Derek: 00:28

Welcome back to the Fourth Way podcast. In this episode, I want to zoom in on a true conspiracy of the military. There are certainly a 1,000 options at my disposal here, and some of the best of which I'll try to mention in our summary episode at the end of the section. But what I ultimately decided to go with is the conspiracy of the military's influence in Hollywood. Now I selected this conspiracy for a number of reasons.

Derek: 00:56

First, you may have noticed that I left a gaping hole in my section on media. See, most people think of the media as an institution which forms our beliefs by telling us what to believe, yet, I highlighted how the opposite is actually the case. The media's unique power is often informing our beliefs through their silence on issues, and that's true in regard to the news media in particular. The people have no power or will to act if they aren't aware of an issue or if they don't hear about it enough to believe the issue warrants action or attention. Yet we all know that the media also holds the opposite power, the power to form our beliefs by what they do assert.

Derek: 01:36

And I promise that we'd get to that aspect of the media later in the season. But I wanted to save that aspect for our discussion here in regard to the military, because I think Hollywood and the military have a unique bond. And it tends to be the news media who wields the power of silence, while Hollywood wields the power of shaping our beliefs through images and assertions. The second reason I chose the issue of Hollywood and the military is because it's more nebulous than other conspiracies that I could have gone with. And that's what we've been moving towards this season, Moving from the small and the simple to the larger and the more complex.

Derek: 02:13

Now I I could've looked at any number of known conspiracies involving the military or affiliated with it in in some fashion. The, the Chilean or Iranian coups are really interesting and tragic. The MK Ultra experimentation on citizens and military personnel or are hushing up of Japan's unit 731 in exchange for their information on biological weapons. It's all really interesting stuff. And, you know, especially the coups, they're extremely easy to document and unpack and kind of relate to current affairs today.

Derek: 02:48

But I I think we need to graduate to the more complex and see how nebulous propaganda can be. 3rd, I think that this particular issue of Hollywood and the military is more applicable to us right now. Sure. It's a travesty of justice that we insisted on the Nuremberg trials for the Nazis, while we let the equivalent of Mengele and his entourage go free in Japan because we had a military monopoly there and could gain advantage, by by getting some knowledge from them that our allies and enemies couldn't. But that has little impact on our lives today other than to offer us another example as to the character or motivations of our government.

Derek: 03:28

Hollywood, on the other hand, Hollywood is something most of us consume on a weekly basis, at least, if not on a daily basis. And unlike news media, Hollywood seems benign to us. It kind of flies under the radar. They're not informing us of world events in their movies. They're simply providing entertainment.

Derek: 03:48

Right? Well, hopefully, we'll dispel that myth by the end of this episode. So let's dive in. As far as industries go, Hollywood and film are really in their infancy. They were birthed only a little more than a 100 years ago and didn't come into their prime until, really, a few decades after that.

Derek: 04:09

Yet, it didn't take long for the film's power to be recognized. We touched on one notable propaganda film, The Black Stork, when we discussed eugenics in the Buck v Bell case. Only 2 years before The Black Stork was released, you had the infamous Birth of a Nation film, which is credited with reviving the KKK and may have helped to create the environment which led to the deadly red summer of 1919. And, of course, film was immediately implemented in the war effort during World War 1 on both sides, seeking to instill patriotism in one's own group and to demonize the enemy. Of course, it's easy for us to look back on that propaganda and think to ourselves how ridiculous it all was.

Derek: 04:49

I mean, it's so obvious that this stuff is propaganda. It's cheesy, and there's no way that that would work on us today. And that's probably true. But propaganda is like a chameleon. You can always spot it when it's transported from one environment to another when you see it kind of out of place for a minute.

Derek: 05:07

But if it's given enough time to adapt and blend in, it will, and it does. Think a great place you can see one of these adaptations is in the 19 thirties. Largely through the threat of boycott, Nazi Germany began to hold great sway over Hollywood, influencing which films would be made, which actors could play roles, as well as, you know, influencing certain edits for scripts. And Hollywood kowtowed to the demands of Germany, even having an overseer, George Gisling, whose job it was to ensure that, there was censoring of American films to Germany's satisfaction. Hollywood complied.

Derek: 05:49

Now you can find a number of great articles and books that cover this material, but I really like the book entitled The Collaboration, Hollywood's Pact with Hitler. In that work, the author lays out a narrative for how Hollywood was, in his words, collaborating with Hitler. Now I think the term collaboration is used to sell the book because, in my opinion and the opinion of many harsh critics, what Hollywood was doing wasn't really collaboration. It was more like capitulation. You know, collaboration implies working together to further a plan, whereas capitulation implies a giving in to something that you may not want to do.

Derek: 06:27

I understand that critique. At the same time, we recognize that the line between collaboration and capitulation is extremely thin. Just think of the common saying, evil prevails when good, men or women, do nothing. Or we could look at another famous set of words from Martin Niemoller when he said, quote, first, they came for the socialist, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.

Derek: 06:57

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me, end quote. Now we wouldn't say that Niemoller collaborated with the Nazis, yet there's a certain extent to which inaction becomes complicity. And upon Niemoller's self reflection, I think he recognized that a little bit. Now in my opinion, through this whole argument of whether collaboration is too strong of a word, that that just misses the point.

Derek: 07:28

Did Hollywood conspire, collaborate, or capitulate to the Nazi propaganda machine, helping to prevent Germany from being portrayed in a bad light or Jews being portrayed in a good light? Most certainly. And did this happen at a time in US history where public sentiment might have significantly changed the course of events for Jews? 100%. Now just think back to our episode on the Black Stork and our discussion of Eugenics.

Derek: 07:52

We talked a bit about the Alien and Sedition Acts, immigration laws, and how all those pieces of legislation influenced the ability of immigrants, especially Jews, to escape or not escape Nazi persecution. This period of time in US history was one in which there were a lot of terrible racist ideas that were embraced by the masses. I mean, I guess, any time in US or world history for that matter could be described as such, but this seems like a particularly volatile time for all of that. And while films like The Birth of a Nation were influencing a return of the KKK, and The Black Stork was painting Eugenics in a positive light, And as immigration acts and supreme court decisions like Buck v Bell were enacting racial ideas into law, you get the Nazis controlling how both they and the Jews are portrayed on screen. You know, at best, we could say that the influence of Hollywood's capitulation here allowed terrible ideas to remain entrenched without exposure or pushback.

Derek: 08:49

But at worst, Hollywood's influence raised the level of anti Semitism and support for Hitler. Of course, there was the normal racist stuff you'd expect with various businesses posting signs, not only telling blacks to stay away at this time, but, you know, also Jews. But there was also a level of racism that extended well beyond sporadic racism of individual businesses. I was reading a random book last year called, The Minuteman, which is a story about Nat Arnott and his fight against the Nazis in the States. In that book, I came across this unbelievable fact that in 1939, Madison Square Garden was filled with a convention of 100,000 Nazis.

Derek: 09:31

Now if you look up pictures of this event, it's really eerie. Like, it's it's crazy to think that that happened in the United States. And, I mean, it happened in 1939. This is pretty late in the game, only a few months before Hitler invaded Poland. It should have been pretty clear to everyone by this point who Hitler truly was.

Derek: 09:52

You've got guys like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who had raised his voice against Hitler as early as April of 1933, like, 6 years before. Yet there were a lot of Nazi sympathizers in the States as Germany was viewed in a good light and anti Semitism was running rampant. And those two views maintained their status, perhaps even growing in part because Hollywood instilled and reinforced these concepts to the masses. Now I just wanna put a little caveat here, because there are plenty who disagree with, the book here, the collaboration. And they push against this concept very strongly because they view Jews as victims and feel that criticizing Hollywood, an institution which was, and still is, composed of quite a lot of Jews, it's it's actually victim blaming.

Derek: 10:41

And I think that pushback is extremely misguided. Just because somebody's a victim doesn't mean that they can be complicit in in, certain ways. And it it kind of reminds me of, Hannah Arendt and her book Eichmann in Jerusalem, when she talked about, the complicity of all kinds of groups of people. And then she also, you know, she said that, man, these these people were just like normal people, and she called it the banality of evil. Just you didn't have these, like, psychopathic, serial killers that, you know, you'd be able to to discern.

Derek: 11:16

It's just like they're normal people. And but she got a lot of pushback from the Jewish community, like, well, you're blaming you're blaming Jews because, you know, you you talk about how it's because of the Jews that the Nazis were successful. Because Arendt was critical of, like, how do you guys just how are you also complicit with this? Like, you just you went along with it. And, you know, she, a a Jew herself, I believe, was was kind of critiqued for for victim blaming when she's just trying to show all of the the true things that happened and trying to figure it out.

Derek: 11:53

And it it also reminds me, my wife and I have been reading through this book, called Born Survivors, which is a story of, 3 women who 3 separate women who, whose stories I don't know if they're gonna come together at some point or not, because we haven't gotten that far. But this this one lady, it talks about how she's in the Warsaw ghettos, I believe. And you've got this, this guy who's like the mayor or whatever, the Jewish mayor, you know, the the head that the Nazis appoint. And he's trying to save as many people as he can. But the way that he's saving people is by basically choosing who to sacrifice and capitulating to the Nazis and all that kind of stuff.

Derek: 12:35

And while you understand the man's plight, you see how consequentialism ends up playing out. And in the end, you know, that man, a Jew and a victim, was responsible for capitulating and murdering many people. Now we can all sympathize with that. We can empathize with that. Nevertheless, we're all responsible for our actions.

Derek: 13:03

And, and this lady, this this Jew who's in the ghetto, I mean, she points that out, like, she's critical of him. And and I think something like the collaboration okay. Maybe maybe he's using too strong of a word to to talk about this, but at the same time, it's, like, it's it's also true. And I don't think it's it's a victim blaming. But, anyway, that's sort of a a side discussion, and you can kind of delve into that on your own if you'd like.

Derek: 13:30

Nevertheless, I think this is a a really important facet to understand because this is really how most conspiracies work. Most conspiracies involve people who have some vested interest, in in in a topic, and they're pushed to make self interested decisions. Think back to McNamara's morons. Right? They, the government wasn't out to purposefully kill minorities.

Derek: 13:55

But if you need bodies for the army, you need to keep your political base, and you, so you don't wanna offend the middle class or higher, and you wanna view yourself as benevolent. Right? You wanna self deceive, and you want to prevent, like, dissonance in your own mind and morality and all that stuff. What what are you gonna do? Like, you're gonna do the things that hurts the group, that's not gonna hurt you, and that gets you the bodies for your war that you want.

Derek: 14:19

So you're not out to kill black people, but you do. So, like, you're culpable. Right? With the collaboration, money was a big motivator to Hollywood. Hollywood, composed of, quite a lot of Jews, and they're not out to kill Jews, but they wanna make money.

Derek: 14:39

Right? Just like a lot of people. A lot of people, who wants to make money are willing to compromise on morality. The Germans, they want to control their image. There's there's a mutual interest, converging interest there, and it ends up working out for both parties.

Derek: 14:57

And so even if Hollywood isn't collaborating for the same purpose, their capitulation ends up, contributing to the ends of the Nazis. So, anyway, we can see that conspiracy still work the same today. It it it's more nebulous. It's complex. Lots of motivations going on.

Derek: 15:18

Usually, involves a whole lot of self interest. Alright. We've spent a lot of time talking about, the influence of Hollywood here along with their motivation and money. Let's start to tie Hollywood in with the military. Now the military needs recruits, and Hollywood wants money.

Derek: 15:36

The same formula that we just talked about, you know, in the 19 thirties. Germany, needed public support and a lack of opposition while Hollywood wanted money. But how does that play out today? Well, today, Hollywood receives lots of kickbacks from the government. If if they work with the government, the government is happy to let them fly, in their really expensive airplanes.

Derek: 16:03

They can get access to military bases and and things that save them all kinds of money on their shoots. And at the same time, the military gets really flowery scripts. You can get lots of things taken out that would paint the military in a bad light, and insert things that would paint the military or the United States in a good light. This is a, a huge black hole right here, that you can jump into. It's something that there's a lot of documentation on, and you can you can get lots and lots of specifics.

Derek: 16:36

So I am gonna put a bunch of, links in the show notes here. You should really check out the stuff. I would start with, the video by second thought and and then, move on from there into some of the documents, some of his links, and other other stuff like that, because there's a there's a ton there that's really interesting. You can access direct quotes and see explicitly how scripts were changed in order to get military kickbacks. And, you know, of course, this makes sense from a financial capitalist point of view.

Derek: 17:10

Right? It's an exchange of goods or services. And why would the military want to offer up free money to a film that was gonna hurt them? But at the same time, we can recognize that not only is this a conflict of interest since it's the people's tax money that's being used to fund Hollywood films, basically, But it's also the fact that a powerful institution is controlling the messages that we receive with our money. And this isn't just any powerful institution.

Derek: 17:37

It's an institution that wields the power of life and death and an institution which eats up the vast majority of the tax dollars that we spend. Giving the wielders of life and death and the consumer of such a vast sum of money, giving them power over culture and beliefs, that's insane. The military, by default, wield power through violence, and their wedding to government also gives them the power over information. Now the military has long controlled what information we as a public can know and disseminate. And more recently, they've controlled large swaths of information about each and every citizen through data collection.

Derek: 18:14

With the control that Hollywood gives the military, the military gains control over charisma as well. Now that completes the triumvirate of power that we've talked about this season and all the way back at the beginning of the season, this triumvirate of violence, information, and charisma. Those three things equate to power, and the military with Hollywood completes that triumvirate. So what is the potential result of all this power? Well, it perpetuates this myth of American exceptionalism or benevolence.

Derek: 18:49

It masks over American Imperialism and helps it to look like we are, we are the good force for the world, and it denies, you know, the injustices and evils of our imperialism. And we're gonna see a little bit of this specifically when I do my interview with doctor David Vine, author of Base Nation, who kind of uncovers this a little bit later too. There's also involved in this a failure to critique leaders and the institution of the military itself and to hold them responsible. We gloss over some hard, difficult things. And it also allows, allows our definition of, you you know, what are just causes and just wars to kind of be defined by by Hollywood, who is a mouthpiece of the military.

Derek: 19:39

I strongly want to recommend to you that you delve into the links I'm putting in the show notes here. Like I said, start with 2nd thoughts YouTube video because that's gonna explain the situation really well and really succinctly. From there, branch out as you'd like. But this is a true conspiracy worth understanding because it's a conspiracy that controls the lives and deaths of many, and it's a conspiracy that continues through today. And while it may seem benign because, what, Hollywood's just a form of entertainment, how damaging could that be?

Derek: 20:13

You need to recognize that some of the most dangerous things often come in, in in the smallest, most innocuous of packages. Reminds me a little bit of Men in Black, right, where he gets, Will Smith gets the noisy cricket. He's like, this is, this is a stupid little dinky gun, and it ends up being really powerful. Well, that's kind of how propaganda works here. It's not in the the obvious packages that you have to worry about.

Derek: 20:39

It's when it comes in those innocuous ones, the ones that that seem like they're harmless, and, oh, it doesn't impact me because it does. Right? It's that chameleon, and it's adapted perfectly to get to you. You might be able to see through the propaganda way back in the day, World War 1, but the propaganda that that's around today isn't the same as it was before. It's adapted so that it can, it can get to us.

Derek: 21:10

So, hopefully, you've enjoyed this episode, and it's wet your palette, because it's only a a scratch of the surface of, of this issue. That's all for now. So peace, and because I'm a pacifist, when I say it, I mean it. This podcast is a part of the Kingdom Outpost Network. Please check out the links below to find other great podcasts and content related to nonviolence and Kingdom Living.