Last night the Golden Globes gave out their awards for Movies and TV shows.
The winner was the CIA, or more the Military Intelligence Industrial complex (MIIC)-- comprised by the CIA, FBI, Homeland Security, Military Intelligence, black Ops, TSA, Fusion Centers, the ever increasingly militarized local police, the prison system... a sprawling, malignantly growing collection of agencies sucking hundreds of billions out of our economy, while simultaneously destroying our bill of rights.
photo by Bill Perry
Homeland won best TV series, best TV actor and actress. It IS a highly entertaining show which actually portrays some of the flaws of the MIIC system
Argo won best movie and best director. It glorifies the CIA and Ben Affleck spoke with the highest praise for the CIA.
And best actress went to Jessica Chastain of Zero Dark Thirty, a movie that has been vilified for propagandizing the use of torture.
Sure, Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook and Les Miserables took some well deserved wins, but it's really odd that so many awards went to movies that focus on the CIA and the MIIC.
Or maybe it's not so odd. The Military Industrial Intelligence Complex is playing a more and more pervasive role in our lives. In the next few years we'll be seeing movies that focus on the use of drone technology in police and spy work in the USA. We've already been seeing movies that show how spies can violate every aspect of our privacy-- of the most intimate parts of our lives. By making movies and TV series that celebrate these cancerous extensions of the police state Hollywood and the big studios are normalizing the ideas they present us with-- lying to the public, routinely creating fraudulent stories as covers for what's really going on. At the same time, Obama, one of the worst expanders of the militarization of and removal of privacy from American life, has talked about transparency. That's a sad irony. Now, members of congress-- Democratic sycophants, are encouraging us to support Obama ignoring congress-- taking on even more Executive power.
Ten we have a congress that is literally the most do nothing congress in history.
Where does that leave us-- we the people? A president who is grabbing power like never before, a congress that has been giving up power like never before. I'll tell you where that leaves us-- a people without representation, constituents without advocates. Of course, there are those who love Obama-- including his suspension of habeus corpus, his expansion of privacy-eliminating spy powers.
Then there are those on the right who see the US government as becoming the enemy, so they are going out and buying all the guns and weapons they can, before access is cut off. With developments like we're facing, it's not hard to understand why some feel this way.
I'm not a gun rights person by any means. But I was hoping that Zero Dark Thirty would come up without any awards. I was hoping that at least such blatant propaganda promoting the lie that torture works would be repudiated by the Golden Globes. That didn't happen. Thought it looks like a rivetingly entertaining movie, I will be boycotting Zero Dark Thirty.
I'd planned on seeing Argo, but with the glowing words Ben Affleck has had for the CIA, I'm not sure I want to put out money for tickets.
That raises the question-- is the CIA and the Military Intelligence Industrial Complex a good thing? I don't think so. It has become so big, bloated and totally out of control, as Rachel Maddow has detailed in her book DRIFT, it is more a danger to the the national security of the US than it is a bulwark to our safety. Talk about malignant, out of control big government. Ron Paul had/has one thing right-- the US military is way too big.
Here's an idea. Post apocalyptic fiction is huge nowadays. There's even a shelf of books all focusing on it at the local Barnes and Noble. How about seeing some films that show how the US was destroyed because of the military-- not because of war but because the MIIC got so big and out of control it led to the collapse of the US. Now THAT is a believable story.
While you're watching the next installment of the Hunger Games where the filthy rich are entertained by poor people killing each other (I haven't read the series so I only know what the first movie is about) think about the fact that poor people getting killed or imprisoned is part of the MIIC system that we now have.
I feel like I'm rambling. it's a symptom of writing an article that starts from a thought. But the truth is we do live in a time when the police have been massively militarized. We don't need movies or TV shows that celebrate that militarization. We don't need entertainment that normalizes the obscene violations of our privacy that the intelligence state is inflicting upon us. We need stories that celebrate people who stand up to this seemingly irrepressible tide that is washing away our freedoms, sucking up all our resources and erasing the last bastions of privacy.
Giving credit where it's due-- I was following Twitter responses to the Golden Globes last night.
Ones like this one helped gel my thinking.
And this tweet from a conservative also offers an interesting perspective. A lot of us have been saying that liberals keep moving to the right. That includes Hollywood liberals.
A further thought. The movie industry has long supported the military, glorifying wars and soldiers. This is not a huge step, supporting the spy industry and the intelligence state.
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