My child wanted to watch an animated green lantern series recently so we checked it out. Of course the main character who is the human green lantern is a fighter pilot who does a bunch of sweet fighter pilot flight maneuvers in the opening sequence. I told my child that shows like this often show the military being cool and doing cool stuff, but that in real life what fighter pilots actually do is drop bombs on children. I’m only human, I also enjoy (some) military action movies, but I know it’s cotton candy brain poison too.
I hate how many children’s shows have pro military pro cop propaganda. How do others talk to their kids about it to inoculate them against brainworms? I usually describe the military and the cops as being like a gang of bullies - they do things to make themselves look cool but really they just exist to hurt people and take their shit.
Reagan abolishing the Fairness Doctrine, even as flawed and questionably motivated as it was, paved the way for some very serious and long-lasting propaganda victories for chuds for decades afterward.
While not the most direct recipient of the abolishment, childrens’ entertainment nonetheless became increasingly driven by an unprecedented desire to sell toys based off of what was on the screen, often with crude propaganda built right in.
The most glaring example of that was the 1980s GI Joe cartoon with the tattered vestiges of the old broadcast norms delivered by way of those memeable PSAs after each show.
I really enjoyed that cartoon as a kid and it took decades to look back and realize what I had internalized and accepted in the propaganda in an unexamined way regarding the US military, its purpose, and its goals across the planet.
At least we got parodies like this from people that realized what was shoveled into their brains when they were kids.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-wdItWmnUY