LENI RIEFENSTAHL was a popular German movie star whose prominence also allowed her to have influence with Adolf Hitler. Hitler saw her as the ideal German woman and asked her to direct a movie about him.
Walt Disney also got involved in using movies for the purposes of propaganda.
How do conspiracies work? Typically agents of power (government/business) hide certain reasons or actions that would make their activities unacceptable to the general public if they were revealed for what they really were. One example of this is the the way that corporations exercise control over government legislation.
Here is one example that might affect the way we think about food.
What are chicken nuggets made out of? Watch this video here
Are chicken nuggets a conspiracy? Not really. Most of us know instinctively that much like hot dogs are made of leftover bit of animal so too chicken nuggets are made of nasty bits of chicken. Of course we conveniently forget this fact when we are standing at the counter of McDs.
But what about the idea of how we make choices about what food is healthy or not healthy.
It seems that the food that is the healthiest for us is not only the most expensive but also the food that will spoil the quickest (and its all found on the perimeter of the your local grocery store). Is your grocery store conspiring to make you choose unhealthy food over more nutritious food? Good question. Is it any wonder that cases of obesity are much higher in poorer families than in richer families?
But it gets worse. Many food companies get really upset when we change the rules about how we think about food. Take the latest ideas suggested by Michelle Obama (2010) to reduce salt, and increase vegetables in school cafeteria lunches. Frozen pizza makers like McCain's got real nervous when schools started talking about removing their products and replacing them with healthier choices. So... watch this
Here is how the system works...
A company like McCain's lobbies government representatives so that they change the classification of pizza to a vegetable. That way cafeterias can still meet their daily requirement of vegetables and they can do with pizza which students will pound down like... ...well... ...pizza.
So is this a conspiracy? Well, since the connection between corporations and government is largely done behind closed doors - you certainly could build a strong case that this is a conspiracy.
Changing the way we think about food and implementing laws about that is something we should ask questions about. Is it true that these companies are trying to make us unhealthy? No. They are trying to make a profit.
So what happens when profit becomes the motivating factor in making government decisions. Could it be that the idea to go to war might be motivated by profit even more than by the reasons we are usually given?
That is the whole point of the documentary called "Why We Fight"
Here is the connection that this film is making...
Military equipment is an industry. Large corporations run these industries. They make weapons for countries and sell them for a profit. Once a country figures it has enough bombs and guns and fighter jets it stops buying that stuff from this industry. Now the industry has a problem. It can't sell anymore of its products. So it needs to create a demand for its products. How does it do this? By suggesting to the government that it should use up some of these weapons in some sort of military action. In fact it uses the same methods of lobbying that the food companies use to convince politicians that the idea to go to war is a good one.
After watching the documentary, respond to the following questions:
What is the military industrial complex and how does it work?
What were the reasons to go into Iraq given by the government?
What other hidden reasons might have motivated the government to go to war in Iraq?
Why do Americans fight?
What is the connection between profit and foreign policy?
Is there a conspiracy in this situation?
In this course we look at four major factors athat contribute to the rise of ultranationalism: 1. Crisis 2. Expansionist National Interests -the belief that expanding the territory of the country could benefit the country to make it eceonomically, ethnically, socially, or politcally more secure. 3. Charismatic Leadership 4. Instilling Ultranationalist Values and Beliefs (using propaganda)
This post will focus on the issue of Crisis and how it leads to ultranationalism
We will focus on three aspect of crisis that contribute to ultranationalistic sentiments
Based on what was discussed in class - can you identify the general crisis that the world was facing in each of these areas?
How did the Great Depression contribute to global crisis? Both national and international crisis contributed to the rise of ultranationalist sentiments in each of the following countries.
Japan
Italy
Germany
Germany's situation was arguably the worst of the three since on top of similar issues the other countries were facing Germany was also trying to pay off the War Debt it was saddled with after WW1 through the Treaty of Versailles.
In each of these three cases the first action that they each made was to expand their territory. This they believed was in their national interests.
and
What was the worlds response?
Appeasement
so Germany is essentially allowed to invade various surrounding areas until it starts looking ever so greedily at Poland
