NOTABLE: FAILED PSYOP?
The podcast This American Life just aired a rerun of a 9/11/2020 episode on movies. One of the movies, What's So Bad About Feeling Good, was released in 1968: A new infection that simply makes people feel happy is treated as a threat by the authorities while its "victims" work to spread it to others.
I initially found it interesting that the podcaster, Sean Cole, described his difficulty in finding the movie anywhere online. My interest heightened as I continued listening: the virus comes from a toucan on a cargo ship; the government wants to stop the virus because happy people won't buy tobacco and alcohol, and this will decrease government tax revenue; the vaccine is developed within weeks of the first recorded cases; a military character suggests that the virus was laboratory-made by communists in order to advance their own agenda; the government releases the vaccine throughout the city by means of factory chimneys and air vents (think NYC today releasing gas into the subway); the list goes on. The podcaster, Sean Cole, repeatedly tells the audience how bad this movie is, making me wonder if there is something he doesn't want us to find if we go out of our way to watch it. You can listen to the podcast segment on 'What's So Bad About Feeling Good?' here:
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/717/audience-of-one-2020
Interesting quote (from IMDB):
Dr. Shapiro: What this particular virus evidentally does is cause changes in our behavior patterns. People infected become euphoric, have a sense of well-being.
The Mayor: Well, I'm not going to order the Police Commissioner to call out twenty-eight thousand cops to find some bird that makes people feel good.
Dr. Shapiro: But we have no way of knowing what it may lead to. People could feel so good they'd quit their jobs, fly kites in Times Square, block traffic, uh… stop voting…
The Mayor: Stop voting!
[picks up the phone]
The Mayor: Get me the Police Commissioner.
Thoughts: Was this movie produced in order to create negative sentiment against the US government? Was it scrubbed online because it was too close to the truth of [[[their]]] plans, or because the dissimilarities between the movie and [[[their]]] plans encourage critical thinking and questioning about what the truth might actually be, or because of something else entirely?