If I had to sum up the overall spirit of Red dawn vs Amerika it would've been this Red dawn: we lost the battle ,but can still fight the war to fix it. Amerika: we lost the war, now each day is a battle to live with it.
@@cj7caster33 I think of Red Dawn as a thought experiment. This scale of partisan combat would have played out in Europe. By placing these hypothetical events in a setting close to home, I think we can start to grasp the scale.
LOL. We'd just lost Vietnam and caused the Khmer Rouge to come to power....then you Conservatives started and lost another War in the Middle East. That's what happens when you agree with Republicans. LOL. Worst group in US history.
How does Amerika compare with the Man in High Castle? Originally Amerika was a dark future, but it became in time Alternate History as it occurs in 1997, which in our history was during the Clinton Administration. How did Amerika happen, in much the same way that Joe Biden got "elected" only in the case of Amerika there was a person who benefitted who wasn't senile with memory problems. There was a chink in our armor having to do with the mainstream media, the same media that has suppressed the television miniseries Amerika by the way. The Media installed Joe Biden, and I think in a few days we will see the end of his puppet presidency hopefully and America will go back to normal.
This is wild! Amerika was filmed in my home town. I had a friend who was hired to ride a motorcycle in it. I remember seeing some of the vehicles staged after the filming was done. I've looked for this movie and never seen it viewable anywhere. I've never seen it. Thank you!!
Several years ago I looked for any kind of official release, but ended up having to settle for VHS rips someone put up on youtube. It's not great cinema, but it's a great cultural artifact.
@@feralhistorian There are companies that transfer home movies and VHS tapes to DVD format. I think there is a company called Legacy Box which does this. I think the problem is that just about the entire entertainment industry is run from one side of the political spectrum, that would be the left side, maybe this wasn't entirely the case when Amerika was produced but it is now! I think the Left-wing media is responsible for making Joe Biden president of the United States, I think the same way that Joe Biden became president is how the Communists could have taken over the United States. There are some alternative Right-wing or Conservative media outlets starting up now, one of which is Daily Wire, which is producing its own version of Snow White in reaction to Disney's woke version. I stopped going to see movies in theaters because I didn't want to spend $10 buying a ticket to watch left-wing crap. I think we are taking the country back with the help of X and Elon Musk.
It's casting practice that if an actor does well in a role then he gets shortlisted for similar roles. Sam Neill played a Russian-born spy for the British in _Reilly, Ace of Spies_ (1983), which got him considered for a Soviet KGB officer in _Amerika_ (1987), and then a Soviet naval officer in _The Hunt for Red October_ (1990).
The algorithm just showed me this. I remember watching this when I was young on TV...I missed a couple episodes but my dad taped it on VHS. This is basically what happened...its a damn shame. I remember in elementary school thinking this nation was basically unstoppable, then the Soviets fell and it was bolstered, then I served 20 years in the Marines...and now, I feel like the entire time we were losing our culture, soul, and ideals. This was actually, in retrospect, better than Red Dawn.
@CarrotConsumer during the cold war, American leaders often commented on how the Christian west, embracing traditional (think Paine, Jefferson, etc.) Liberal ideals would defeat athiest comminism. Ironically, at that point we had already started our movement to heavy handed statism and socialism, but that was the ideal and soul I'm referring to. Add to that the concept of limited government, again, not perfect during the time thanks to Wilson and FDR and others, but part of the idealism. That was my impression as a boy growing up. Now we have "conservatives" embracing social programs, surveillance state, and other things. Let alone neo liberals who are a wierd juxtaposition of nanny state/surveillance state/hedonism. We lost our way and the show Amerika showed one sad, dystopian possibility based on us losing our way.
Been following this channel for several months now, it is knocking out some really interesting content and deserves far more exposure and viewership that it currently has. I always look forward to finding a new upload here.👍
Ya’ll people in the comments seem to shit on Yuri Bezmenov but lets not forget. Evry single detail he said about what was going on and why our country was so fuckt up, was spot on.
It’s funny, I was talking to a friend the other day about Yuri and all the Socialist/Communist stuff flying around social media. He said “The irony is, the Soviets finally got us right where they wanted us. Unfortunately for them they died thirty years before they could take advantage of it!”
The reason why nothing really gets resolved at the end of 'Amerika' is because they were planning to make it into a weekly series (which never happened).
Yikes, I think a weekly series would likely not be successful back then. Now a remake that sticks to the premise and dialogue on one of todays streaming services would be interesting.😎✌️
@@mediawarrior5957 I meant to respond earlier, but it was clear that A LOT of us lay people had no idea how badly the Soviet Economy was doing, probably as early as Reagan’s election in ‘81, and DEFINITELY by his reelection in ‘84 when the Soviets were actively interfering in hopes of getting Mondale elected, (well at least he got his home state).😎✌️🇺🇸
Good video - Some powerful ideas there: Power is expensive - Stepping back from Article 5 creates a vacuum - Who would you like to fill that gap? A rules based order is rarely convenient or fair to those who pay for it ... but the alternative is a race to the bottom.
I was 10 or 11 years old when this came out. While I understood, in a broad sense, what was happening I was too young to appreciate the deeper meaning behind it. I watched half of episode 1 before I gave up on it. At that age, Red Dawn was far more appealing.
“…the grass is not always greener over shallow graves…” 🤔I’ll have to remember that. (🤔…Y’know-translated into Mandarin, Russian, or Persian, that might look great as a tattoo, wouldn’t it? [Or on a shirt? Or a jacket?…])
"They knew it was bad, they were afraid it would get worse" - a perfect summary for the soviet/ruzzian history. Of course, long-term zombification had also resulted in a considerable share of the population (in my estimate, about 20% max) that truly believe that the existing regime is the best that has ever happened and that there are no better ways of life.
That mindset infected most european nations. In germany we have the idea of the "best germany of all time", a semi ironic slogan coined by angela merkel, the absolutely democratically elected former stasi operative that ruled our nation for nearly 2 decades. Obviously, now that shes gone it only became worse. So im not hopeful about a post-putin russia.
One of my friends thought it was a fear of chaos. A lot of dictators and non-democratic states from Rhodesia to al-Assad try to impress that they are the only alternative to chaos. Usually because they have removed any other alternatives.
Right now it looks like Putin has that sort of balance. Enough people of their elite are unsure of their chances during a post-Putin power struggle that Putin remains.
I mean, the alternative was tried in 1991, and the west did very little. Doesn't justify what they're doing know but there is a genuinely large subset of people here who viewed Russia as an enemy into the 1990s, which yeah man when your choice is a stable Oligarchy or the Russia in the 1990s you can be blinded by propaganda.
I've read the novel but never watched the mini series, though I'm fascinated by it. I just haven't been able to devote the time and brainpower since it feels like a slog, but I'm excited to see commentary on it, and will get around to it some day! Interested to see a take on this while I randomly googled to see clips.
It's definitely a slog and its flaws are many and glaring, but it manages to take its time with a multi-faceted story in a way that no production today would attempt.
That defector's best bit of psyop work was to convince anyone that the Soviets had their shit even remotely that together, as would play out rather dramatically in the late 80s.
The USSR only lasted as long as it did because of the endurance of its people, but the refusal to risk another attempt at fixing the government. Change either, and the USSR might not have survived the 50's.
@slappy8941 yes that's why we're living under the glorious Revolution comrade if anything Levi's Coca Cola and the Beatles undermined the East far more than their attempts at psyops in the west, especially after the khrushchev thaw, they never had the same reach.
I recall conversations between my father and his friends and coworkers at White House Communications during those years (this was the tech side of communications, White House computers and phone networks and such, not the political aspect of communications). Almost all of them had previous military experience (My father was still active duty Army in those years, having served in the 82nd Airborne in Vietnam before being taught computers and programming languages at Fort Dix). I remember pretty much all of them laughing derisively at the premise of "Red Dawn", most of them agreeing that such a conventional conflict scenario between the Soviet Union and the United States (on our soil) was ludicrous. Aside from the point that the Soviets never had the sort of force projection the US enjoyed, they always cited American defense doctrine which was clear: Any threat to the territorial sovereignty of the American mainland would be countered with our nuclear forces. End of story. Now, none of them had a crystal ball, foreseeing the imminent collapse of the Soviet Bloc, but they all knew that the Russian military was not the daunting force they were made out to be in popular American culture.
So first of all this video was fantastic! My thoughts: Regarding Red Dawn, I always thought it took place in an alternate history where America of post Vietnam was worse than we remember, AND President Carter got re-elected, (perhaps the rescue of the Iranian hostages was successful in this alternate history, buying him a brief USA! USA! USA! surge). I would end up watching the movie A LOT! That combined with a strong sense of patriotism and an unrequited crush on Jennifer Grey, had me enlisting in the Army two years later. As to Amerika: I watched it in the Army. It was genuinely a more somber experience, and the young soldier in me wanted to see more direct action by “the resistance” to free themselves from the yoke of Soviet Occupation. Obviously that didn’t really happen until the end, even so the Heartland Defense Forces assisting the resisters against the UNSSU forces, would likely have disarmed and arrested a bunch of the resisters. I’ve seen it a few times since ‘87, but that happened with the advent of RUclips. I’m sure you and I watched the same channel that had it chopped up into about 13 different videos. As I get older I think my favorite scene, and most “hopeful” of the series, is when Milford comes out of the courthouse and leads the crowd into The Pledge of Allegiance followed by the repeated AMERICA, followed by the fist in the air in defiance. I honestly think Denisov wouldn’t have let it go past one, maybe two versus of The Pledge, before Milford is hauled off. Still I think it’s the most inspiring scene of the series, though the scene with the vets at the Lincoln Day celebration is right up there. I’ve seen maybe one or two VHS copies floating around, but that’s it. ABC, especially now, would not rerelease it! I think it hits too close to home now considering Yuri’s revelations from nearly 40 years ago. As a friend of mine says, “while we were choking out the Soviets, they were injecting us with cancer.” There was a novel that came out at roughly the same time. I bought and read it. It goes into more detail about how the Soviets “won.” Since I was serving in Europe at the time I was a little bothered, because in the book, the Soviets demand that the countries of Western Europe detain all U.S. forces. Every member of NATO complies. It’s never mentioned if said forces are repatriated back to the U.S., or if they got repatriated to gulags in Siberia. Again I really appreciate your synopsis. I’ll definitely check out the rest of your channel.😎✌️
This should be interesting and digested. I was born in a Communist Country, knew a dissident (house arrest, not prison camp), and found plenty of material on how symbolic gestures were used to fight the Nazis but little on how people used them to fight the Communists. This seems like a good film to reflect on that.
This speaks to a bigger point to me: oftentimes I see movies like this ridiculed, while movies about the Nazis never seem to be looked at as over-sensationalized or over the top. I don't get why people often act as if the Soviets were not that big a deal. Stalin had purges that killed as many people as Hitler, if not more, and the fact that it wasn't ethnically motivated doesn't make it any more wholesome. The Soviets aggressively invaded eastern Europe after WW2, they did indeed have a hand in North Korea and Vietnam (contrary to what I have heard some oddballs say), and those of us old enough to remember can tell you about the attempt to invade Afghanistan during the Carter administration. I have to wonder if the lionizing of Karl Marx by intellectuals has played a part in the "softening" of criticism of Marx's political offspring in Lenin, Stalin, Mao, etc., as I rarely hear any real criticism of their results like I still do of Hitler, Mussolini, etc (which, btw, were also influenced by Marx, as Hitler himself has admitted).
@Outrider74 The Nazis' mass murders being ethnically motivated does indeed make them more inherently evil and immoral than anything Stalin did. The Soviets won the war and repressed the Polrs, Czechs, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, hell, even half of Germany itself, etc. but at the end of the day these people were still given a degree of autonomy and permitted to survive and carve out a niche for themselves in the communist world, however meager and subservient they were. If the Germans had won the war the entirety of Eastern Europe would have been depopulated of its original inhabitants, slaved to death or just outright executed, and replaced wholesale with German settlers. That's way worse than living under a run-of-the-mill communist dictatorship.
Stalin killed 100 times as many people as those who starved in the camps because of the civilian supply lines got bombed. It goes against the narrative since the commies were totally the good guys who didn't really side with Germany that long.
Having read the book back in the 1980's, when this movie came out the take down of the United Sates was thru a EMP weapon the Soviets used to knock out all the military communication networks forcing the president to surrender. It was true then and is still true today (USN 1984-2004)
Recently found your channel, and am loving the perspectives and insights. Have you thought about reviewing and breaking down the original "V" miniseries and Series? There's good stuff in there for today's world! Ditto foe "The Prisoner".
V was the greatest thing to happen on 80s TV. Admittedly, the series was terrible, but it had the original cast so teenage me was happy (and also obsessed with Michael Ironsides). But then came Lydia and the rivalry with Diana and enough hairspray to punch a hole through the the ozone...
I have always assumed that "Amerika" was the conservative answer to "The Day After". TDA showed the ultimate result of war with the Soviet Union, i.e. the death of billions and the destruction of civilization. Amerika showed the ultimate results of the US losing WWIII to the Soviets, i.e. the lose of freedom.
That's because it was. IIRC it was Ben Stein's idea because The Day After was so scary the right feared that Americans would roll over rather than launch the nukes if threatened.
That is what it was supposed to be - a response to TDA. However, the network intentionally stretched it out to make it boring (17 hours total), and watered down the oppression. The lead character would never have been released by the Soviets, for example. A pop-culture version of “controlled opposition.”
It's how any experiment in making a nation in Europe works like that. You might dream of a decentralized state with weak power but that does not make France next doors go away.
@@TheGuyInTheCheapSeats I think the change of speed with nuclear weapons changed the presidency. The people making decisions during the Cuba Crisis could fit into a conference room and make decisions hour by hour. The same on the Soviet side, Chrusjtjov is practically sleeping in his office.
Not really, the French and Spanish thought what we were doing was hilarious and the Indians were far from united on the topic. There was no one else in the theater. One America started basing privateers in French ports to raid the British coastline, not even naval flexibility was a unique advantage the British had.
It's been a very long time since I watched this miniseries (and the OG "Red Dawn.") But a few years earlier, I read a book from our local library titled, "What To Do When The Russians Come: A Survivor's Guide," and it was fresh in my mind when I saw "Red Dawn" and "Amerika." Though the book could be interpreted as anything from a, "Right-Wing Paranoid Fantasy," to a, "But seriously, folks," satire; the underlying point was that the only way America in particular and the West in general could be defeated is if we let it happen. But it added that either way, the stakes are VERY high. Global Thermonuclear War is inconceivably horrible to most people. But the idea that an enemy or rival may be appeased has an unbroken track record. I've heard analysis along the lines of this video before. But I think yours is above average with the points it makes. Thank you for taking the time to do the research and make your presentation. 475th Like.
I will have to look this miniseries up, seems very interesting. Plus, I am a huge fan of Sam Neill, so him being a central character is a huve plus to me.
yah watched this one back int he day it was touted as a main event TV mini series and I bleieve ABC spent mucho dinero on it, as it was the height of the cold war where you had bad tensions in Europe between NATO and Warsaw pact over provocative military excessive and posturing by both sides and tac nukes being deployed . I remember when this was shown on Philippine TV in 89, you had the entire military leadership of the Philippine army come out on TV and give a speech on teh evil of communism before the show aired.
A very interesting alt his anthology book written by Kim Newman called BACK IN THE USSA. posits the USA instead of Russia goes into revolution in 1917, Theodore Roosvelt gets elected in 1912 for a 2nd term and is assasinated by Annie Oakley, Charles Kane becomes pres. brings the USA into WW1 in 1914 along with economic mismanagement results in a revolution by Eugene Debs (the American version of Lenin) who overthrows and executed Charles Kane in a revolution in 1917 and 2nd American civil war and renames the USA , USSA United socialist states of America, later Al Capone(version of Stalin) . Basically after WW2 which is basically the same as in OTL, there is a cold war between the USSA , UK, and the Russian empire(semi consitutional monarchy). Very excellent read.
@@feralhistorian I find it interesting the Battle of Khe sanh 1968 in this timeline was the British empire(British , African, Gurkha and British vietnamese army) are besieged by the USSA equipped Viet minh , basically its Dien Bien phu. Viet Minh overrun the British, the Russians offer to help rescue the British but British pride gets in the way. and they refuse.
The very nature of Marxism, which depends on a forced consensus actually opens up possible grounds to ban Marxism completely. Freedom of speech means that you have a right to voice your own opinions, but nobody has a right to force ANYBODY to agree with one's own opinions, and so the very idea of Marxism is in and of itself a violation of the First Amendment.
@CarrotConsumer What has that to do with anything? If you are driving forty miles over the speed limit, it is a fact that you are driving recklessly. Now, you do have a right to contest your ticket in court, however, but we are talking about a system where you don't have the right, because The State is always right.
I have tried to no avail to find this series on DVD. I managed to watch it on my phone through RUclips. When this was first broadcast, my then wife was very disturbed by me watching it. I figured I would catch it and reruns. However, it was never re-broadcast. Why? From what I’ve heard the Soviet Union objected.
Considering the cast the time period & the subject I'm surprised I had never heard of this mini series. Of course being part of the most feral and unsupervised segment of GenX I was probably outside running wild when it was on.
I don't think it was PR for it. I briefly remember seeing some trailer for it on vhs back in the days. But portrayed more as an action movie/series. When I finally got around to rent it,I found it kind of dull. It's more of a " What IF " drama. While Red Dawn was more action right wing oriented. I read the book for America ,and I think I kept it.Which for me means it must've been good. But so long ago I can't remember. But I know the series kind'a flopped
@johnnyguitar6639 Well to be honest there were a lot of movies on TV about indoctrination and slow takeovers at the time. A mix of trying to understand Nazi Germany and a fear of the communist other during a time of extreme social control experiments like Stamford, the wave, and the popularization of Milgrims results.
@@KelsaRavenlock True. but while the wave was wave,was based on a true story ad had to stay somewhat within the lies of it. America is fiction. I think it's out on the tube. But haven't re watched it.Not sure why it under performed.
yah this mini series is prophetic in a sense that the USSR broke up 3 years after this mini series debuted. and its caused a massive problem 32 years later with teh Ukraine war. if this movie is a reflection of events ini our timeline Im thinking USA breaks up into several independent states. 10 years after the end of the movie while broken up parts of the former USA begin forming up again with Peter Bradford as its leader(analogous to Putin in our timeline), while the USSR is distracted busy with a rival cold war with China. 30 years later. after the end of the war in this timeline's 2022, a resurgent USA invaded and is stuck in an attirtional war in the American west coast who are being supported by Mexico and the warsaw pact, and Presient Bradford(Robert Urich and this timeilines version of Putin) is adamant that it is just a special military operation.
Boy is it depressing. My grand mother recorded and watched the entire MASSIVE series. The story ends with the United States divided into districts and liberty dying in a small community like the one I grew up in.
nothing new under the sun. all those tactics thought to be novel were already being exposed in popular media 40 years ago. it seems people don't pay attention. i have a feeling this miniseries was memory holed for a reason
As a grade schooler I was highly interested and a friend lent me a VHS because it aired past my bedtime. It was meh even for young me. After red dawn it was a sad copy.
I've always thought Article 5 was too risky. Yet, once more, I'm hoping a presidential candidate can bring about change, despite it never happening in my lifetime. Perhaps we can fire the bureaucrats and shrink the size and scope of the federal government. Now, in my 50s, I feel a little silly still hoping. But I can't help myself. This time, it feels different. And yes, I know, that's a silly statement.
Yes. And you gotta do it no holds bar. I don’t give a shit if the liberals will hate it. They can rock back in forth in denial all they want, or they can accept the truth and move forward.
You may want to read War Day by Whitley Strieber which covers America after a limited nuclear war with the Soviet Union. Also wasn't there a boy in the movie called Caleb who went all over the United States praising the virtue of Communism?
This sounds like an interesting series but I don't really see how as a series it could last more than 2 or 3 episodes with a total run length of about 3-4 hours unless after episode 3 or 4 the show became about rebelling against the Soviets. I vaguely remember a center to left-leaning kid in AP US history class circa 2002 commenting on Amerika by saying: I'm cool with conservatives making an anti-Soviet show like Amerika and it being rebuttal to The Day After but did they really need to make 7 episodes of Amerika? I think the show made its point by the end of the first episode. While I've never seen this, I'm guessing the only parts I'd find interesting are the bits with Sam Neil explaining the occupation. Anyone know if there's a cut of just Sam Neil as the Colonel explaining how he operates or an edit that makes him the main character? Now looking back I think one of the students who didn't like the series Amerika commented that every woman in a position of the authority by sleeping with a high-ranked Soviet official and going off your review, those storylines would have been the ones I cut as director as the plot was as already bleak by its nature and neither the showgirl dissident or the politicians ex-wife remotely make sense. In the case of the showgirl, there's no way a Soviet Colonel would risk his career just to get laid by protecting a woman like that and a Colonel wouldn't have the pull to cover her ass anyways. In the case of the ex-wife it makes even less sense. Sure she could have sold out her husband to a foreign but at best her reward would be better living conditions or improved rations. That's assuming they wouldn't just kill her to cover up the story given how god-awful the optics of that situation would be when word got out and there would be plenty of younger women with clean backgrounds to choose from. Unless she was a card carrying communist before the invasion I doubt they'd just give her that job because she banged a bunch of Soviet officials and, let's be honest, sellout-to-her-own-husband and mother of 2 is not going to be a turn-on for most men. If you wanted to do a mother sleeps with the enemy bit then her story should have been her selling herself on the side to low ranking Soviet soldiers for food for her family. To finish off, I think one of the more politically kids described as a show you'll like if you enjoy watching people standing lines, rants about why Communism sucks and we should have fought harder for freedom, and occasionally an elderly white person looking wide-eyed and mortified at atrocities being committed against their family or community.
This miniseries had amazing potential. It could have been so unique and could have played out in so many interesting ways. How did the people behind Amerika manage to make it into such a boring, tedious slog? This show should have been great.
They wanted to make it a weekly series, so they didn’t want to wrap it up in a nice neat bow. Ended up screwing themselves in the process with a boring miniseries that got the show idea cancelled.
When this came out the reds shrieked to deplatform it. SNL did a parody version AMERIDA, where Canada takes over the US, complete with Alan Thicke as a talking head.... Reagan as Hoover/Hitler and the media as Stalin was the story of the 1980s. Same as today.
Of course Sam Neill is playing the KGB Col. 😅😂 Being a NZer, playing a socialist probably came easy to him 😂 To be fair, I did liked him in the Dr. Zhivago mini-series.
I vaguely remember watching this at some point and knowing, then, the cowards around us. The more I see where we are going, the degradation of family, honor, freedom, the happier I am I will be dead soon...
The producers of this miniseries had difficulty answering how the Americans accepted Soviet occupation. I would think that the people in middle America who cling to their guns and Bibles would wage a guerrilla war.
Had to chuckle when seeing Yuri Bezmenov, hadn't thought of that old gargoyle in years. Understand why he is mentioned in context, but his inclusion is coincidental rather than illustrative. Too much for here, but the US spooks overestimated the man's complexity and underestimated his reasons for defecting. They took him (at their) face value and on his word. While he opines on the effectiveness and deviousness of Soviet propaganda, in reality it was by far more effective on him. Fun fact; Debriefed in US, refused to stay, went to Canada because he thought they could protect him better from the KGB.
I remember watching (and videotaping!) this in HS. I remember the press being up arms as well. It was the first time I learned of the symbolism of the upside down American flag. Glad to find your channel along and pleasantly suprised to find numerous videos on comic book/sci fi subjects. Hope to see if the Captain America video addresses how a WW2 America’s greatest generation hero has been written by lefties for 50 years. RIP Kris Kristofferson - Airborne Ranger, Rhodes scholar, exceptional college athlete (rugby,boxing,track and football ) singer, songwriter,actor
No one can convince me of the claimed benefits of Marxist Socialism. I was assigned to the Berlin Brigade, 2nd Bn/6th Infantry Regiment, from 1977 to 1979. Went into communist East Berlin on plenty of tours to plenty of times. Visited grocery stores, shoe shops, restaurants and more to actually see what typical life was like under the jackboots of the Soviets. No one liked it. Even heard of Russian soldiers quietly saying that if a war started between east and west they would immediately surrender to the first group of Americans they would have seen. A big shut up to the brainwashed college aged "intellectuals" that are promoting Karl Marx from the hilltops. I've been there, seen that, so don't bother yapping your mouths. Another thing is I tried cuban cigars and they suck. Cuban rum tastes like pickle juice. Got both of those from the former East Berlin. All doubters know each Cuban cigar has a paper ring that says Cohiba. Proving my statements of the lies of that communist ideale.
Hey! East Berlin was the richest of all the Communist cities. It didn't get any better. However, Communist governments were notorious for buying the cheapest possible stuff (even for VIPs like diplomats). I don't know the provenance of those cigars but cheap honey was given to Soviet diplomats for their tea, not even mid-market stuff most Americans bought. I would assume anything Cuba exported to the DDR would have been second-rate as the first-rate stuff would have been sold to Western countries first.
Top down approaches are always by force. An individual effects change to the greatest degree by cultivating agreement or understanding through aquaintences by example and argument. There is no hope to be had by voting. New policies do not change the moral fabric of a people.
"Amerika" was basically intended to be a counterpoint to the bleak horror posed by the nuclear war drama "The Day After" which showed the devastating consequences of nuclear war on an "average American town" and the people therein... It galvanized a lot of criticism of the national security state and risks of nuclear war posed by the superpowers of the mid 1980's and caused concern among many that people were becoming SO fearful of nuclear war that they would accept anything to counter it. IIRC in the various debates of the time, it was Ben Stein who posed the question, "is nuclear war worse than the alternative, of living under Soviet domination?" which led to the production of "Amerika" as a counterpoint to "The Day After"... looking into a hypothetical US after 10 years of Soviet occupation after a rather bloodless collapse and conquest. Of course most of it is the same sort of red-scare fearmongering that had haunted various parts of the US population and power establishment for decades, occasionally rising to obvious prominence in such events as the McCarthy hearings of the House Unamerican Activities Committee nonsense and other such witch-hunts and fearmongering, all to consolidate power for those fomenting the fearmongering for their own ends... Now we've basically done it to ourselves... WE have become the very same "evil empire" Reagan accused the Soviets of being in the 80's, with their constant military adventurism and seeking to contain their own inevitable and inexorable internal decay and decline through rampant militarism and foreign military and political adventurism and exploitation and intrigue... It's not going to work for us any better than it worked for them. It merely hasted their downfall, just as it is currently for the United States...
Hideously, mind numbingly slow, however prophetic. _Red Dawn_ was the fast, violent, sexy version. However, the "United Nations" occupation force in Amerika seemed to be the original for that bee in the bonnet of militia groups and the like.
wow that part where the KGB guy talks about a "control provocation" sounds a lot like January 6 . . . The DOJ under Biden must use this as a training film.
Not a sequel, just a contemporary take on similar themes. I think of Red Dawn as the Hollywood action version with a military invasion, and Amerika as the more believable crushing the people with bureaucracy version of essentially the same story.
If I had to sum up the overall spirit of Red dawn vs Amerika it would've been this
Red dawn: we lost the battle ,but can still fight the war to fix it.
Amerika: we lost the war, now each day is a battle to live with it.
😯… 🤔…
@@cj7caster33 I think of Red Dawn as a thought experiment. This scale of partisan combat would have played out in Europe.
By placing these hypothetical events in a setting close to home, I think we can start to grasp the scale.
LOL. We'd just lost Vietnam and caused the Khmer Rouge to come to power....then you Conservatives started and lost another War in the Middle East. That's what happens when you agree with Republicans. LOL. Worst group in US history.
@@SusCalvinThis is a movie, lol. Another member of the Idiocracy.
How does Amerika compare with the Man in High Castle? Originally Amerika was a dark future, but it became in time Alternate History as it occurs in 1997, which in our history was during the Clinton Administration.
How did Amerika happen, in much the same way that Joe Biden got "elected" only in the case of Amerika there was a person who benefitted who wasn't senile with memory problems. There was a chink in our armor having to do with the mainstream media, the same media that has suppressed the television miniseries Amerika by the way. The Media installed Joe Biden, and I think in a few days we will see the end of his puppet presidency hopefully and America will go back to normal.
This is wild! Amerika was filmed in my home town. I had a friend who was hired to ride a motorcycle in it.
I remember seeing some of the vehicles staged after the filming was done.
I've looked for this movie and never seen it viewable anywhere.
I've never seen it.
Thank you!!
Several years ago I looked for any kind of official release, but ended up having to settle for VHS rips someone put up on youtube. It's not great cinema, but it's a great cultural artifact.
@@feralhistorian There are companies that transfer home movies and VHS tapes to DVD format. I think there is a company called Legacy Box which does this.
I think the problem is that just about the entire entertainment industry is run from one side of the political spectrum, that would be the left side, maybe this wasn't entirely the case when Amerika was produced but it is now! I think the Left-wing media is responsible for making Joe Biden president of the United States, I think the same way that Joe Biden became president is how the Communists could have taken over the United States.
There are some alternative Right-wing or Conservative media outlets starting up now, one of which is Daily Wire, which is producing its own version of Snow White in reaction to Disney's woke version.
I stopped going to see movies in theaters because I didn't want to spend $10 buying a ticket to watch left-wing crap. I think we are taking the country back with the help of X and Elon Musk.
Kind of funny that Sam Neill plays a Soviet officer more than once.
Robert Urich was as if a Sears mannequin suddenly came to life!
He does a good job
It's casting practice that if an actor does well in a role then he gets shortlisted for similar roles. Sam Neill played a Russian-born spy for the British in _Reilly, Ace of Spies_ (1983), which got him considered for a Soviet KGB officer in _Amerika_ (1987), and then a Soviet naval officer in _The Hunt for Red October_ (1990).
@@dlxmarksNeil also plays a spy in Possesion
Did he get to see Montana?
The algorithm just showed me this. I remember watching this when I was young on TV...I missed a couple episodes but my dad taped it on VHS. This is basically what happened...its a damn shame. I remember in elementary school thinking this nation was basically unstoppable, then the Soviets fell and it was bolstered, then I served 20 years in the Marines...and now, I feel like the entire time we were losing our culture, soul, and ideals. This was actually, in retrospect, better than Red Dawn.
I watched this during the COVID lock downs. It hit hard. I was too young to watch this when it aired.
What culture, soul, and ideals are you referring to?
@CarrotConsumer during the cold war, American leaders often commented on how the Christian west, embracing traditional (think Paine, Jefferson, etc.) Liberal ideals would defeat athiest comminism. Ironically, at that point we had already started our movement to heavy handed statism and socialism, but that was the ideal and soul I'm referring to. Add to that the concept of limited government, again, not perfect during the time thanks to Wilson and FDR and others, but part of the idealism. That was my impression as a boy growing up. Now we have "conservatives" embracing social programs, surveillance state, and other things. Let alone neo liberals who are a wierd juxtaposition of nanny state/surveillance state/hedonism. We lost our way and the show Amerika showed one sad, dystopian possibility based on us losing our way.
Christian National Socialism failed Germany. Why expect it to help the US?
RIP Kristofferson. He just passed a few weeks ago.
Great man, the role was fitting for him.
Been following this channel for several months now, it is knocking out some really interesting content and deserves far more exposure and viewership that it currently has.
I always look forward to finding a new upload here.👍
Ya’ll people in the comments seem to shit on Yuri Bezmenov but lets not forget. Evry single detail he said about what was going on and why our country was so fuckt up, was spot on.
It’s funny, I was talking to a friend the other day about Yuri and all the Socialist/Communist stuff flying around social media. He said “The irony is, the Soviets finally got us right where they wanted us. Unfortunately for them they died thirty years before they could take advantage of it!”
Yes
As a friend of mine says, “while we were choking out the Soviets, they were injecting us with cancer.”😎✌️
Yeah, I can't believe we voted in a socialist president. America is truly gone. 🙄
@@CarrotConsumer More people see where things had been going. Not everyone remains ignorant after subjected to enough evidence.
Never heard of this relic, the kind of thing I would have loved as a teenager
Nor had I. Probably a good reason for that.
@@seanwoods5943 made for TV movie.
The reason why nothing really gets resolved at the end of 'Amerika' is because they were planning to make it into a weekly series (which never happened).
Yikes, I think a weekly series would likely not be successful back then. Now a remake that sticks to the premise and dialogue on one of todays streaming services would be interesting.😎✌️
2 years later we all watched the Berlin Wall fall live on CNN. This mini series aged like milk
@@mediawarrior5957 History turns and a nuclear war may come. In a post nuclear limited war, an occupation could happen.
@@mediawarrior5957 I meant to respond earlier, but it was clear that A LOT of us lay people had no idea how badly the Soviet Economy was doing, probably as early as Reagan’s election in ‘81, and DEFINITELY by his reelection in ‘84 when the Soviets were actively interfering in hopes of getting Mondale elected, (well at least he got his home state).😎✌️🇺🇸
I was looking for this show for years and found it randomly on RUclips last December. A bit slow moving, yes but a worthwhile watch
Good video - Some powerful ideas there:
Power is expensive - Stepping back from Article 5 creates a vacuum - Who would you like to fill that gap?
A rules based order is rarely convenient or fair to those who pay for it ... but the alternative is a race to the bottom.
I was 10 or 11 years old when this came out. While I understood, in a broad sense, what was happening I was too young to appreciate the deeper meaning behind it. I watched half of episode 1 before I gave up on it. At that age, Red Dawn was far more appealing.
LOL. So you admit you followed the wrong path and this own the failed Wars today. You failed this country, LOL.
I'm glad you brought this show up. I'd forgotten about it.
“…the grass is not always greener over shallow graves…”
🤔I’ll have to remember that.
(🤔…Y’know-translated into Mandarin, Russian, or Persian, that might look great as a tattoo, wouldn’t it? [Or on a shirt? Or a jacket?…])
The snark in this is off the chart, and I'm here for it.
Bravo, Sir.
"They knew it was bad, they were afraid it would get worse" - a perfect summary for the soviet/ruzzian history. Of course, long-term zombification had also resulted in a considerable share of the population (in my estimate, about 20% max) that truly believe that the existing regime is the best that has ever happened and that there are no better ways of life.
That mindset infected most european nations. In germany we have the idea of the "best germany of all time", a semi ironic slogan coined by angela merkel, the absolutely democratically elected former stasi operative that ruled our nation for nearly 2 decades.
Obviously, now that shes gone it only became worse. So im not hopeful about a post-putin russia.
One of my friends thought it was a fear of chaos. A lot of dictators and non-democratic states from Rhodesia to al-Assad try to impress that they are the only alternative to chaos. Usually because they have removed any other alternatives.
Right now it looks like Putin has that sort of balance. Enough people of their elite are unsure of their chances during a post-Putin power struggle that Putin remains.
I mean, the alternative was tried in 1991, and the west did very little. Doesn't justify what they're doing know but there is a genuinely large subset of people here who viewed Russia as an enemy into the 1990s, which yeah man when your choice is a stable Oligarchy or the Russia in the 1990s you can be blinded by propaganda.
LOL. That's the Republicans, then and now. Remember losing Iraq? LOL. What an UnAmerican Fool you are.
Jay Leno spoofed this on the Tonight Show. The skit was about Canada being occupied and renamed “Kanada”. Mildly amusing…
I've read the novel but never watched the mini series, though I'm fascinated by it. I just haven't been able to devote the time and brainpower since it feels like a slog, but I'm excited to see commentary on it, and will get around to it some day! Interested to see a take on this while I randomly googled to see clips.
It's definitely a slog and its flaws are many and glaring, but it manages to take its time with a multi-faceted story in a way that no production today would attempt.
I see I wasn't the only one to read the book
This was a Pilot for a show. It was slow dragging and died on the vine in the third episode, or so.
That defector's best bit of psyop work was to convince anyone that the Soviets had their shit even remotely that together, as would play out rather dramatically in the late 80s.
The USSR only lasted as long as it did because of the endurance of its people, but the refusal to risk another attempt at fixing the government.
Change either, and the USSR might not have survived the 50's.
Communism could never have survived without oppression, but even then, there were limits, which decades of Progressives refused to employ.
Yuri was 100% right on everything, but you have to have the IQ to understand it.
@slappy8941 I just finished C&C 2 Yuri's Revenge, and it threw me off for a second there.
@slappy8941 yes that's why we're living under the glorious Revolution comrade if anything Levi's Coca Cola and the Beatles undermined the East far more than their attempts at psyops in the west, especially after the khrushchev thaw, they never had the same reach.
Shocking that they only showed me this channel a couple of weeks ago. Right up to my alley!
I recall conversations between my father and his friends and coworkers at White House Communications during those years (this was the tech side of communications, White House computers and phone networks and such, not the political aspect of communications). Almost all of them had previous military experience (My father was still active duty Army in those years, having served in the 82nd Airborne in Vietnam before being taught computers and programming languages at Fort Dix).
I remember pretty much all of them laughing derisively at the premise of "Red Dawn", most of them agreeing that such a conventional conflict scenario between the Soviet Union and the United States (on our soil) was ludicrous. Aside from the point that the Soviets never had the sort of force projection the US enjoyed, they always cited American defense doctrine which was clear: Any threat to the territorial sovereignty of the American mainland would be countered with our nuclear forces. End of story.
Now, none of them had a crystal ball, foreseeing the imminent collapse of the Soviet Bloc, but they all knew that the Russian military was not the daunting force they were made out to be in popular American culture.
LONG time since I thought of this show. This was a good critique of it. Kudos.
So first of all this video was fantastic! My thoughts:
Regarding Red Dawn, I always thought it took place in an alternate history where America of post Vietnam was worse than we remember, AND President Carter got re-elected, (perhaps the rescue of the Iranian hostages was successful in this alternate history, buying him a brief USA! USA! USA! surge). I would end up watching the movie A LOT! That combined with a strong sense of patriotism and an unrequited crush on Jennifer Grey, had me enlisting in the Army two years later.
As to Amerika:
I watched it in the Army. It was genuinely a more somber experience, and the young soldier in me wanted to see more direct action by “the resistance” to free themselves from the yoke of Soviet Occupation. Obviously that didn’t really happen until the end, even so the Heartland Defense Forces assisting the resisters against the UNSSU forces, would likely have disarmed and arrested a bunch of the resisters.
I’ve seen it a few times since ‘87, but that happened with the advent of RUclips. I’m sure you and I watched the same channel that had it chopped up into about 13 different videos.
As I get older I think my favorite scene, and most “hopeful” of the series, is when Milford comes out of the courthouse and leads the crowd into The Pledge of Allegiance followed by the repeated AMERICA, followed by the fist in the air in defiance. I honestly think Denisov wouldn’t have let it go past one, maybe two versus of The Pledge, before Milford is hauled off. Still I think it’s the most inspiring scene of the series, though the scene with the vets at the Lincoln Day celebration is right up there.
I’ve seen maybe one or two VHS copies floating around, but that’s it. ABC, especially now, would not rerelease it! I think it hits too close to home now considering Yuri’s revelations from nearly 40 years ago. As a friend of mine says, “while we were choking out the Soviets, they were injecting us with cancer.”
There was a novel that came out at roughly the same time. I bought and read it. It goes into more detail about how the Soviets “won.” Since I was serving in Europe at the time I was a little bothered, because in the book, the Soviets demand that the countries of Western Europe detain all U.S. forces. Every member of NATO complies. It’s never mentioned if said forces are repatriated back to the U.S., or if they got repatriated to gulags in Siberia.
Again I really appreciate your synopsis. I’ll definitely check out the rest of your channel.😎✌️
It's good to hear the opinion of a war veteran.
@ that’s kind of you, but for clarification, I never saw combat, nonetheless thank you sir!😎✌️🇺🇸
This should be interesting and digested. I was born in a Communist Country, knew a dissident (house arrest, not prison camp), and found plenty of material on how symbolic gestures were used to fight the Nazis but little on how people used them to fight the Communists.
This seems like a good film to reflect on that.
3:02 That interview was absolutely amazing
Sam Neil's character is probably the most interesting of the mini series. I dont it horrible but I feel like it needed another pass threw editing.
Yes, that series could have been cut down to half the runtime without losing much.
Interesting. This series was completely unknown to me; thanks for the education and analysis.
This speaks to a bigger point to me: oftentimes I see movies like this ridiculed, while movies about the Nazis never seem to be looked at as over-sensationalized or over the top. I don't get why people often act as if the Soviets were not that big a deal. Stalin had purges that killed as many people as Hitler, if not more, and the fact that it wasn't ethnically motivated doesn't make it any more wholesome. The Soviets aggressively invaded eastern Europe after WW2, they did indeed have a hand in North Korea and Vietnam (contrary to what I have heard some oddballs say), and those of us old enough to remember can tell you about the attempt to invade Afghanistan during the Carter administration.
I have to wonder if the lionizing of Karl Marx by intellectuals has played a part in the "softening" of criticism of Marx's political offspring in Lenin, Stalin, Mao, etc., as I rarely hear any real criticism of their results like I still do of Hitler, Mussolini, etc (which, btw, were also influenced by Marx, as Hitler himself has admitted).
"'Masks off' the man says." 🙄
@@KidVolcano I don't get your response
@@Outrider74
I've added additional "quotes," ("") though I confess it serves to confound rather than clarify
@Outrider74 The Nazis' mass murders being ethnically motivated does indeed make them more inherently evil and immoral than anything Stalin did. The Soviets won the war and repressed the Polrs, Czechs, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, hell, even half of Germany itself, etc. but at the end of the day these people were still given a degree of autonomy and permitted to survive and carve out a niche for themselves in the communist world, however meager and subservient they were.
If the Germans had won the war the entirety of Eastern Europe would have been depopulated of its original inhabitants, slaved to death or just outright executed, and replaced wholesale with German settlers. That's way worse than living under a run-of-the-mill communist dictatorship.
Stalin killed 100 times as many people as those who starved in the camps because of the civilian supply lines got bombed. It goes against the narrative since the commies were totally the good guys who didn't really side with Germany that long.
Having read the book back in the 1980's, when this movie came out the take down of the United Sates was thru a EMP weapon the Soviets used to knock out all the military communication networks forcing the president to surrender. It was true then and is still true today (USN 1984-2004)
Recently found your channel, and am loving the perspectives and insights.
Have you thought about reviewing and breaking down the original "V" miniseries and Series? There's good stuff in there for today's world!
Ditto foe "The Prisoner".
Yes on V and . . . Be seeing you.
V was the greatest thing to happen on 80s TV. Admittedly, the series was terrible, but it had the original cast so teenage me was happy (and also obsessed with Michael Ironsides). But then came Lydia and the rivalry with Diana and enough hairspray to punch a hole through the the ozone...
Oh my goodness, Aussie actress Wendy Hughes at 4:25 ! What a legend :) RIP 🙏🙌🙌
I have always assumed that "Amerika" was the conservative answer to "The Day After". TDA showed the ultimate result of war with the Soviet Union, i.e. the death of billions and the destruction of civilization. Amerika showed the ultimate results of the US losing WWIII to the Soviets, i.e. the lose of freedom.
That's because it was. IIRC it was Ben Stein's idea because The Day After was so scary the right feared that Americans would roll over rather than launch the nukes if threatened.
That is what it was supposed to be - a response to TDA. However, the network intentionally stretched it out to make it boring (17 hours total), and watered down the oppression. The lead character would never have been released by the Soviets, for example. A pop-culture version of “controlled opposition.”
@@TommygunNG Brother, they released people en masse in the 1980s? Even before Glasnost, that was the whole point of De-Stalinization.
And Reagan saw The Day After and agreed with it. LOL. It's not possible for Conservatives to discuss their past without lying.
@@TommygunNGLOL. See, Republicans just make it up to protect themselves. This isn't true at all. Why are you so UnAmerican and Dishonest?
The argument against secession - we're surrounded by enemies - was even more true at the time of American independence.
It’s also why Americas rivals have a long history of supporting these groups.
It's how any experiment in making a nation in Europe works like that. You might dream of a decentralized state with weak power but that does not make France next doors go away.
@@TheGuyInTheCheapSeats I think the change of speed with nuclear weapons changed the presidency. The people making decisions during the Cuba Crisis could fit into a conference room and make decisions hour by hour. The same on the Soviet side, Chrusjtjov is practically sleeping in his office.
Back then the US processed advantage of distance.
Not really, the French and Spanish thought what we were doing was hilarious and the Indians were far from united on the topic. There was no one else in the theater. One America started basing privateers in French ports to raid the British coastline, not even naval flexibility was a unique advantage the British had.
I remember Red Dawn from 1985 with the late Patrick Swayze. Wolverines! I guess I was based in Michigan
I agree with your sentiment about political larping, however I would argue larping extends to all aspects of most people's lives, including religion.
All politics are theatre
Everything is political
Except for politics , politics are sexual pathology
I went to college in Milford never heard of this movie either
At least Sam Neill saw montana, probably, on this one.
It's been a very long time since I watched this miniseries (and the OG "Red Dawn.") But a few years earlier, I read a book from our local library titled, "What To Do When The Russians Come: A Survivor's Guide," and it was fresh in my mind when I saw "Red Dawn" and "Amerika." Though the book could be interpreted as anything from a, "Right-Wing Paranoid Fantasy," to a, "But seriously, folks," satire; the underlying point was that the only way America in particular and the West in general could be defeated is if we let it happen. But it added that either way, the stakes are VERY high. Global Thermonuclear War is inconceivably horrible to most people. But the idea that an enemy or rival may be appeased has an unbroken track record.
I've heard analysis along the lines of this video before. But I think yours is above average with the points it makes. Thank you for taking the time to do the research and make your presentation.
475th Like.
I remember an old SNL skit called "Amerida". Canada takes over the USA. might be able to find it on the Tube here.
This is hilarious. You actually thought that book was legit. No surprise Conservatives lost Iraq so quickly.
I will have to look this miniseries up, seems very interesting. Plus, I am a huge fan of Sam Neill, so him being a central character is a huve plus to me.
His wife was just a little more evil then mine was just because their were no soviet generals or military men of any kind for her to get down with.
I remember watching this mini-series.
I love this show, I have a copy on a hard drive still.
yah watched this one back int he day it was touted as a main event TV mini series and I bleieve ABC spent mucho dinero on it, as it was the height of the cold war where you had bad tensions in Europe between NATO and Warsaw pact over provocative military excessive and posturing by both sides and tac nukes being deployed . I remember when this was shown on Philippine TV in 89, you had the entire military leadership of the Philippine army come out on TV and give a speech on teh evil of communism before the show aired.
"the height of the cold war"
LOL Why are Republicans so ignorant? No wonder they only lose wars
dude communism is evil.
The Cold War was winding down by that point. Westerners were being allowed in the USSR with amazingly little surveillance.
A very interesting alt his anthology book written by Kim Newman called BACK IN THE USSA. posits the USA instead of Russia goes into revolution in 1917, Theodore Roosvelt gets elected in 1912 for a 2nd term and is assasinated by Annie Oakley, Charles Kane becomes pres. brings the USA into WW1 in 1914 along with economic mismanagement results in a revolution by Eugene Debs (the American version of Lenin) who overthrows and executed Charles Kane in a revolution in 1917 and 2nd American civil war and renames the USA , USSA United socialist states of America, later Al Capone(version of Stalin) . Basically after WW2 which is basically the same as in OTL, there is a cold war between the USSA , UK, and the Russian empire(semi consitutional monarchy). Very excellent read.
I had not heard of that one before, but it's on the way now.
@@feralhistorian I find it interesting the Battle of Khe sanh 1968 in this timeline was the British empire(British , African, Gurkha and British vietnamese army) are besieged by the USSA equipped Viet minh , basically its Dien Bien phu. Viet Minh overrun the British, the Russians offer to help rescue the British but British pride gets in the way. and they refuse.
The very nature of Marxism, which depends on a forced consensus actually opens up possible grounds to ban Marxism completely. Freedom of speech means that you have a right to voice your own opinions, but nobody has a right to force ANYBODY to agree with one's own opinions, and so the very idea of Marxism is in and of itself a violation of the First Amendment.
Try telling a cop it's your opinion that you should go 40 over the speed limit.
@CarrotConsumer What has that to do with anything? If you are driving forty miles over the speed limit, it is a fact that you are driving recklessly. Now, you do have a right to contest your ticket in court, however, but we are talking about a system where you don't have the right, because The State is always right.
Wut
@@tph2010 Your right to your own opinion ends where you have to force others to agree with it.
I have tried to no avail to find this series on DVD. I managed to watch it on my phone through RUclips. When this was first broadcast, my then wife was very disturbed by me watching it. I figured I would catch it and reruns. However, it was never re-broadcast. Why? From what I’ve heard the Soviet Union objected.
Probably because it was boring as hell.
Sam Neil's Russian accent in this role put him on the short list to portrey Sean Connery's #2 in "The Hunt For Red October".
This is a brilliant take on this movie!
You should do a review of the 1982 TV mini-series WW III. I was still grade school when I watched it, but I thought it was very interesting.
2:31 Never get kids to name things.
Terrifyingly Prophetic
Considering the cast the time period & the subject I'm surprised I had never heard of this mini series.
Of course being part of the most feral and unsupervised segment of GenX I was probably outside running wild when it was on.
I don't think it was PR for it. I briefly remember seeing some trailer for it on vhs back in the days. But portrayed more as an action movie/series. When I finally got around to rent it,I found it kind of dull. It's more of a " What IF " drama. While Red Dawn was more action right wing oriented.
I read the book for America ,and I think I kept it.Which for me means it must've been good. But so long ago I can't remember. But I know the series kind'a flopped
@johnnyguitar6639 Well to be honest there were a lot of movies on TV about indoctrination and slow takeovers at the time.
A mix of trying to understand Nazi Germany and a fear of the communist other during a time of extreme social control experiments like Stamford, the wave, and the popularization of Milgrims results.
@@KelsaRavenlock True. but while the wave was wave,was based on a true story ad had to stay somewhat within the lies of it. America is fiction. I think it's out on the tube. But haven't re watched it.Not sure why it under performed.
My uncle was in this show
Disturbingly accurate to real life.
yah this mini series is prophetic in a sense that the USSR broke up 3 years after this mini series debuted. and its caused a massive problem 32 years later with teh Ukraine war. if this movie is a reflection of events ini our timeline Im thinking USA breaks up into several independent states. 10 years after the end of the movie while broken up parts of the former USA begin forming up again with Peter Bradford as its leader(analogous to Putin in our timeline), while the USSR is distracted busy with a rival cold war with China. 30 years later. after the end of the war in this timeline's 2022, a resurgent USA invaded and is stuck in an attirtional war in the American west coast who are being supported by Mexico and the warsaw pact, and Presient Bradford(Robert Urich and this timeilines version of Putin) is adamant that it is just a special military operation.
Crimea is still Russian.
Boy is it depressing. My grand mother recorded and watched the entire MASSIVE series. The story ends with the United States divided into districts and liberty dying in a small community like the one I grew up in.
nothing new under the sun. all those tactics thought to be novel were already being exposed in popular media 40 years ago. it seems people don't pay attention. i have a feeling this miniseries was memory holed for a reason
Is this why you live out in the wilderness?
As a grade schooler I was highly interested and a friend lent me a VHS because it aired past my bedtime. It was meh even for young me. After red dawn it was a sad copy.
Yuri knew.
I remember watching Amerika.
Why do I remember this before 1983 or 84.
I'm a little late here but you also might try "Amerida" from the 90's golden ere of Saturday Night Live. maybe late 80's. fascinating.
I've always thought Article 5 was too risky. Yet, once more, I'm hoping a presidential candidate can bring about change, despite it never happening in my lifetime. Perhaps we can fire the bureaucrats and shrink the size and scope of the federal government. Now, in my 50s, I feel a little silly still hoping. But I can't help myself. This time, it feels different. And yes, I know, that's a silly statement.
"It's a controlled provocation" I've see this one before
The only thing I remember from this mini series is that they used both Blue Thunder helicopters as Soviet gunships
Hi, just discovered your videos and already love it. They actually kinda remind me of Tom Scott.
Thank you for this I feel like this miniseries should be redone for the current situation.
Yes. And you gotta do it no holds bar. I don’t give a shit if the liberals will hate it.
They can rock back in forth in denial all they want, or they can accept the truth and move forward.
You may want to read War Day by Whitley Strieber which covers America after a limited nuclear war with the Soviet Union. Also wasn't there a boy in the movie called Caleb who went all over the United States praising the virtue of Communism?
This sounds like an interesting series but I don't really see how as a series it could last more than 2 or 3 episodes with a total run length of about 3-4 hours unless after episode 3 or 4 the show became about rebelling against the Soviets. I vaguely remember a center to left-leaning kid in AP US history class circa 2002 commenting on Amerika by saying: I'm cool with conservatives making an anti-Soviet show like Amerika and it being rebuttal to The Day After but did they really need to make 7 episodes of Amerika? I think the show made its point by the end of the first episode.
While I've never seen this, I'm guessing the only parts I'd find interesting are the bits with Sam Neil explaining the occupation. Anyone know if there's a cut of just Sam Neil as the Colonel explaining how he operates or an edit that makes him the main character?
Now looking back I think one of the students who didn't like the series Amerika commented that every woman in a position of the authority by sleeping with a high-ranked Soviet official and going off your review, those storylines would have been the ones I cut as director as the plot was as already bleak by its nature and neither the showgirl dissident or the politicians ex-wife remotely make sense. In the case of the showgirl, there's no way a Soviet Colonel would risk his career just to get laid by protecting a woman like that and a Colonel wouldn't have the pull to cover her ass anyways.
In the case of the ex-wife it makes even less sense. Sure she could have sold out her husband to a foreign but at best her reward would be better living conditions or improved rations. That's assuming they wouldn't just kill her to cover up the story given how god-awful the optics of that situation would be when word got out and there would be plenty of younger women with clean backgrounds to choose from. Unless she was a card carrying communist before the invasion I doubt they'd just give her that job because she banged a bunch of Soviet officials and, let's be honest, sellout-to-her-own-husband and mother of 2 is not going to be a turn-on for most men. If you wanted to do a mother sleeps with the enemy bit then her story should have been her selling herself on the side to low ranking Soviet soldiers for food for her family.
To finish off, I think one of the more politically kids described as a show you'll like if you enjoy watching people standing lines, rants about why Communism sucks and we should have fought harder for freedom, and occasionally an elderly white person looking wide-eyed and mortified at atrocities being committed against their family or community.
2 years later we all saw the Berlin Wall fal live on CNN.
Wild-eyed True Believers, you say?
This miniseries had amazing potential. It could have been so unique and could have played out in so many interesting ways. How did the people behind Amerika manage to make it into such a boring, tedious slog? This show should have been great.
LOL. The bizarre, pathetic fantasies of War Losing Republicans.
They wanted to make it a weekly series, so they didn’t want to wrap it up in a nice neat bow. Ended up screwing themselves in the process with a boring miniseries that got the show idea cancelled.
Completely forgot about this show.
When this came out the reds shrieked to deplatform it. SNL did a parody version AMERIDA, where Canada takes over the US, complete with Alan Thicke as a talking head.... Reagan as Hoover/Hitler and the media as Stalin was the story of the 1980s. Same as today.
Of course Sam Neill is playing the KGB Col. 😅😂 Being a NZer, playing a socialist probably came easy to him 😂 To be fair, I did liked him in the Dr. Zhivago mini-series.
Filmed near where i grew up
You sir are a real revolutionary
My dad got a degree diesel mechanics from Milford technical college back in the day. It's a real town.❤
I vaguely remember watching this at some point and knowing, then, the cowards around us. The more I see where we are going, the degradation of family, honor, freedom, the happier I am I will be dead soon...
When we elect a felon to the white house I have to agree with you.
They made a documentary about Washington D.C. Fascinating.
Is that Robert Urich???
Yep. Spencer for hire.
The producers of this miniseries had difficulty answering how the Americans accepted Soviet occupation. I would think that the people in middle America who cling to their guns and Bibles would wage a guerrilla war.
Not if they knew how satanic the country would become.
Apparently the easiest answer was slow hollowing out from the inside via education and probably to some degree pop culture.
I would. I don't have all my guns and bullets because they look pretty.
Had to chuckle when seeing Yuri Bezmenov, hadn't thought of that old gargoyle in years. Understand why he is mentioned in context, but his inclusion is coincidental rather than illustrative. Too much for here, but the US spooks overestimated the man's complexity and underestimated his reasons for defecting. They took him (at their) face value and on his word. While he opines on the effectiveness and deviousness of Soviet propaganda, in reality it was by far more effective on him. Fun fact; Debriefed in US, refused to stay, went to Canada because he thought they could protect him better from the KGB.
I remember watching (and videotaping!) this in HS. I remember the press being up arms as well. It was the first time I learned of the symbolism of the upside down American flag.
Glad to find your channel along and pleasantly suprised to find numerous videos on comic book/sci fi subjects. Hope to see if the Captain America video addresses how a WW2 America’s greatest generation hero has been written by lefties for 50 years.
RIP Kris Kristofferson - Airborne Ranger, Rhodes scholar, exceptional college athlete (rugby,boxing,track and football ) singer, songwriter,actor
No one can convince me of the claimed benefits of Marxist Socialism. I was assigned to the Berlin Brigade, 2nd Bn/6th Infantry Regiment, from 1977 to 1979. Went into communist East Berlin on plenty of tours to plenty of times. Visited grocery stores, shoe shops, restaurants and more to actually see what typical life was like under the jackboots of the Soviets. No one liked it. Even heard of Russian soldiers quietly saying that if a war started between east and west they would immediately surrender to the first group of Americans they would have seen. A big shut up to the brainwashed college aged "intellectuals" that are promoting Karl Marx from the hilltops. I've been there, seen that, so don't bother yapping your mouths. Another thing is I tried cuban cigars and they suck. Cuban rum tastes like pickle juice. Got both of those from the former East Berlin. All doubters know each Cuban cigar has a paper ring that says Cohiba. Proving my statements of the lies of that communist ideale.
Hey! East Berlin was the richest of all the Communist cities. It didn't get any better.
However, Communist governments were notorious for buying the cheapest possible stuff (even for VIPs like diplomats). I don't know the provenance of those cigars but cheap honey was given to Soviet diplomats for their tea, not even mid-market stuff most Americans bought. I would assume anything Cuba exported to the DDR would have been second-rate as the first-rate stuff would have been sold to Western countries first.
Top down approaches are always by force. An individual effects change to the greatest degree by cultivating agreement or understanding through aquaintences by example and argument. There is no hope to be had by voting. New policies do not change the moral fabric of a people.
This guy reminds me of the doctor on "ER" tv show who ended up taken out by a helicopter.
I'm not sure about the arch use of 'falsely accused' there, mate
I remember reading the book way wayay back. Think the book was OK. But I remember the series was horrible
12:48 lol goes with your first joke
You're wrong about secession Buddy
It will happen...
Anywhere to watch this or is it lost to time and VHS?
holy shit, I never heard of this??? Feels like the mandela effect...
"Amerika" was basically intended to be a counterpoint to the bleak horror posed by the nuclear war drama "The Day After" which showed the devastating consequences of nuclear war on an "average American town" and the people therein... It galvanized a lot of criticism of the national security state and risks of nuclear war posed by the superpowers of the mid 1980's and caused concern among many that people were becoming SO fearful of nuclear war that they would accept anything to counter it. IIRC in the various debates of the time, it was Ben Stein who posed the question, "is nuclear war worse than the alternative, of living under Soviet domination?" which led to the production of "Amerika" as a counterpoint to "The Day After"... looking into a hypothetical US after 10 years of Soviet occupation after a rather bloodless collapse and conquest.
Of course most of it is the same sort of red-scare fearmongering that had haunted various parts of the US population and power establishment for decades, occasionally rising to obvious prominence in such events as the McCarthy hearings of the House Unamerican Activities Committee nonsense and other such witch-hunts and fearmongering, all to consolidate power for those fomenting the fearmongering for their own ends...
Now we've basically done it to ourselves... WE have become the very same "evil empire" Reagan accused the Soviets of being in the 80's, with their constant military adventurism and seeking to contain their own inevitable and inexorable internal decay and decline through rampant militarism and foreign military and political adventurism and exploitation and intrigue... It's not going to work for us any better than it worked for them. It merely hasted their downfall, just as it is currently for the United States...
McCarthy was right and the smol hats took over the country.
It's on RUclips
ruclips.net/p/PL6B42A52B2363A16C&si=Qi-i_ngHt6ZWIVf_
Hideously, mind numbingly slow, however prophetic. _Red Dawn_ was the fast, violent, sexy version. However, the "United Nations" occupation force in Amerika seemed to be the original for that bee in the bonnet of militia groups and the like.
>prophetic
LOL. No wonder Republicans only lose wars. They don't even know what many words they use mean.
Yeah, but imagine if he wore a used pair of coveralls with gloves and boots as if he pulled at 12 hour shift and smelling of dip and beer. 🤘🏼😎🤘🏼
wow that part where the KGB guy talks about a "control provocation" sounds a lot like January 6 . . . The DOJ under Biden must use this as a training film.
Sooo… this is a sequel to Red Dawn?
Not a sequel, just a contemporary take on similar themes. I think of Red Dawn as the Hollywood action version with a military invasion, and Amerika as the more believable crushing the people with bureaucracy version of essentially the same story.
Nothing compares to the original. John Milius' masterpiece.
I think you flipped your advice to the right and to the left. Perhaps you realize your mistake now.