Shawn Helton
21st Century Wire
A hyper-real vision of America serves as a stark backdrop for Hollywood’s social science fiction horror film, The Purge: Election Year.
The Purge: Election Year (2016) is the third installment of the ‘Purge’ film franchise, arriving on screen just in time for the hotly contested 2016 presidential election between presumptive nominees Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.
The film’s recent release also hit theaters prior to a wave of bizarre shootings and street protests now gripping the nation, something which we’ll discuss in greater detail later on in this article.
The timing of this film’s release in relation to current events cannot be overstated, and readers would not be amiss in questioning whether this is merely a coincidence, or is there a deeper social engineering agenda at play here.
‘DIVIDE & RULE’ – Gangs and counter gangs take center stage in ‘The Purge: Election Year’ (Image Source: screenrant)
Election Year‘s action picks up in 2028, on the eve of the ’25th sanctioned purge’, where from dusk til dawn (for one day a year on March 21st – 22nd), America “purges” itself – suspending state emergency response and police protection as all crime is legalized – including murder.
The 12 hour ‘civic duty’ instituted by the cloaked governmental cabal known as the New Founding Fathers of America (NFFA) is an event enacted after the country plunged into economic ruin and soaring round-the-clock crime rates. The purge is a type of pressure release valve and the NFFA’s answer to America’s growing desire for class warfare and social decay.
Though a more complete background about the true origins of NFFA are scant, there’s no doubt it represents a right-wing political faction on the surface (think neoconservatives on steroids). However as we’ll discover in this often strongly violent, sometimes campy, if not revelatory creation, not everything is entirely as it seems in the powder-keg of this seemingly alternate reality set in a not-too-distant future.
Over the course of this analysis, we’ll touch on key political aspects observed in the film, while also examining the violent fiction that often bleeds over into reality…
‘NIGHT OF RAGE’ – A subliminal purging of American history. (Image Source: dn)
Understanding The Purge: Election Year
The Purge: Election Year, was written and directed by James DeMonaco, and is full of contradictions.
On one hand, the film artificially critiques the violent world cast by NFFA head Caleb Warren (played by actor Raymond J. Barry), while at the same time overlooking the mayhem caused by ‘anti-purge’ revolutionaries seeking social change.
In essence, Election Year creates a duplicitous platform which carefully presents only two sides, or choices, for the audience – fascist savagery which is not excused, and social justice savagery which is excusable.
This is where Election Year seems to subtly direct the viewer to believe that the ‘activist’ violence depicted in the film is a necessary evil in the pursuit of social justice, when in reality the anti-purge resistance group of leftist radicals (resembling Black Lives Matter) led by Dante Bishop (Edwin Hodge), in many ways functions similarly to that of the far-right NFFA – using brute force to carry out its own political and social reform agenda.
It should also be noted here that both opposing sides of this political divide will happily deploy (cynically of otherwise) their own violent street mobs to enforce their particular political agenda.
Within the framework of this story’s rigid political dialectic, and with irreconcilable polar opposite sides at odds, the film appears to be making another point: that civil war is not only inevitable, it’s necessary in order for the political and social ‘evolution’ to take place.
‘ANTI-PURGE-PANTHERS’ – A pivotal scene where anti-purge leader Dante Bishop seeks to assassinate NFFA rulers. (Image Source: fullact)
Although the film appears to reflect some emerging aspects of today’s real politik. Think of the merging neoliberal and neoconservative factions in real-life politics, where many fascist views and radical ideologies have become blurred, with the popular 20th century left-wing ideology rooted in its connection to Leon Trotsky‘s theory of Marxism called Trotskyism – a theory where world-wide socialism is achieved only through ongoing revolution.
Going back to Election Year, we know that the NFFA’s ‘evolution/revolution’ overthrew the United States government as an answer to many social ills and in a similar way ‘anti-purge’ rebels are seeking to disband the NFFA in favor of their own system of social justice.
Although not addressed by the film’s writers, acknowledging political reality should leave viewers with another fundamental question: how long before the anti-purge rebels take the place of the NFFA as the next Junta?
Let’s rewind for a moment, and briefly review Election Year’s plot, before returning to the political anlaysis…
CASTING: Blonde, middle aged Charlie Roan is running for president in The Purge.
Election Year’s main plot sees the return of Leo Barnes (Frank Grillo) from The Purge: Anarchy,and this time he’s heading security for fictional woman (with more than a passing resemblance to US presidential Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, Senator Charlie Roan (Elizabeth Mitchell), who is running for president against NFFA rival Minister Edwidge Owen (Kyle Secor). We learn the Roan herself was once a victim of a purge eighteen years earlier, resulting in the death of her family. The Purge itself, was the impetus for Roan’s evolution politics.
Flash forward to the presidential primaries, as Roan lays out a plan to eradicate America’s new brutal pastime, much to the chagrin of the filmmaker’s preferred villains, the NFFA. This then caused the NFFA to lift a purge ban on targeting politicians, putting Roan on the NFFA’s proxy hit-list.
Roan attempts to wait out the 25th purge under a 12 hour watch at home. Barnes quickly realizes that the Senator has been betrayed by her staff and an assassination attempt is carried out by the NFFA directed ‘Neo-Nazi’ mercenaries led by Earl Danzinger (Terry Serpico) who is seen with a Confederate flag patch and nazi imagery.
The mercenaries in the film immediately remind one of the 2014 Odessa clashes and subsequent Massacre there which was exacerbated by US-backed paramilitary Neo-Nazi thugs who were also used in Kiev’s color revolution coup d’etat centered in Maidan Square. It was later revealed that the political turmoil was being run by Hillary Clinton’s Asst. Secretary of StateVictoria Nuland who effectively engineered ‘regime change’ in the Ukraine.
‘RADICAL REWRITE’ – Hellish images of murdering tourists dressed like original ‘Founding Fathers’ comes across as heavy-handed politics. (Image Source: orlandosentinel)
After surviving the attempt on their lives, Barnes and Roan escape the coup and take to the streets in a quasi eugenics-themed “survival of the fittest” chase-filled scene, where the heroes are fighting off murdering tourists who’ve traveled to America for a murder vacation, along with fascist mercenary contractors, and also dealing with a pack of devilishly dolled up teenagers.
While Barnes and Roan race through the streets of downtown DC they get help from a spirited deli shop owner Joe Dixon (Mykelti Williamson) who has been forced to protect what he owns because his insurance coverage was dropped (a nod to Obamacare?), alongside his shop assistant Marcos (Joseph Julian Soria) who immigrated to America.
‘AMERICAN TERROR’ – Bill Ayers was the brain-child of 1960’s domestic radical group the Weather Underground. (Image Source: 21WIRE)
Agitprop & Government Control
Hollywood often twists real world chaos into a muddled cocktail for audiences to consume.
As Election Year pits a leftist radical activist group against the neocon-like NFFA (along with their fascist paramilitary thugs) we see perhaps the film’s true intentions, as it presents a false left-right paradigm from which to choose from.
When Election Year progresses, issues over race and immigration weave their way into the film’s character development. This, along with other indicator mentioned previously, reveals a communitarian ethos as part of the film’s core narrative.
Although subtle, the film’s most shocking mission seems to be a rather preposterous attempt to present a rigid dialectic, where ultra-violence is used to implement the anti-violent political narrative dispensed by Senator Roan and her supporters. The implied conclusion: violence is not only inevitable, it’s necessary in order to achieve political and social evolution, also referred to as change.
Incredulously, Roan and those closest to her, later employ the notorious CRIPs street gang to fend off the NFFA’s fascist Gladio-like operators to survive the final hours of Election Year‘s purge.
The film’s use of known street gangs in this story brings up some interesting points. Historically speaking, the CRIPs were spawned in 1969, a few years after the militant black rights group the Black Panthers Party (BBP) was built up and steered into armed militancy by the FBI through the use of a confidential informant Richard Aoki. In this way, the FBI, aided by the media, helped to stir-up racial tension in America. It is also widely known that the FBI created the counter-intelligence program (COINTELPRO) to influence and disrupt political factions from the inside out. Between 1956 and 1971 (including the Socialist Workers party in 1973), the FBI’scontroversial program infiltrated and radicalized hundreds of left-wing and right-wing groups to control and neutralize political dissidents across America. Moreover, during the Days of Rage in 1969, the FBI was said to have been “tracking specific members” of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). The SDS was heavily connected to 60’s political agitators turned domestic terrorists, ‘The Weather Underground’. Many concluded that the group’s leader, Bill Ayers, was also an interloper looking for new recruits who could be easily manipulated into hostile action.
Election Year‘s use of the CRIPs gang seems ironic, considering how police are on record as having also infiltrated gangs like the CRIPs, as well as likely having had direct influence on the group since the 1960’s. So what appears to be a street gang rising up against a group of paramilitary mercenaries in the film – in reality would really be a form of controlled opposition directed and steered by government infiltrators on either side. This is a reality which is routinely omitted from most TV and film narratives pretending to depict real world gangs and terrorist organizations.
Similarly, the “anti-purge rebels,” led by Bishop, resemble an amalgam of the George Sorosfunded Black Lives Matter ‘movement’, as well as other 1960’s radical militant organizations.
Operation CHAOS
Also during the 1960’s and the 1970’s the CIA’s Operation CHAOS “collected substantial amounts of information on domestic dissidents from 1967 to 1973,” as admitted by the CIA.
Over 40 years ago, a horrific crime spree took place sometime between 1972 -1974 that was dubbed the Zebra Murders. It was a shocking crime spree that shook the San Francisco area to the core.
The murders were supposedly refered to as Zebra, because the radio communications channel that police talked over was channel Z. Reportedly, four Black Muslim men calling themselves the ‘death angels’ were spawned from a known cointelpro hangout Nation of Islam.
The Death Angels were said to have shot future Mayor of San Francisco Art Angos. Some researchers on the subject, have suggested that the Death Angels were trained counter-intelligence assassins meant to foment a race war in America.
Predictive Programming & Agent Provocateurs
There are many overlapping political memes present in The Purge: Election Year – you have the idea of a political assassination, disenfranchised militant groups, a faux anti-violent message masked as gun control and fascist overlords. So while Election Year, comes across as a sometimes silly sociopolitical horror action film, its purpose may be to get the public conditionedfor certain political outcomes domestically here in the US – and that already seems to be happening.
Election Year echoes the apparent ‘strategy of tension’ we are seeing today during America’s present 2016 presidential election campaign. Earlier this year, we outlined how certain political game changers were targeting the Trump campaign, as the George Soros-funded Democrat Party-oriented advocacy group MoveOn.org and host of other splinter groups associated with Black Lives Matter, played a large role in the Chicago University student-organized shutdown at a Trump campaign rally.
‘BLACK BLOC’ – Black bloc provocateurs, have violently escalated protest movements since the 1980’s, including 2011’s Occupy Wall Street Movement (Photo link examiner)
The echoes have still been felt from the partly Soros-funded protests in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014, and the Baltimore Riots of 2015, something which immediately recalls the misguided machinations of The Occupy Movement (aka OWS) in 2011, an event that turned out to be athink-tank-spun divide and conquer stratagem designed to push naive participants into violent action.
‘CHICAGO CHAOS’ – Bernie Sanders supporters join Black Lives Matter linked groups to shutdown Trump rally (Photo link twitter)
Just days after the release of Election Year, two controversial officer involved shootings in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and also in St. Paul, Minnesota, led to a highly coordinated protest march in downtown Dallas that erupted into a chaos after a ‘sniper’ ambush targeted police.
Shortly after the attacks, The Daily Star first reported a group claiming responsibility, “A group named ‘Black Power Political Organization – BPPO’ posted to its Facebook page this morning claiming there would be more attacks in the coming days,” but this narrative quickly shifted after the report connected the Black Men Entrepreneurship Foundation as being linked to BPPO through the same number, as reporters reached an unidentified Jamaican, “…When asked if he was directly involved in the attack, he responded saying: “maybe.”
The overtly conspiracy-tinged aspect in mainstream media, one that conjures many Hollywood or government tales of murder, deception and intrigue throughout history.
The introduction of a new kind of hate group only enhances the drive by media voyeurism and fear seen after many Daily Shooter events.
‘MEDIA MISDIRECTION’ – Is BPPO a real entity – or a social media invention to stir the masses? (Image Source: rt)
According to officials, 5 police officers were shot and killed with another 7 wounded (injured only two civilians). Initially, it believed that 3 or 4 other armed militants were involved – but in less than 24 hours, authorities stated it was a lone gunman, Micah Xavier Johnson.
Here at 21WIRE, we’ve outlined many of the main anomalies concerning the recent Dallas sniper shooting, while also examining the Gladio-style aspects of the event and so far, it appears that the heavily choreographed and emotionally driven incident has left another problem, reaction, solution in its wake.
Here’s an interesting analysis from YouTube Redsilverj, who makes many historical comparisons while breaking down the so-called Dallas ‘sniper’ shooting…
Recently, 21WIRE’s Patrick Henningsen outlined the political fallout seen after The Dallas Deception. Something which perpetuates the established narrative concerning sociopolitical concerns:
“The Dallas Shooting is significant on a number of levels.
Firstly, Dallas will further accentuate the artificial divide between what Americans perceive as the ‘Left’ or liberal wing of political society, and the what is sold as America’s ‘Right’ or conservative wing. In this dialectic, Democrat is set against Republican, young against old, black is pitted against white, wealthy against poor, upper class against middle class, and even middle class against lower class. In the run-up to the Presidential election in November, this division will be important in order to polarize America along a prefabricated dialectical line and thus keeping the national discourse down at a base, or emotional level – and through this binary process avoid any real examination of America’s fundamental issues, policy flaws and the federal government’s unsustainable bloated borrow & spend habit – effectively kicking the can down the road another 4 years (which seems to be the norm). Ultimately, this serves the state, its bureaucratic stakeholders and the power structure as a whole.”
Gangs, Counter Gangs & Dupes
It should also be noted again that the FBI have a long record of inventing terror plots which are then used by western media outlets to promote the public terror theater, including but not limited to ‘would be suicide bomber on his way to Washington DC, a plot to bomb synagogues in New Jersey, a stinger missile-airliner plot, and a toy drone explosives plot against the Pentagon – all contrived through FBI cointel pro operations in the US. Said one expert:
“… all these dramas were facilitated by the F.B.I., whose undercover agents and informers posed as terrorists offering a dummy missile, fake C-4 explosives, a disarmed suicide vest and rudimentary training. Suspects naïvely played their parts until they were arrested.” (see full report here)
In a 2007 article by Nafeez Ahmed, entitled “The Strategy of Tension,” we discover the existence of many stay-behind operations under the Gladio umbrella setup by the CIA and other Western intelligence agencies:
“The existence of this secret operation exploded into public controversy when in August 1990 upon the admissions in parliament by Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti, the existence of ‘Gladio’ was exposed as a secret sub-section of Italian military-intelligence services, responsible for domestic bombings blamed on Italian Communists.”
Jay Dyer of Jay’s analysis (21WIRE contributor) delves into the Gladio phenomena in thepassage below:
“Like Operation Gladio where from the 50s to the 80s, left-wing “radicals” were blamed for Euro-terror completely engineered and staged by a covert branch of NATO intelligence and P-2 affiliated masonry lodge, similar patterns are seen in today’s “terror cells” and “lone wolf shooters.”
Continuing, Dyer states:
“Indeed, it is the same pattern mentioned above domestically, with the FBI-hatched terror plots. Terror in these instances functions to exacerbate a “strategy of tension” to smear opposition, promote undue fear, and cajole the populace into accepting more surveillance and security theater. Dallas saw a similarly implausible story last year of “conspiracy theorist” James Boulware, a “lone wolf shooter” who purportedly shot at police after incoherent online ramblings (which are quite clearly manufactured), and now we are told Micah X has a “manifesto” – a must have for your daily shooter starter pack.”
Here’s another look at an engaging and insightful interview with author Daniele Ganser, who has painstakingly documented the terror activities of security services through operation GLADIO in his book, “NATO’s Secret Armies: Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe.”
Watch Ganser examine the historical evidence of ‘stay-behind’ armies that appear to mirror much of the terror atrocities occurring today…
In the propaganda war, the government has certain objectives — including movement and maneuver, utilizing intelligence and firing against an enemy — which is the new “Inform and Influence Activities” (IIA). As their manual states, IIA “is critical to understanding, visualizing, describing, directing, assessing, and leading operations toward attaining the desired end state.”
It is important to note that psyops are designed to proffer widespread disappointment and fatigue by design, to deliberately cause apathy. They can also be used in other more nefarious ways.
‘Gabriel Over the White House’ – An 1933 American film that also blends fascism and socialism.
The Purge’s Social Problem
Though Election Year’s darkly satirical content is largely geared for a base emotional reaction, it cannot be denied that certain political groups represented in the film appear to reference much of what we’ve outlined above, including Daniele Ganser’s research on NATO’s stay-behind-armies.
Election Year’s climatic scene depicts a devout group of NFFA faithful within a church, all of the congregation appear to be white caucasian supporters decked out in an Egyptian winged sun emblem that reminds one of the Freemasons square and compass symbol. Here, the NFFA attempt to kill Senator Roan in ritual sacrifice but anti-purge rebels intervene, storming the church, killing nearly everyone except Roan’s political rival Minister Edwidge Owen – who she wants spared for their election match-up. The scene is obviously over-the-top, conjuring the tragic and suspicious shooting in Charleston last summer through racially and emotionally charged imagery. Interestingly, what appears to be absent from Election Year, is the existence of “black-on-black” crime in America – it’s as if every death is meant to polarize the viewer over race.
Election Year, like other ghoulish Hollywood imaginings, emerges to distort public perception over race, guns, immigration and other sociopolitical concerns – while tapping into the cultural zeitgeist of America.
Is this a case of Hollywood playing the role of socio-political provocateur in a real American election year?
READ MORE ALTERNATIVE HOLLYWOOD NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Hollywood Files
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