I didn't think I could post this in "Liberal Only," but some interesting points were raised in this thread: Red Dawn
One thing I noticed about Red Dawn when I first saw it was how much the scenario was taken almost verbatim from a scenario outlined in a propaganda video put out by the American Conservative Union in the early 80s. One of my social studies teachers was friends with a retired American general who fought with MacArthur in the Philippines, and he visited the class one day and told us stories about WW2 and retaking the Philippines. Then he came in another day and showed us this video and talked about the right-wing Reaganite concept of "Peace Through Strength."
A lot of it focused on Central America and the rise of the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. Many right-wing policymakers have always this obsession with Latin America and how dangerous these countries would be if the Communists ever gained a foothold in North America. Back in the early 80s, the big push was about supporting aid for the Contra rebels who were fighting against the Sandinista regime. (The Contras also figured prominently in US Middle Eastern policy with the Iran-Contra deal. The US obsession over communism actually hurt us in the long run, compromising and weakening our position in the Middle East, a mistake which has come back to haunt us numerous times in the decades since the Cold War.)
As for Red Dawn, on the surface, it looks like it's some kind of right-wing propaganda piece. But sometimes I wonder if it was some kind of subtle parody. There's a scene early in the film when the Soviet forces attack the town, and they show a car with a bumper sticker that says "They can have my gun when they pull it from my cold dead fingers," while showing a Soviet officer doing exactly that.
I also still chuckle at Powers Booth's recounting of the events of the invasion when he used the phrase "the whole Cuban & Nicaraguan armies come walking right through, rolled right up here through the Great Plains."
The scenario did seem somewhat contrived and unlikely. For example, one of the preceding events was that NATO dissolved and that Mexico plunged into revolution, presumably becoming a pro-communist state and ally of the Soviet Union (and the whole Cuban and Nicaraguan armies). If the world situation had deteriorated that badly, I seriously doubt that they'd leave the border virtually unguarded or carry on some kind of pretense (as shown in the first scene, pre-invasion) that life in the U.S. is still peaceful and worry-free. The survivalists and others of that ilk would have been frantically building bunkers and caches of weapons throughout those mountains they hid in the weeks or months before the invasion, because given the world circumstances outlined at the beginning, they would have been expecting it.
Likewise, considering how much people want to secure the border now, when there isn't really any military threat, think of how much that sentiment would intensify if there really was a bona fide military threat. We'd be madly building walls, minefields, bunkers, and putting a huge number of troops along the border. I can't imagine even the most liberal of presidents ignoring such an obvious threat.
One thing I noticed about Red Dawn when I first saw it was how much the scenario was taken almost verbatim from a scenario outlined in a propaganda video put out by the American Conservative Union in the early 80s. One of my social studies teachers was friends with a retired American general who fought with MacArthur in the Philippines, and he visited the class one day and told us stories about WW2 and retaking the Philippines. Then he came in another day and showed us this video and talked about the right-wing Reaganite concept of "Peace Through Strength."
A lot of it focused on Central America and the rise of the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. Many right-wing policymakers have always this obsession with Latin America and how dangerous these countries would be if the Communists ever gained a foothold in North America. Back in the early 80s, the big push was about supporting aid for the Contra rebels who were fighting against the Sandinista regime. (The Contras also figured prominently in US Middle Eastern policy with the Iran-Contra deal. The US obsession over communism actually hurt us in the long run, compromising and weakening our position in the Middle East, a mistake which has come back to haunt us numerous times in the decades since the Cold War.)
As for Red Dawn, on the surface, it looks like it's some kind of right-wing propaganda piece. But sometimes I wonder if it was some kind of subtle parody. There's a scene early in the film when the Soviet forces attack the town, and they show a car with a bumper sticker that says "They can have my gun when they pull it from my cold dead fingers," while showing a Soviet officer doing exactly that.
I also still chuckle at Powers Booth's recounting of the events of the invasion when he used the phrase "the whole Cuban & Nicaraguan armies come walking right through, rolled right up here through the Great Plains."
The scenario did seem somewhat contrived and unlikely. For example, one of the preceding events was that NATO dissolved and that Mexico plunged into revolution, presumably becoming a pro-communist state and ally of the Soviet Union (and the whole Cuban and Nicaraguan armies). If the world situation had deteriorated that badly, I seriously doubt that they'd leave the border virtually unguarded or carry on some kind of pretense (as shown in the first scene, pre-invasion) that life in the U.S. is still peaceful and worry-free. The survivalists and others of that ilk would have been frantically building bunkers and caches of weapons throughout those mountains they hid in the weeks or months before the invasion, because given the world circumstances outlined at the beginning, they would have been expecting it.
Likewise, considering how much people want to secure the border now, when there isn't really any military threat, think of how much that sentiment would intensify if there really was a bona fide military threat. We'd be madly building walls, minefields, bunkers, and putting a huge number of troops along the border. I can't imagine even the most liberal of presidents ignoring such an obvious threat.
