MovieChat Forums > The Post (2018) Discussion > Another Spielberg talkfest

Another Spielberg talkfest


When I think back on the experience of watching The Post tonight, I realized it reveals practically nothing about the significance of the real Pentagon Papers aside from telling us the not too earthshattering revelation that Pentagon analysts already regarded the Vietnam War as unwinnable as early as '65.. But Ellsberg and the Papers are just the Macguffin anyway so Spielberg can have his little onscreen debates about the importance of a free press. I hope no parallelism was intended to suggest WaPo has even remotely the integrity now that it had in the era of Ben Bradlee. Now it's a dishrag owned by Jeff Bezos spewing out whatever propaganda the military-intelligence apparatus wishes to make public. It was overtaken by the CIA ages ago and now serves as its mouthpiece. These days these two newspapers lionized in The Post (NY Times and WaPo) have become purveyors of militarist propaganda offering unquestioning support to the War on Terror. Just to use an example of how degraded WaPo has actually become, just a couple of days ago as part of its support for the #MeToo witch-hunt hysteria, it ran an op-ed by a deranged puritan attacking Woody Allen for his allegedly perverse sexual desires. Spielberg is right: we need a free press now more than ever, but it's time the NYTimes and WaPo actually do their jobs and not serve as apologists for our latest military misadventures.
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You are absolutely right!

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Did you agree with your own post?

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LollllšŸ¤£

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Agreed. I totally get the need for free press, but today all of the US media is owned by a few individuals. You don't have one owner per big publication/news channel. And yes, investigative reporting is largely gone as well - in those days you had way more reporters/investigative journalists on payroll than you do now. Furthermore, since today's news media largely lives and survives on ads and corporate/government handouts, it has nowhere near the amount of independence that it had in the 'no internet' era, where it lived and died by the number of newspaper subscribers.

In other words, Trump had nothing to do with the current lack of free press in the US. Keep in mind, given how the US elections operate these days, where the winner is decided by the amount of corporate donations a candidate gets, Trump is, shockingly, a bit of a maverick - winning with fewer corporate donations than any other candidate. The problem, however, is still there - the US elections, much like the media are largely owned by the corporations. The point being, the US has a broken elections system - I mean, these past elections had revealed so many flaws, even within the democrat institution, that it's not even funny. On top of that, you have monopolized and corporate/government controlled media as well - that actually thrives on fake news. Hell, NYT was partially responsible for the Iraq invasion, by disseminating the government created fake news like it was the holy truth. Anything to make a buck, as they say.

In 1970's, the media was by FAR more independent than it is now. It was, essentially, the glory days of news media - and it has gone so dependent on various bodies since then, it's not even funny.

The vile Trump is not fighting free press - he's fighting corporations that voted against him in the elections - one demon vs. the rest of the pack - it's not exactly evil vs good sort of war - just a bunch of evil entities fighting over the control of thepolice state (USA).

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Films or media like this are vehicles for the subconscious, it is not about where their superficial message stands, our human subconscious will take in only the simplest of it, that is - trust the press... which formulates our own reality as a result, that is the sole purpose of these films, however subtle that is, but being conscious of this programming destroys this, I'd rather program myself with a message to trust my own instinct, my gut, my own self.

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As they say - knowledge is power.

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