popular definition there: Woke - The act of being very pretentious about how much you care about a social issue Again, as a non-native English speaker I have to click through "pretentious". The most popular definition: Behaving in an attent…

Urban Dictionary is a wisdom of the crowd. The most upvoted entry is sometimes a troll or funny (if the latter: let's say we disagree on taste of humor). As another poster said, need to be cautious, and read multiple entries. Or simply don't use it unless you don't have another source (this word is in the dictionary [1]). Calling someone woke is discrediting the other person. Its like a signal to other people (especi…

  pretentious translates to pretensioonikas in Estonian as the most popular translation
That's also true in other dictionaries but the definitions of these words are not similar at all.

"pretensioonikas" means basically "one who has high demands / expectations" in Estonian :(

Re: Pentagon and CIA shaped thousands of Hollywood movies into effective propaganda

#446
post #45

I am very interested to ready the comments and see where the votes land. From my experience any time you criticize the US here on HN you are heavily criticized or downvoted. Sometimes after making a valid point. I have learned to not take it personally and have always told myself I am sure there are state actors from many nations on many forums trying to persuade a perspective. If someone wants to downvote but not pr…

I think there are actually many posters on HN that are critical of the US. I would say that such opinions are more popular than they were a few years ago. On the other hand there are also a fair amount that have an idealized conception of that country.

Re: Pentagon and CIA shaped thousands of Hollywood movies into effective propaganda

#447
post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I asked because whenever I hear about someone complaining of “wokeism” they’re complaining about things that I think are good. Giving black actors roles in areas normally dominated by white actors? That’s awesome! But whenever this happens loads of people online will claim that is “wokeism”. Representation for gay, lesbian, queer, and trans people in media? Wow that’s great! Many complain this is “wokeism”. Recognizi…

For me the biggest red flags are when people start talking about wokeism, is when you ask them about it they then continue to elaborate that they mean "communism", "lgbt-agendas" etc. 99% of people who complain about that kind of wokeism sound like alt-righters to me, or at least like people who parrot what the alt-right says without being aware of it.

That's not what woke means though. You don't let trolls dictate what you understand of any other words, do you? Woke in this context means insincere and/or hypocritical support of liberal causes, as wikipedia and urban dictionary clearly list as definitions.

Re: Pentagon and CIA shaped thousands of Hollywood movies into effective propaganda

#448
post #360
post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly does this woke agenda push, if I may ask?

Hard to answer, you might as well ask "what exactly does this not very defined group want?". Let's take feminism for example, which is generally considered as pertaining to woke culture, what do feminists want? Well you have sex-positive feminists, sex-negative feminists, you've got the ones that want to legalize sex work, the ones who don't, abortion at every stage no matter the circumstance, abortion in hospitals d…

Typical moat-and-bailey pro-woke argument.

Can you list any media (mainstream news, or Hollywood) that are promoting sex-negative or trans exclusive views?

There is no discussion or dissenting views allowed for most “woke” people.

Re: Pentagon and CIA shaped thousands of Hollywood movies into effective propaganda

#449
post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I asked because whenever I hear about someone complaining of “wokeism” Forgive me if you were being genuine, but frequently when I see the word used on the internet, I see replies from people who seem utterly bewildered and claim that they really want to know what the word means. But it's trivial to find out what this or any other word or slang word means with a simple internet search, so it doesn't really seem lik…

They aren't feigning ignorance. The poster is saying people use the word in different ways from the "standard" definition, and therefore it has become unclear what any particular person means when they use the word. This is not feigning ignorance. It's just like how some individuals now call everything Democrats do in the US socialist, progressive, or leftist even though most Democrats aren't any of those things.

No post body was provided.

Re: Pentagon and CIA shaped thousands of Hollywood movies into effective propaganda

#450
post #436

As a person who grew up without a television at home (I was homeschooled in Canada), this is strikingly obvious. Even the differences in mentality and worldview between those who grew up watching American TV shows and those who didn't is immediately obvious to me within 5 minutes of having a casual conversation. One of the reasons I left Canada and moved to Eastern Europe is for the refreshing change in monoculture:…

What features or differences make this "strikingly obvious"? What conversation subjects do you talk about in a 5 minute casual conversation that demonstrate a person has consumed American TV shows?
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