How the '80s programmed us for war

I stumbled across this very fitting article on the context of the 80s nostagia, Reaganism deregulation, and Hollywood propaganda: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2011/03/15/sirota_excerpt_back_to_our_future

Some highlights:

"Propaganda is most effective when it is least noticeable," writes public relations expert Nancy Snow. "In an open society, such as the United States, the hidden and integrated nature of the propaganda best convinces people they are not being manipulated."

Reaganism abetted this dawn of the "the military-entertainment complex," as Wired magazine called it. The administration's hawkishess provided the political rationale for parental complicity, and the White House's deregulatory agenda helped television become the most influential -- and most invasive -- marketer of kids products, more and more of which were violent and military-themed.

White House strategists and Pentagon propagandists use information and imagery as strategic weapons, and they are well aware that the most valuable of those weapons is cheery childhood nostalgia.

In a Variety story from 1994, the Pentagon's official Hollywood liaison, Phil Strub, put it bluntly: "The main criteria we use [for approval] is ... how could the proposed production benefit the military ... could it help in recruiting [and] is it in sync with present policy?"