It has raised questions for others too though usually for reasons different from mine. As earlier noted, liberal critics have pointed out the film's alleged connections with QAnon conspiracy theories. After all, they point out, its sponsors include arch-conservatives like Mel Gibson, Jordan Peterson, and Mexico's Carlos Slim, one of the richest billionaires in the world.
As for its theological perspective, it's worth pointing out that anti-liberation theology commentator, Glenn Beck, is one of the film's principal sponsors. All of them - Beck, Gibson, and Peterson deny Christianity's connection with social justice, limit its moral applications to the personal realm, are opponents of Pope Francis, and regret the reforms of the Second Vatican Council.
Moreover, "Sound of Freedom" overwhelmingly connects child sex trafficking to official enemies of the United States.
Perhaps most revealingly, it locates trafficking centers in Colombia and Honduras. Both of those countries have been headed by governments firmly supported and/or installed by the U.S. through regime change operations. By all accounts, their police and militaries are cesspools of corruption and brutality - far from the heroic law enforcement agencies portrayed in the film.
Additionally, "Sound of Freedom" offers no suggestion of well-documented U.S. government involvement in or toleration of underage sex trafficking. For instance, there's not a word in the film about Jeffrey Epstein and his nefarious association with the CIA, with Israel's Mossad, and prominent government leaders - much less about rampant pedophilia among Christians themselves.
With that in mind, Homeland Security's post-9/11 preferred recruitment of certain types of Christians indicates a heavily ideological bias towards fundamentalist religion. As such, its understanding tends strongly to exclude comprehensive social and historical analysis of child sex trafficking in favor of moral and psychological explanations of individualized and gang-related behavior. It excludes structural criticisms of capitalism's relationship to the issue as well as, for instance, the connections between such abuse and Christianity itself.
All that can remind the attentive viewer that "Sound of Freedom's" story is not that far removed from the CIA and Homeland Security whose very business is to deceive the rest of us.
That for me raises the following question: Can an organization dedicated to lying on behalf of what Martin King described as the world's "greatest purveyor of violence" be trusted to tell the whole truth about those its employers have designated as mortal enemies (i.e. "rebels" against U.S. client regimes)?
And does the film's inspiring story represent yet another vehicle intended foster admiration of three-letter government agencies and to feed the hatred of "America's" official enemies?
Supplying Missing Dots
My answer to both questions is "Quite likely." That is, "Sound of Freedom" might well be seen as an elaborate attempt to whitewash and rehabilitate the CIA and Department of Homeland Security as well as to nurture antipathy towards "rebels" against U.S. puppet regimes.
The plan for doing so might run as follows:
- Tap into an issue that will horrify any morally sensitive person, viz., child sex trafficking.
- Causally connect that issue with America's designated enemies,
- Through a medium (Hollywood film narrative) that ignores Washington's own well-established connection to the problem in question,
- By distancing the film's CIA protagonist from that agency and Homeland Security through his resignation from (but continued connections with) those agencies.
- Favorably link the story with fundamentalist understandings of God and country,
- While "connecting its dots" to the "real enemy" portrayed as left-wing forces in the Global South, and (in favorable reviews) public-school sex education programs, open borders, transgender therapies, and the gay pride slogan "We are coming for your children."
- And vilifying as trendily "woke" and conspiratorial those tying underage sex traffic to capitalism, the CIA, FBI, Homeland Security, world leaders, and church hierarchies.
- Have film sponsors such as Glen Beck and Elon Musk buy out theaters to boost its box office ratings.
Stimulating Left-Right Dialog
To me, none of that seems farfetched. In fact, given:
- CIA admissions about its elaborate psyop programs,
- Its former director's public confession about the agency's routine practices of lying, cheating, and stealing,
- As taught, he said, in "entire courses" instructing agents about the complexities of conspiracy and propaganda
- Detailed in covert projects such as COINTELPRO, MKULTRA experimentations, and Family Jewels assassination programs,
- As well as more recent Epstein revelations about the involvement of U.S. and international "leaders'" in underage sex trafficking,
- And Christian involvement in institutionalized pedophilia,
it's no stretch to imagine CIA sponsorship of "Sound of Freedom" to whitewash the agency's deep involvement in "Government by (sexual) Blackmail" as well as in covering up the complicity of international elite in underage sex trafficking.
Conclusion
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