And so I was legitimately shocked and impressed and fascinated when I reached the middle of
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
SPOILERS FROM HERE and got to the scene where the movie clearly states that our modern intelligence apparatus and our whole system of national security was invented by some of the greatest villains of the 20th Century. And worse: Like the vampires of the pre-glitter period, HYDRA was welcomed in by their victims, freely and of their own will. In real-world terms,
Winter Soldier basically says that the NSA was invented by Nazis
and that we let it happen,
insisted even, giving up our freedom because we were too afraid to do anything else. EW critic Owen Gleiberman pointed out in his review that the villain in
Winter Soldier is
really the military-industrial complex. And that villain has accomplices, accessories, and henchmen who help the bad guys by doing nothing. To paraphrase
Pogo: We have met the enemy, and they is us.