While the Rest of Us Die: Secrets of America's Shadow Government is a Vice on TV documentary television series exploring twentieth-century and twenty-first-century continuity of government (COG) measures of the United States federal government, the social, racial, and class inequalities these measures point to, the changing and inconsistent meanings of the concepts of "defense" and "homeland security", and the costs of COG infrastructure and maintenance to the United States federal budget. The series debuted November 16, 2020.[1]
| While the Rest of Us Die: Secrets of America's Shadow Government | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Documentary |
| Based on | Raven Rock: The Story of the U.S. Government's Secret Plan to Save Itself—While the Rest of Us Die by Garrett M. Graff |
| Narrated by | Jeffrey Wright |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 2 |
| No. of episodes | 14 |
| Production | |
| Executive producers |
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| Producers |
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| Production company | Efran Films |
| Original release | |
| Network | Vice TV |
| Release | November 16, 2020 – December 16, 2021 |
The series was inspired by the 2017 book Raven Rock: The Story of the U.S. Government's Secret Plan to Save Itself—While the Rest of Us Die by Garrett M. Graff.[2] The Raven Rock Mountain Complex providing a title for the book is a nuclear bunker in Southern Pennsylvania intended to serve as a secondary Pentagon in case of the destruction or disabling of the primary headquarters in Washington, D.C. and is also discussed in the television documentary series. The series is narrated by American actor Jeffrey Wright.[1]
Episodes
edit| Season | Episodes | Originally aired | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First aired | Last aired | |||
| 1 | 6 | November 16, 2020 | December 21, 2020 | |
| 2 | 8 | October 21, 2021 | December 16, 2021 | |
Season 1 (2020)
edit| No. overall | No. in season | Title | Original air date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | "Doomsday & The President" | November 16, 2020 | |
|
Cold War disaster planning by the government and how these preparations led to conspiracy theories | ||||
| 2 | 2 | "C.O.G. Clusterf***" | November 23, 2020 | |
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Weaknesses in continuity of government planning, and priorities other than ensuring the function of government, are exposed during the September 11 attacks; the nuclear bunker for the United States Congress beneath The Greenbrier resort in West Virginia, also known as Project Greek Island | ||||
| 3 | 3 | "The Enemy Within" | November 30, 2020 | |
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Disparities in planning and response to disasters such as the devastation of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 emphasize and reinforce racial inequality in the United States | ||||
| 4 | 4 | "National Insecurity" | December 7, 2020 | |
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The involvement of the United States in post–Cold War era conflicts appears to imperil the average US citizen and members of the military services rather than provide security | ||||
| 5 | 5 | "Collapse" | December 14, 2020 | |
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| 6 | 6 | "Legacy of Lies" | December 21, 2020 | |
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National security propaganda related to the twenty-first century American invasion of Iraq; further discussion of conspiracy theories such as the 9/11 Truth movement and Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories; the QAnon conspiracy theory movement, its use of antisemitic canards, and parallels to Millenarianism and pareidolia; the "post-truth" concept; the interaction of government security interests, conspiracy theories, and the goals of the Trump Administration during the events of 2020, particularly the COVID-19 pandemic; the Milgram experiment and related study of amorality | ||||
Season 2 (2021)
edit| No. overall | No. in season | Title | Original air date [3] |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7 | 1 | "The Game Is Rigged" | October 21, 2021 |
| 8 | 2 | "Food Kills" | October 28, 2021 |
| 9 | 3 | "Killing Power" | November 4, 2021 |
| 10 | 4 | "Toxic Wasteland" | November 11, 2021 |
| 11 | 5 | "Nuke Nightmares" | November 18, 2021 |
| 12 | 6 | "Pandemic Profiteers" | December 2, 2021 |
| 13 | 7 | "Radical Religion" | December 9, 2021 |
| 14 | 8 | "The Real Drug Lords" | December 16, 2021 |
References
edit- ^ a b Lee, Janet W. (November 12, 2020). "Vice TV Sets Debut of 'While the Rest of Us Die: Secrets of America's Shadow Government' With Jeffrey Wright". Variety. Yahoo News.
- ^ Otiko, Manny (December 6, 2020). "VICE Disaster Planning Show Sounds Like Conspiracy Fare—But It's Real: Docu-series is more frightening than any disaster movie". Democracy Guardian. Archived from the original on January 5, 2021. Retrieved January 4, 2021.
- ^ "Shows A-Z – While the Rest of Us Die on VICE". The Futon Critic. Retrieved August 3, 2022.
External links
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