On this penulitamte episode of our Homeland series Tom and I begin by venting about our hatred of Alison. Next we move onto the shows continual use of women as negative characters. WE discuss the similarities between Alison and real life Russian spy Anna Chapman. We look at the parallels between these two characters and the notion that Alison will receive a hero’s welcome if she returns to Russia. Next we explore if the Russian government would actually let an attack happen, as Homeland suggests, in order to galvanize the West to fight ISIS. Tom and I lay out some of our theories as to why the Russian’s don’t talk about the Gladio operations (Boston, 9/11, Paris) that they clearly are aware of. We discuss the emergence of yet another evil female spy this time in the form of a German Foreign Office offical. Later Tom and I discuss one of the major takeaways from this season: that the CIA no longer engages in torture. Through out this season we have seen several distinct plot lines that lead us to believe that the CIA no longer uses this brutal tactic. Tom and I discuss the moral issues surrounding torture and the aspects of torture that are never brought up in the debate. We discuss how the show uses the character of Marwan to illustrate that torture doesn’t work, and how this is most likely a deliberate propaganda move to wipe clean the CIA’s hands. We also note how the show has routinely made the German’s look not only like torturers, but Nazi’s and Stasi as well. Tom and I also touch on Hollywoods false portrayal of strong female characters in movies such as Spy, and how this is really just more of the same. Later we move onto the portrayal of Laura Poitras in the show and how this may reflect the CIA’s various desires to portray her as hero and villain. We round off the conversation by discussing some very interesting listener emails and tweets.
Tom and I briefly talk about our participation in a brand new media project being spearheaded by Sibel Edmonds at the end of the podcast.
This much more dramatic episode of Homeland was the basis for a fun review discussion this week, touching on the hints towards the deep state, the portrayal of the Laura Poitras character, the implausibility of the CIA’s handling of the Russian double agent problem and Pearse’s hatred of Allison. We also discuss the mysterious origins of ‘terrorist videos’, particularly those coming to us via the SITE intelligence group, and how this is reflected in Homeland, and discuss why this episode made an explicit reference to the recent attacks in Paris. We round off talking about Pearse’s enjoyment of the Carrie-Astrid relationship in the show, any my love of post-industrial architecture as the setting for both a jihadi terrorist cell and the CIA’s discovery of that gang.
On this episode of our Homeland review series,Tom and I try to decipher this puzzle-piece of an episode. In contrast to last week’s fairly simple episode, this week’s was complex and intriguing. We explore the character of Alison and her trajectory from CIA station chief to Russian double agent. We discuss how the show is turning her into the ultimate villain, who is not only a master manipulator, but a cold and calculating egoist. We touch on the fact that Alison seems to be driven not by money or ideology, but by her ego and her desire to be seen as the smartest person in the room. Later we move onto to Carrie and the noticeable change her characterization has gone through. Previously the character we loved to hate, Carrie is now becoming the only character worth watching and caring about. Tom and I explore how this is a deliberate attempt to bring the audience back around to loving the CIA. We also touch on the character of Numan, how not only is he working for the CIA, but how his hack is ultimately a good thing for the CIA. Tom and I also touch what Otto Durring’s hidden motives may be. Next we discuss Saul’s “defection” to the Israelis and what this may mean for the future of Homeland. Tom and I round out the conversation by discussing the recent terrorist attacks in Paris and our overall response and feeling towards this awful event.
In this episode Tom Secker and I are joined by Professor Matthew Alford for a discussion of the Department of Defense’s’ ever increasing relation with Hollywood cinema. We discuss the history and nature of the DOD’s Hollywood Entertainment Liaison office, how this office has existed since the early 1900’s and has had a tremendous influence on the creation of our cinema and culture, the current head of the DOD Entertainment Liaison Office, Phil Strubb, and how he has gone about expanding the scope and influence of the military’s involvement in Hollywood films.
We later move on to a real bombshell – – a massive document dump that Tom and Matt received from the DOD Entertainment Liaison Office through an FOIA request. Representing the largest ever FOIA release of documents from the Pentagon’s Hollywood office, these documents offer a rare glimpse into a persistent propaganda effort by the military. The three of us would also like to encourage everyone in the BFP community to look through these documents and let us know what you find. Tom, Matt and I each discovered different nuggets of information, so we would love to see what you find yourselves. Be sure to let us know in the comments section!
FULL DISCLOSURE: I am no longer associated with Sibel Edmond, or BoilingFrogs/Newsbud. I think she is a con-artist and a petty and vindictive individual. If you want to know more about why I broke off all ties with Sibel you can find out more here:
In this BFP Roundtable episode Sibel Edmonds and Pearse Redmond discuss the recent “bombshell” article by Seymour Hersh regarding the so-called Bin laden Raid, offer their analysis of the article itself, and explain why this is yet another attempt to obscure the elephant in the room. The discussion includes two never-before-released revelations regarding the Hersh story and the FBI’s Bin Laden tapes: Extrapolating from her sources, Sibel explains why Hersh wrote this article, the timing of it, and the players and agenda behind it. Later she delivers another bombshell that deals with the FBI’s infamous Bin Laden tapes: From her time as an FBI translator Sibel was privy to some very interesting information regarding these tapes, how they were used by the Deep State, and how this relates back to the Hersh article.
Tom Secker and I joined Kira Young once again to discuss our new podcast series The CIA and Hollywood. We discussed our reasons for creating the show as well as where we will be taking it in second season. Later we get into some of the cultural memes that the CIA is currently introducing into popular culture, with a particular emphasis on female characters in TV.
Guillermo Jimenez joins us for this episode to talk about Robert De Niro – a man whose relationship with the CIA spans two decades. We look at four films – Wag the Dog, Meet the Parents, Meet the Fockers and The Good Shepherd, the latter three of which have documented CIA assistance in their production. We discuss Robert De Niro’s transformation from a serious dramatic actor into a kooky comedy figure, and the CIA’s apparent involvement in that. This led to us asking whether the three comedy films are trojan horses for a sneaky CIA agenda, and talking about how The Good Shepherd has many flaws but this did not stop the CIA themselves from praising it as ‘probably as good as any film on the Agency’.
In this opening episode of the new series Pearse and Tom look into the CIA’s adaptations of George Orwell’s two most famous novels – Animal Farm and 1984. We focus primarily on Animal Farm, a revolutionary animated film in several senses of the word, produced by Louis De Rochemont – a man who had worked with several other government agencies prior to making Animal Farm with the CIA. The animation was does by British firm Halas and Bachelor, and we also discuss their background. This episode also examines the paper trail, looking in Orwell’s FBI file and the MI5 records on actor Michael Redgrave, who starred in 1984 despite being a suspected Communist. We conclude that the CIA had something of an obsession with Orwell at this time, and were subverting his works quite radically in these films.
Joining me for this discussion is Guillermo Jimenez along with regular guest Pearse Redmond. We talked about three recent examples of the crossover of popular culture and politics – the film The Interview, the attack on Charlie Hedbo magazine in Paris, and American Sniper. We talked about how the popular dialogue around these events has diluted and degraded the notion of freedom of speech, and outline a more careful and refined version of the same idea.
A prominent German journalist, Udo Ulfkotte, has admitted to acting as tool of CIA in its never ending quest to control public opinion. The former editor of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (one of Germany’s leading daily newspapers) referred to himself as one of many journalists who worked for the agency under “non-official cover.” He knowingly printed stories he knew to be false that came directly from CIA talking points. He revealed this information to Russia Today because he felt that war with Russia is becoming ever more likely, and that he no longer wanted to take part in fomenting this anti-Russian, pro-war hatred. For more on the story please check out this recent Washington’s Blog article.
Porkins Policy Review 