"In an open society, such as the United States, the hidden and integrated nature of the propaganda best convinces people they are not being manipulated."Įxactly, and neither I nor my parents were supposed to think much about what the 1980s were teaching me and every other kid in our basements-turned-bunkers.
"Propaganda is most effective when it is least noticeable," writes public relations expert Nancy Snow. I was just punching in up-up-down-down-left-right-left-right-B-A, then happily mowing down anything and everything that moved. All I did was cheer.Īnd when I played "Contra" on my Nintendo NES, I wasn't questioning the premise of a game named after violent terrorist death squads in Nicaragua that were being funded by the Reagan administration's illegal CIA cash transfers from Iran. When I rented Hollywood's first PG-13 rated production, 1984's "Red Dawn," and I saw the teen heartthrobs protect America by racking up execution after execution, I didn't know the movie would also become the Guinness world-record holder for violent acts depicted per minute in a film. Joe Snowcat tank to indiscriminately fire one of its six missiles at the Cobra soldiers who so often held my LEGO city hostage, I didn't think that if this were real, it would probably leave a smoldering pile of blood and limbs and innocent victims. Let's be completely clear: I did not consciously know I was a devout militarist in 1988 at the young, impressionable age of 12.
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