This afternoon I spent a couple of hours doing something that I hadn’t done in ages: I watched an old war movie on TV. As I sat there watching John Wayne mold his young recruits into lean, mean fighting machines and then lead them to victory in the 1949 classic “Sands of Iwo Jima”, I was struck by how clearly the producers had drawn the line of distinction between the Americans (the good guys) and the Japanese (the bad guys). There was no ambiguity whatsoever about who the folks watching the movie should be “rooting” for.
During WWII, Hollywood was one of our military’s biggest supporters. Big-name stars lined up to make commercials (for free mind you) in support of the war effort and our troops while the movie studios produced one patriotic film after another. But somewhere between WWII and Viet Nam they changed their stripes. Nowadays, virtually every movie they make with a war theme takes pot shots at our troops and the Commander in Chief. Modern day war movies are clearly intended to leave the viewers with a deep feeling of guilt about being a patriotic American who supports the troops.
The folks out in Hollywood have such tremendous influence that they could easily turn the tide of public opinion back towards patriotism, but they choose instead to lead our nation down a path to destruction. And like a bunch of lemmings following one another over a cliff, far too many of us are apparently quite ready to let them.
How true!!!