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The FBI Feared Communist Infiltration of EPCOT (muckrock.com)
v3rgEz writes: In 1981, Walt Disney World was getting ready to unveil a new gem in its crown of amusement parks, the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, or EPCOT. Revolving around a massive sphere called "Spaceship Earth" and a lagoon that initially called for cultural installations from nine countries, EPCOT was intended to be the ultimate harmonious international village, a shining example of global unity. Naturally the FBI had a problem with it. FOIA'd documents recently released to MuckRock show that as early as December 1979, almost three full years before the October 1, 1982 opening of EPCOT, the bureau was concerned with possible Soviet involvement in the endeavor. And even after Soviet involvement was ruled out, the FBI began to worry about Chinese influences.
All those asian families taking pictures? Who takes that many pictures?
...is fear itself. Seems these wise words have been largely forgotten. As a nation, the USA is the most lily-livered scaredy cats out there. I'm not talking about individuals, just the national characteristic. Why else spend such vast sums on a military that has more or less nothing to do? (and for which idle hands the devil makes plenty of work, starting wars it can't finish and general meddling). Why else are guns so fetishised? Why else is so much effort being put into monitoring everyone's trivial business? Why else are fingers pointed at harmless scapegoats like ordinary muslims? My country, right or wrong? Think about it.
If the average person had been smoking whatever it was, they'd have been locked up!
They're much worse now.
Why is Snark Required?
This doesn't indicate that the FBI listened in on any private conversations, blacklisted anyone, tried to get anyone fired, spread lies about anyone, or otherwise did the bad things that people usually think of when they complain about the FBI. And they feared the Soviets and Chinese would infiltrate because, you know, EPCOT has national pavilions run by those countries and staffed by their citizens. And when they found out that pavilions were not allowed to be political, they then decided the Soviets were not a threat. They don't seem to have thought the Chinese were a threat for very long, either.
Basically, this whole thing is just a complaint about the FBI doing their job.
I've always wondered who runs the country pavilions. They have a slightly not-run-by-Disney feel them. Sure, you can use your magic band to pay for stuff in their food stalls and restaurants and gift shops and the employees have Disney nametags on, but it always seems sort of not quite Disney otherwise. The Chinese pavilion even more so. And AFAICT they are staffed almost entirely by nationals of the country.
I think the Chinese pavilion was there when the park opened (we went as a family in Christmas of '82), so if it was staffed with Chinese nationals, maybe the FBI was being just kind of run of the mill paranoid about a bunch of Party-approved nationals being in the US during a relatively heated part of the cold war a short drive from NASA and all its space technology.
Overall, it seems kind of paranoid. Were they worried about the Chinese undermining our lead in audio animatronics and Imagineering?
Well, China has engaged in very extensive industrial espionage in western countries. I bet Russia's back in the industrial espionage game. Heck even Israel engages in industrial espionage against the United States.
in a quickly created amusement part.... With multinational brands shown the visiting public their branded propaganda in public?
Interactive life size ads?
Most of the new cash went back to winning coveted US entertainment awards over the years and for more tv shows.
The internet protection was not active for a while and the wider internet wondered around... using ftp.
A lot is about staff from other nations selling food... and getting their students into the USA.
The millions of people moving past would be exposed to other nations staff and politics... and might meet, talk to the non US workers.
Did the federal gov have enough cleared US staff to cover watching all the new staff from other nations..
The issues of song and dance staff from China..
Who got long term areas to show their nations, who got what gift shop...
Staff faking their English skills as in not understanding much English or pretending to need translation and having great English skills.
Pages about a $50 sale/overring and the chat down with staff and who took what photo or did no get photo taken...
Pages on people been offered reading material about travel/study in China.
Some comment on the role of students from Hong Kong.
200 pages later and the 2016 news is?
It takes a lot of gov staff to watch a very few people from other nations. Everyone is been followed in person, every stop, start, look, chat is been logged.
All US staff interactions get a complex "chat downs". Reading material about study in other nations is of great interest.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
spitting
It has to be one of the most depressing theme parks anywhere. The only reason to visit it is because you have a day left on your ticket and you're fed up of the other, better Disney parks.
The Chinese are essentially broadcasting all their propaganda on a 50kW AM station located just outside of DC; that doesn't disclose they're Chinese; and that no one has done anything about.
It's very strange to look back on the Cold War now -- Russia and the US wasted trillions of dollars and built a huge nuclear arsenal basically to stare each other down. If Epcot opened a few years later (mid to late 80s) I wonder if they would be targeting the Japanese pavilion as a possible hotbed of industrial espionage. When you walk through there today, you can feel a little bit of the ghost of the Japanese economic bubble. For those not old enough to remember, this was the time where there were breathless articles published about Japanese takeovers of the US economy. They were also buying up landmarks like Rockefeller Center in NYC basically as "trophies." And it was an interesting time, Japanese car makers had cracked the US car market, their semiconductor and computer industry was going like crazy, and even Marty McFly said "All the best stuff is made in Japan." It's not unlike the Chinese manufacturing takeover we're experiencing. The question is this - Japan's economic bubble popped, but China has much more control over their markets and population...so will this "takeover" last?
I actually like Epcot, but I know it's not as well loved as the other Disney parks. It kind of represents an ideal science-driven technocratic vision of the future that I'd like to see sometime before I'm dead. It also allows typical Muricans to at least be exposed to a couple of sanitized new cultural ideas here and there -- it's very telling that the population holding a passport is still pretty small. (Yes, yes, I know the US is a huge country, but I've never heard people complain so bitterly about getting a passport to go to whatever Caribbean destination their cruise is stopping at.)
Should we be more frightened by a somewhat insane FBI or a band of rabid communists? I think maybe the FBI is the greater of two evils. Gee whiz! Americans might learn to use chopsticks in an international village. That is a threat to American knife and fork makers and capitalism in general.
Spaceship Earth is NOT a sphere... *facepalm*
they started worry about 'muricans being involved otherwise they would have been off the federal gravy train and out of a job.
it's very telling that the population holding a passport is still pretty small.
That will change though, once it becomes mandatory to fly domestically.
We are the Land of the Free, the Home of the Brave, we can all own guns and you will please to present your papers, citizen.
Obligatory Robot Chicken https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLcIAJsaF3o
Oh, guns are fetishized because for almost all of human existence they would have been considered magic... you point a stick and boom, something dies. While it's not really magic, it is really the power of life or death and many people can not resist owning that...
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
Back then it wasn't so clear a free economy would decimate a communist one in productivity and producing health and wealth for the average person. And all that conveniently skips the meme aspect of how communism "sounds good" to people.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
a bit of trivia from Jim Butchers The Dresden Files
Karen Murphy (who is about 5 foot tall and lightly built) has a P90 that she uses as a goto weapon when dealing with the lesser Things That Go Bump In The Night.
as long as you can hold it and pull the trigger a Gun does not care who you are
That's silly. When I use a gun, I point it, pull the trigger, and boom, a paper target gets a hole in it. Why would I want something to die? That wouldn't be very nice.
Claiming that "the power of life or death" is a fetish is ridiculous. Every driver on the road has that power. Every plumber, electrician, and Boy Scout has that power. Every airplane pilot has a lot of that power. The simple truth is that humans are fragile creatures, and the simple safety measures we follow daily can easily be bypassed if one has the motivation to do so. The realization of how close one comes to death every day is terrifying.
That's what scares people, not a magic boom-stick.
What distinguishes firearms, though, is that they are themselves an easy target. Politicians, pundits, and concerned citizens can reassign their fear, allowing themselves to think of cars as "safe", because the really scary thing is a tube that makes loud noises. By concentrating all of the fear into one scapegoat, the rest of society seems perfectly livable.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
EPCOT as envisioned by Walt Disney was to be an actual city where people would live and work. He designed it in concentric rings, somewhat resembling a wagon wheel with spokes. The inner zone would have towers and was supposed to be where people work. The middle ring was a park and retail area, and the outer-most ring was residential. Walt Disney had the idea that all major American corporations would want to relocate their R&D to EPCOT, so if you could get GM next door to GE and might get an electric or atomic car sooner. So was the thinking. The conceptual designs had a very mid-century futuristic look to them. Walt Disney even proposed covering the city in a dome, so the weather would always be perfect. But I'm a bit skeptical about being able to keep a dome cool and dry in the Florida climate.
Claiming that "the power of life or death" is a fetish is ridiculous. Every driver on the road has that power.
No one sells cars claiming, "The only thing that stops a bad driver with a car is a good driver with a car."
...So you've never seen an ad boasting about how this particular vehicle's safety features will protect your children from the bad things on the road?
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Clinton is a square shooter. Clinton for 2016!
That's silly. When I use a gun, I point it, pull the trigger, and boom, a paper target gets a hole in it. Why would I want something to die? That wouldn't be very nice.
If your fetish is limited to putting holes in paper targets, then why don't you use a BB gun? A blow-gun? A bow and some arrows? A pointy stick? Some well-thrown playing cards?
Oh, those would take significantly more skill, and that skill cannot easily be transferred to using the same device for easily killing people.
Note that I am not reasoning with you—That is impossible. I am pointing out your logical fallacies for everyone else.
Worse yet, I think the Americans were involved with it to!