Hollywood-Style History

Stephen Lendman
Activist Post

Hollywood’s complicity with Washington is longstanding. Movie moguls are duplicitous. The only thing they like like better than good films are good deals.

Washington’s requests are prioritized. Scripts feature pro-Western propaganda. “Operation Hollywood” explains.

Daily Variety/Hollywood Reporter David Robb’s book discussed Hollywood’s longstanding relationship with the Pentagon.

It began post-WWI. The 1927 silent film “Wings” starred Clara Bow. It launched Gary Cooper’s career. It was about two WWI fighter pilot friends. It won Hollywood’s first best picture award.

“Hollywood Goes to War: How Politics, Profits and Propaganda Shaped World War II Movies” tells more. Clayton Koppes and Gregory Black explained. It discusses Franklin Roosevelt’s Office of War Information. It had enormous influence on Hollywood.

It impacted wartime filmmaking. Anyone growing up at the time remembers. WWII films proliferated. They’re still shown on late night TV. Cable channels feature them. Government censors had final say. They controlled everything from casting to production.

Studio bosses were well compensated to collude. Long before Pearl Harbor, film content promoted war. In 1939, Warner Bros. premiered “Confessions of a Nazi Spy.” It claimed Germany sought world conquest. It was before anyone knew Hitler’s full intentions.

In 1940, Charlie Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator” burlesqued Hitler, Mussolini, and Nazism. Other films featured war propaganda. Once America was attacked, they proliferated.

No plot too far-fetched was omitted. Even Tarzan was exploited. He waged war on Nazism in “Tarzan Triumphs.”

Hitler was no match for the king of the jungle. He defeated German invaders singlehanded. An elephant blitzkrieg helped.

Movie moguls supported the war effort. Most of all they prioritized profits. They claim they give people what they want. They reinvent history doing so.

Pentagon generals supported and approved “Top Gun.” A special Film Liason Office oversees propaganda filmmaking. It focuses on ones related to war. It chooses ones it wants.

It has final say on content and characters. It makes no secret of its purpose. It wants pro-Western propaganda featured. Few war films go other ways.

Zero Dark Thirty chronicled the hunt for Osama bin Laden. It’s grotesque, dishonest, and fabricated. It opened days before Christmas last year. It reinvented history. Bin Laden was dead and buried. In December 2001, he died naturally.

Hollywood and Obama claimed otherwise. History is reinvented. Doing so is shameless and duplicitous. It says more about America’s imperial agenda than truth.

It exploits 9/11 events. It ignored clear evidence. David Ray Griffin wrote 10 convincing books. America’s false flag struck the Pentagon, downed the twin towers, and Building 7.

Doing so launched overt and covert war on terror. It rages lawlessly at home and abroad. Hollywood marches in lockstep. Movie moguls misinform, manipulate public sentiment, and manufacture consent.

They convince people to support what demands condemnation. They persuade them to hate alleged enemies. They glorify war in the name of peace.

They proliferate Big Lies. They stoke fear. They aid and abet state crimes. They convince people that Washington’s wars are justified because they say so.

They call waging war on humanity liberating struggles. They believe might justifies right. Destroying nations to free them is OK.

Zero Dark Thirty reinvents history. It chronicles a hunt for a dead man. It turns rogue CIA agents into heroes. It’s long, boring, and dishonest. Much of what the film portrays has no connection to bin Laden.

It argues that torture works. Brutalizing detainees helped discover his whereabouts, it claims. Extrajudicial killing is glorified. Misfits become heroes. Crimes of war and against humanity are waged for our own good.

Hollywood and media scoundrels produce this stuff. They do so for profit. They’re unapologetic. Anything for a buck is OK. Propagandizing is the American way.

On February 24, Argo won top honors. Hollywood’s 85th Academy Awards chose it the year’s top film. It should have been denounced instead of honored.

It relates a little-known 1979/1980 Iranian hostage crisis episode. Demonstrators stormed Washington’s Tehran embassy. Fifty-three Americans were held captive for 444 days.

A generation of repressive Reza Shah Pahlavi rule went unexplained. He was Washington’s man in Tehran.

Six Americans escaped. Former Canadian ambassador Ken Taylor sheltered them in his home. He’s highly critical. He said script writer Chris Terrio misportrayed events.

The film recounts their rescue. It downplays Canada’s involvement. Terrio took creative liberties. Scenes were fabricated. People were mischaracterized. Iran’s “more hospitable side” was omitted.

Argo is malicious, unjust, and one-sided. It’s Hollywood propaganda at its worst. It foments anti-Iranian hatred. It stereotypically portrays Iran according to pro-Western misinformation.

Press TV called Argo “Iranophobic.” It’s Hollywood-style “Machiavellian maneuvering.” Film critic Kim Nicolini was quoted. She expected Argo to win. She said there’s nothing remotely “best” about it.

It’s “a piece of conservative (pro-Western) propaganda created by Hollywood to support the Obama administration’s” positioning ahead of last November’s presidential election.

“It also primes the war wheels for an American-supported Israeli attack on Iran, so that (Iran bashers) can feel okay about the war when they cast their vote for Obama in November (2012).”

Film director Ben Affleck reinvented history. Students who stormed Washington’s embassy believed it was a den of espionage. Overthrowing the new Islamic Republic was prioritized.

Affleck’s ignored the larger story. His film is one-sided. It’s “a sanitized version of events,” said Nicolini.

“(T)here’s nothing authentic about (its) manipulation of historical events.” It’s “pure political propaganda.”

“Given the vast number of people who have died in the Middle East (Americans, Iranians, Iraqis, Afghanis, etc.), why should we give so much attention to 6 white American diplomats who were saved by Hollywood and the CIA?”

“What about all the other people from so many cultural demographics who have and are continuing to be massacred, murdered and tortured daily?”

In 1979, Masoumeh Ebtekar was students’ spokeswoman. She hoped Argo would portray events accurately. She’s sorely disappointed.

“The group who took over the American Embassy were a group of young, very orderly and quite calm men and women,” she said.

Argo’s portrayal is wholly inaccurate. It’s fiction, not fact. It bears no relation to truth. It’s Hollywood-style rubbish.

It’s politically motivated. It leaves the 1981 Algiers Accords unmentioned. Iran and Washington signed it. Most Iranian assets were unblocked.

A day later, 53 US hostages were released. It was moments before Reagan was inaugurated. Washington wants US/Iranian conciliation concealed.

Argo ignored what it should have featured. It reinvented history. It did so Hollywood-style. It sacrificed truth. It bashed Iran in the process.

It’s part of Washington’s propaganda machine. It shouldn’t surprise. Doing so is longstanding. Hollywood does it for profit. It’s the American way.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at [email protected]. His new book is titled “Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity.”

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening. http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/