“You are not immune to propaganda” is an extraordinarily important thing to grasp about the world and your place in it.

If you watched “Captain America: Winter Soldier” and thought, “This is a criticism of the U.S. surveillance state”, then that was propaganda working incredibly effectively. Because if you notice, the problem with SHIELD in that film is not that it’s an organization that exists to control the entire world from and for the United States; the problem is that literal Nazis — and this is crucial — infiltrated SHIELD and turned it into something bad.

In reality, even before the Second World War was over, the United States was orienting itself toward opposing the Soviet Union and spread of Communism. It wasn’t infiltration and it wasn’t just for NASA that the USA actively sought out fascists; in “stay-behind” operations like Operation Gladio or preference toward chinilpa Koreans who had collaborated with Imperial Japan, fascist connections were even preferred because it meant reliable anti-Communism.

Instead, for the fictional SHIELD, we’re made to understand that the original mission, when controlled by decent, honest, red-blooded Americans, is still a worthwhile ideal. Thus, if you get the bad people out, the organization can pursue its worthwhile purpose effectively and harmlessly again.

We have to have someone to deal with Ultron and Hydra and the Flag Smashers, etc. Assassinating the leader of Wakanda? Oh no, that was someone else. The bad guys.

It’s not just that Magneto was right, Killmonger was right, and so on, therefore they are written to gleefully stomp on puppies and infants. It’s more subtle than that. These movies shape the perception of popular culture, and this is known when they get script approval plus material support from the U.S. government. Whatever other issues are involved, it’s important every tentpole film accepts the bipartisan worldview of the actual Deep State, the one that says, regardless of who is president, “U.S. interests” have to be protected all over the world.

And you are constantly barraged with the idea that the same FBI that assassinated Fred Hampton and ruined the lives of left wing activists merely for organizing at some point stopped doing those sorts of things. You think, “We need to clean up the FBI and get the white supremacists out so they can go after the real bad guys, like fascist gangs.”

This is like saying we need to get the bad, sadistic torturers out of the CIA so the good, professional torturers can get their work done.

None of us are as savvy as we think, and knowing is not half the battle of anything.