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The Pentagon and CIA have shaped thousands of movies into effective propaganda

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

#61

Post by vxNsr »

elteto wrote: post #42
ceejayoz wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contagion got things pretty much spot-on. Conspiracy theorists with fake cures, political officials who fight mitigation measures, contact tracing, panic buying, at-home substitutes for school events, fairly rapid vaccine development and the initial scarcity of it. The major difference was the mortality rate; the movie's virus killed something like 25%. One of the odd difficulties with COVID is it's deadly enough (es…

Contagion also compressed time quite a bit because it’s a movie meant to entertain. It couldn’t show the long months of research, development and testing that actual science requires. Still a great movie.

Fun fact: I worked in the office building where they filmed the CDC scenes (spoiler: it’s not and never was the CDCs real office), was kinda cool to walk the halls and enter the clean room they used.

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

#63

Post by ceejayoz »

nsxwolf wrote: post #57
ceejayoz wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contagion got things pretty much spot-on. Conspiracy theorists with fake cures, political officials who fight mitigation measures, contact tracing, panic buying, at-home substitutes for school events, fairly rapid vaccine development and the initial scarcity of it. The major difference was the mortality rate; the movie's virus killed something like 25%. One of the odd difficulties with COVID is it's deadly enough (es…

The inaccurate part of the movie is that all that stuff worked. In real life, what "ended" the pandemic was a combination of mother nature and the human willingness to accept a lost cause and move on.

And an effective vaccine, as far as death and severe illness is concerned.

https://www.bmj.com/company/newsroom/new-study-shows-fewer-p...

> The findings, based on data across 2,558 counties in 48 US states, show that counties with high vaccine coverage had a more than 80% reduction in death rates compared with largely unvaccinated counties.

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

#64

Post by Julesman »

mcpackieh wrote: post #53
Julesman wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are three types of people circling around conspiracy theories. 1) Literate people who care about history and know that industry does what's best for profit at all costs. 2) People who don't read much looking for a hobby. 3) Liberals hoping to pass off their empty skepticism as allegiance to the mainstream.

Before the JFK assassination, 'conspiracy theory' literally meant a theory about a criminal conspiracy. In the case of the JFK assassination, all theories that were counter to the official lone-wolf theory were conspiracy theories, theories about multiple people being involved in the assassination are categorically conspiracy theories while a lone-wolf theory involves no conspiring. Due to this, the term 'conspiracy…

I know what it means better than most. I also know that it's application as a means of establishing liberal identity as opposed to basic historical facts is a long time feature of our empire. Liberals punch down at leftists. Someone questions the motives of our empire and invariably some liberal eager to establish their mainstream credibility shows up to argue with skeptics and side with industry.

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

#65

Post by johnohara »

nsxwolf wrote: post #12

I wonder if "Contagion" was propaganda. It really made me believe that if a SARS pandemic ever happened, a bunch of incredibly competent scientists and government agents would swoop in and save us all. The "Olympus Has Fallen" series also made me believe that if a mob ever stepped foot on the White House lawn, a bunch of auto turrets would pop up and gun them all down. The last few years has shown that the world is r…

"They Live (1988)" has seemed oddly relevant over the years.

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

#66

Post by ajross »

nsxwolf wrote: post #57
ceejayoz wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contagion got things pretty much spot-on. Conspiracy theorists with fake cures, political officials who fight mitigation measures, contact tracing, panic buying, at-home substitutes for school events, fairly rapid vaccine development and the initial scarcity of it. The major difference was the mortality rate; the movie's virus killed something like 25%. One of the odd difficulties with COVID is it's deadly enough (es…

The inaccurate part of the movie is that all that stuff worked. In real life, what "ended" the pandemic was a combination of mother nature and the human willingness to accept a lost cause and move on.

Are you deliberately ignoring vaccination? I genuinely can't tell if I'm being trolled into a conspiracy argument or not. But just in case:

The vaccines turned an extremely dangerous pandemic into a tolerable-if-still-worrisome endemic disease. This lancet paper represents a pretty good consensus belief that vaccines saved 14M lives. Our "willingness to accept a lost cause" was informed heavily by the justfied belief that it wouldn't kill us.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3...

Basically, yeah. "All that stuff worked".

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

#67

Post by js2 »

Former Navy SEAL who's a technical advisor to Hollywood is worried about politicians interfering with the Pentagon's ability to continue to shape movies into effective propaganda over tensions with China:

> The Green amendment misunderstands film distribution in China, and more important, it misses the U.S. military’s long and productive relationship with Hollywood.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/04/opinion/contributors/chin...

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

#68

Post by maerF0x0 »

dylan604 wrote: post #49
maerF0x0 wrote: post #18

In the early 90's my moms friend group was passing around this VHS where a guy who claimed to be ex military nervously explained that a lot of hollywood production was the government easing secrets it knew and legally had to disclose to the public so it would put them into hollywood movies. Things like spy stuff or aliens. I have no idea how I'd ever find the source or original of that. Would be interesting to see if…

In those same groups that made those VHS tapes, there's a theory on the name Hollywood itself. The wand that Merlin used to cast spells was made from holly. This was a core part of their evidence that the movie industry is meant to keep the populace under the spell of their illusions, or some such logic Sadly, I have way too much familiarity with these VHS tapes and 'zines and radio programs. Once the internet took o…

Are they archived somewhere for viewing? I wonder because I was too young to really understand it much and it'd actually help me sort out part of my childhood.

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

#69

Post by dylan604 »

macinjosh wrote: post #39

Someday, I hope, the general US voting public will get past this propaganda and become aware that they are an unwitting cog in a wheel of war and destruction across the world. We have been repeatedly lied to about how, when, and why the US engages in war, coups, and other violent actions disguised as "intelligence activities." These are powers the Constitution attempted to restrict to the people (e.g. congress), and…

I don't know why this seems so strange. Throughout history, every leading nation has done this. The US is just the most recent version. The British empire, the Romans, the Persians are just examples of the precedent. The US has just dropped language like empire and replaced with humanitarian

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

#70

Post by Beta-7 »

nsxwolf wrote: post #57
ceejayoz wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contagion got things pretty much spot-on. Conspiracy theorists with fake cures, political officials who fight mitigation measures, contact tracing, panic buying, at-home substitutes for school events, fairly rapid vaccine development and the initial scarcity of it. The major difference was the mortality rate; the movie's virus killed something like 25%. One of the odd difficulties with COVID is it's deadly enough (es…

The inaccurate part of the movie is that all that stuff worked. In real life, what "ended" the pandemic was a combination of mother nature and the human willingness to accept a lost cause and move on.

And the most important thing: the Ukraine - Russia war that took over the media's short attention span.
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