Pentagon gets cozy with Hollywood, Part I

Truthout.org just published an interesting piece on the cozy friendshipthat Hollywood has developed with the Pentagon and the symbiotic relationship that exists between the two industries. Nick Terse reported that the two industries originally developed close ties as early as the silent era and the Pentagon even has a full-time office on Los Angeles to coordinate activities.

The Schadenfreude Post has learned, however, that new projects in the pipeline will take the relationship to a new Top Gun level. One entertainment source tells TSP that new films in production, or green lighted, include a movie of the Iraq war that ends with President Bush firing a cruise missile at fez-wearing Moroccans (mis-identified as Iranians) and a triumphant tail hook landing on a carrier, conveniently glossing over the painful occupation.

Another movie in the works will highlight President Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard. The script calls for Bush to punch out his commanding officer because the man wanted to protect the future president from dangerous combat duty. In the fictitious version, Bush flies his T-33 trainer from Texas to Vietnam (without refueling) and blows up "[censored]" villages and cities. The film will reportedly include scenes wherein the Pentagon is forced to cover up Bush's heroic bombing run because he disobeyed orders, thereby creating the mysterious blank spot in his service records.

"'Liberal Hollywood' is a favorite whipping-boy of right-wingers who suppose the town and its signature industry are ever-at-work undermining the U.S. military," Terse wrote. "In reality, the military has been deeply involved with the film industry since the Silent Era. Today, however, the ad hoc arrangements of the past have been replaced by a full-scale one-stop shop, occupying a floor of a Los Angeles office building. There, the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, and the Department of Defense itself have established entertainment liaison offices to help ensure that Hollywood makes movies the military way."

Terse's article is a bit overwrought at times (e.g., "everywhere you look, whether at the latest blockbuster on the big screen or what's on much smaller screens... [your products are] likely made by a defense contractor like Sony, Samsung, Panasonic or Toshiba).

This media/military relationship is not likely the edge of the Big Brother rabbit hole. However, it does portend potential conflicts-of-interest and demonstrates a concerted effort by the Pentagon to control the information realm, which it rightly considers a battlefield. Taken together with its efforts to place pro-Administration military analysts at media outlets, clearly some unwritten line is being crossed in a democratic nation.

None-the-less, The Schadenfreude Post really enjoyed watching the action-hero movie Iron Man, in which a military contractor is exposed to water-boarding and deprivations by terrorists. Hmmm. Maybe someone is projecting here. I seem to remember something in the news about Abu Ghraib and some hotel named Gitmo or something.