Citaitons Needed Marathon I need to do

On a Very Special Episode of "Home Improvement," Tim and Jill lecture their son about the dangers of marijuana after he’s caught smoking a joint. On a powerful episode of ABC’s "Sports Night," written by Aaron Sorkin, sportscaster Dan Rydell delivers a four-minute monologue on how dope killed his younger brother. On a devastating episode of CBS's "Chicago Hope," a dozen teenagers are rushed to the emergency room after taking a new psychedelic drug at a rave.

We’ve all seen these "Very Special" drug episodes throughout our childhoods and adolescence. For some reason, our favorite shows, seemingly out of nowhere, decided to dedicate an entire episode to the perils of teenage drug use.

These episodes, mostly from the 1980s and '90s, have become a cultural punchline, something amusing and mocked but ultimately, one would think, harmless. But what most viewers don't know is that many of these episodes were not just part of a teen-oriented convention turned TV trope; a number of them were actually funded by the federal government to the tune of hundreds of thousands––sometimes millions–– of dollars to promote so-called "drug awareness."
The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) in the late 1990s made a deal with multiple TV networks to include anti-drug messaging in show plots. In 1997, Congress approved a plan to buy $1 billion of anti-drug advertising over five years for its National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign.

From at least 1997 to 2000, the Feds paid TV networks to air what was ostensibly drug awareness public health information but was, in many key ways, propaganda to sustain and build support for the war on drugs. The White House drug office paid networks large sums of money to weave so-called "anti-drug" stories in their narratives, undisclosed to the viewer, often revising and approving scripts without the show writers knowledge.

Rather than being harmless––if corny––anti-drug messages we can all now laugh at, these narratives were also part of a broader scare strategy to frighten, misinform, and prop up the federal government's war on drugs both at home and abroad.

On this episode, we will review some of the major TV shows that ran these episodes, how much money they took in from the U.S. government, and how these tropes shaped and directly impacted public policy that promoted racism, imperial meddling in Latin America, and mass incarceration.

Our guest is Kassandra Frederique, Executive Director of the Drug Policy Alliance.

Ep 174: How Your Favorite 1990's "Very Special" Anti-Drug Episode Was Probably Funded by the US Govt

“Obama lauds small business owners in his State of the Union,” announced The Washington Post. “I have always said that there is nothing more optimistic – perhaps maybe getting married – than starting a small business,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi tells us. “John Kerry would raise taxes on 900,000 small businesses,” insisted a reelection ad for George W. Bush.

Everywhere we turn we are centering the needs of and reminded of the glowing status of the “small business.” They are the bipartisan holiest of holies in our economy – the scrappy little guy that also props up the moral pillars of capitalism – evidence that with a little elbow grease and knowhow anyone can build a business in their image. Small businesses are one of two major vehicles for COVID-19 relief – a wholly uncontroversial good that both parties, all ideologies, everyone!, can agree are worth protecting and prioritizing. 

But what do pundits and politicians mean exactly when they say “small business”? How does our romantic vision of “small business” match up with reality, and how is their plight used as a messaging vanguard to strip away environmental and labor regulations, tort protections, taxes and a host of safeguards against corporate greed?

The rhetoric forces the evocation of a wholesome image of a Mom-and-Pop candy store in Appleton, Wisconsin, in order to push for laws that will ultimately benefit hedge funds, Dupont and Koch Industries, and a murderers row of polluters and worker abusers.

Our guests are Public Citizen's Lisa Gilbert and Street Fight Radio's Bryan Quinby.

Episode 111: How “Small Business” Rhetoric Is Used to Protect Corporate America

The United States and its close allies Saudi Arabia and Israel have been bombing and occupying large sections of the so-called “Muslim world” for decades – drastically ramping up after the 9/11 attacks and seemingly with no end in sight. The U.S., like all empires, cannot operate a large, complex system premised on violence, meddling and subjugation without a moral pretext. This moral pretext, even before 9/11, was primarily about fighting a war on so-called “Terrorism” or “Islamic extremism” while allegedly promoting “stability,” “freedom” and “democracy.”

Along with American news media’s constant fear-mongering over scary Muslims lurking in the shadows, a major pillar propping up this moral pretext is pop culture – namely the cultural products coming out of Hollywood. Our decades-long "War on Terror" would no doubt be much more difficult to sustain without a constant reminder from TV and film that, despite the fact that the average American is more likely to be killed by a vending machine than a terrorist attack, the threat of Islamic terrorism remains ever-present and existential, marked by an inevitable “clash of civilizations” devoid of context or any notion that the U.S. is a primary driver of violence across the globe.

Over the course of three episodes, we'll be taking a look at how Hollywood’s television and studio film output helps prop up America’s military aggression in the Middle East, engages in both casual and explicit racism, strips conflicts of any historical or imperial context pushes the idea the only Good Muslim is a snitch or CIA agent, and generally leaves its audience angry and ill-informed. 

In this episode, we review Hollywood’s long history of anti-Muslim racism in both classic and campy action/adventure films and TV and how it both primed us for – and sustains – the never-ending and self-perpetuating "War on Terror."

Episode 113: Hollywood & Anti-Muslim Racism (Part 1) - Action and Adventure Schlock

Our cultural context for understanding what we see on the news and hear in our politics, is often informed by the films and TV shows we’ve grown up watching. Pop culture is powerful and persuasive, and — for a century now — racist, Orientalist and cartoonish portrayals of Arabs and Muslims have littered our screens, big and small. This is the second episode in our three-part Citations Needed series on anti-Muslim racism in Hollywood. On Part I, we discussed big budget action and adventure films like Delta Force, American Sniper and True Lies, where Muslims get blown away at every turn.

But not every movie and TV show is quite so overt in its vilification of the designated enemy. Since the release of these movies, the state curated narrative in film has diversified, broadening to include savvier Oscar-bait productions in which anti-Muslim racism is dressed up in elaborate plot structures and supposedly nuance "debates".

Films like Argo, Syriana, and Zero Dark Thirty are lauded for their ostensible complexity, subtlety, and nuance, such as their willingness to suggest that government agencies like the CIA are bloated and bureaucratic. Instead of scenes with a tough action hero bodyslamming or mowing down teeming hordes of Muslim terrorists, these films are part of a smarter genre of jingoistic action film — the prestige thriller — featuring flawed protagonists, some meta comedy, and women CIA agents excelling in a historically male-dominated field of coups and torture. 

But ultimately, they project the same tired nationalism and ideology reinforcement just in a sleeker, more modern form. On this episode, we’ll examine how anti-Muslim and anti-Arab propaganda is disseminated through the contemporary prestige thriller genre.

We're joined by historian, artist and author Maytha Alhassen.

Episode 114: Anti-Muslim Racism in Hollywood (Part II) - Oscar-Bait Imperialism

For over a hundred years, the American film industry has been promoting and glorifying U.S. foreign policy, initially working with the military and Department of Defense, and eventually, the CIA as well. From its origins as a producer of wartime propaganda like 1911’s The Military Air-Scout to its contemporary role as purveyor of high-tech action epics like Iron Man, Hollywood and the American war machine reinforce each other — myth and politics intertwine.

In the process, the entertainment industry has reaped handsome rewards. Producers, directors, and other top brass in the entertainment industry are lavished with military equipment for filming, personal tours of government headquarters, and inside information — or at least what government officials want filmmakers to believe is inside information — all under the guise of lending “authenticity” and “realism” to film and, to an extent, television shows as well.

But what are the costs of this so-called “authenticity?” How do the U.S. military and intelligence agencies use benign-sounding partnerships like “on-set consulting” and “equipment loaning” arrangements to shape and censor narratives so they make American Empire look, at worst bumbling and good natured, and, at best, heroic and pure hearted?

In Parts I and II of this three-part series on Hollywood and anti-Muslim racism, we analyzed over half a dozen films and TV shows, illustrating how state-driven narratives of U.S. nationalism and vilification of an official enemies animate Hollywood’s cultural products, namely those targeting Arabs and Iranians. On this episode, we’ll explore the intersection of U.S. military and intelligence agencies with Hollywood, taking a closer look at how the military state helps shape films and television showing that pro-U.S. messaging used to smear Muslims doesn’t happen in a vacuum, but is often subsidized by the very forces dropping bombs on them.

Our guest is Professor Matthew Alford, co-author of National Security Cinema: The Shocking New Evidence of Government Control in Hollywood.

Ep 115: Hollywood & Anti-Muslim Racism Part III - How the Pentagon & CIA Sponsor American Mythmaking

By now, it's largely taken for granted that country music is a racialized signifier, interchangeable with right-wing politics. And it’s not such an unreasonable generalization: the political currents of twanged and drawled patriotic paeans like Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA," Toby Keith's "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue (The Angry American)," and Brooks & Dunn's "Only In America" leave little to the imagination.

But how, exactly, did this come to be? After all, country music, a descendant of the blues, folk, Tejano, and other genres, with connections to labor organizations like the Industrial Workers of the World and social-justice movements, has historically attracted musicians spanning the political spectrum, and didn’t necessarily emerge from such a staunchly right-wing political tradition.

Rather, popular conceptions of country music have long been deliberately shaped by a series of broader ideological projects. Throughout the 20th and early 21st centuries, conservative politicians and other right-wing forces have exploited the genre to promote illiberalism, racism, revanchist politics, and runaway anti-intellectualism where not giving a shit about the world beyond one’s own cold beer, pickup truck, old lady is not only acceptable, but actively encouraged and flaunted. 

On this episode, we examine how the genre of country music has been wielded as a tool of reactionary politicking in the US, from the machinations of Henry Ford in the 1920s to the Nixon administration’s Southern Strategy in the 1960s and ‘70s to the heady Shock and Y’all days of the Bush years, and how a once working-class tradition became a cultural cul de sac of worn-out tropes and middle-class, white grievance politics.  

Our guest is writer, editor and artist Alexander Billet.

Episode 119: How the Right Shaped Pop Country Music

Citations Needed is a podcast about the media, power, PR, and the history of bullshit. It is hosted by Nima Shirazi and Adam Johnson, and produced by Florence Barrau-Adams.

Ep 174: How Your Favorite 1990's "Very Special" Anti-Drug Episode Was Probably Funded by the US Govt

Citations Needed Podcast