Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. Chuck Bryant's with me as usual.
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, I don't know what I
Speaker 1: do If Chuck Bryant wasn't with me, I'd probably curl
Speaker 1: up in the fetal position in the corner and cry
Speaker 1: myself to sleep. I think you'd be just fine. I
Speaker 1: don't know, Chuck. I don't ever want to find out. Chuck. Well, thanks,
Speaker 1: almost didn't make it today. Why what's going on with you?
Speaker 1: I was out last night. I went out and saw
Speaker 1: Matt's band. As you know, Matt Frederick are handsome young
Speaker 1: stand in producer. Yeah, Matt Frederick of Stuff of Genius
Speaker 1: fame and awesome new video podcasts. We should mention, Chuck.
Speaker 1: It's really good. You guys should check that out, Stuff
Speaker 1: of Genius. It's it's a video podcast video and it's
Speaker 1: cool and it has a little like Monty Python esque animation.
Speaker 1: I like it. Yeah, And we don't want to hear
Speaker 1: any of this. I don't have time to watch that
Speaker 1: crap because it's like a minute forty two tops. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's quick. Yeah. But went and saw his band last night,
Speaker 1: Lions and Scissors. Yeah, good stuff, And I wanted to
Speaker 1: say that they have a MySpace page and it's good
Speaker 1: music if you're into its very shoegaze, yeah, mag wise
Speaker 1: good is sort of a radio heady component at times.
Speaker 1: Explosions in the sky you ever heard of them? I
Speaker 1: have a big wall of sound, loud, my ears are ringing,
Speaker 1: and I'm slightly tired and imbibed a bit too much.
Speaker 1: But that was my night. That's Chuck's Thursday, everybody, So
Speaker 1: keep rocking, Matt. We love it. Yeah, way to go, Matt.
Speaker 1: So can we get back to our podcast now? Maybe? Yeah,
Speaker 1: But I just wanted to give give you a hard time.
Speaker 1: I think you're a good guy for doing that. Talented drummer,
Speaker 1: great drummer. Okay, So, Chuck, you grew up in the
Speaker 1: Cold War, right, it's pretty funny, jerk you did. You're
Speaker 1: a Cold War baby like me. I'm a Cold War kid.
Speaker 1: Isn't it weird to think we actually work with people who,
Speaker 1: like weren't cognizant that, you know, the Soviets had nukes
Speaker 1: pointed at us at all times and vice versa. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that is weird to me. Yeah, but um yeah, I
Speaker 1: remember being particularly unnerved from time to time that like, dude,
Speaker 1: eventually they're going to come over and or our missile
Speaker 1: is going to be sent over, and that's that, you know.
Speaker 1: I think I can't help but think that we were
Speaker 1: definitely shaped, our personalities were shaped by that underlying, constant
Speaker 1: level of paranoia that we grew up with. You well
Speaker 1: in the movies, uh, a lot, a lot of great
Speaker 1: Cold war movies of that era, but the Roosky is
Speaker 1: out to get us? Yeah, well, do you remember the
Speaker 1: movie Rooskis? Was there one called? It was actually a
Speaker 1: counter propaganda movie where a bunch of kids that were
Speaker 1: probably my age you would have been, like, you know,
Speaker 1: twenty by then. Um, where I think they found a
Speaker 1: Russian sailor who washed ashore and they had to hide
Speaker 1: them because of course, you know, the government would shoot
Speaker 1: him in the head if they found him. And they
Speaker 1: came to learn that the Soviets have hearts too, they
Speaker 1: know how to love. Was it a real movie? Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it wasn't very good, but it was somebody actually put
Speaker 1: out the effort to say, you know, hey, we're all
Speaker 1: just people here, you know. Um, And what they were
Speaker 1: doing actually was counter propaganda, right, Like all the that
Speaker 1: was right off the cuff, two pounds um, all of
Speaker 1: the all the stuff we were told, I would say,
Speaker 1: at least the vast majority of it was lopsided at best.
Speaker 1: Like do you remember what did you think of the
Speaker 1: Russians when you were growing up? That they were like
Speaker 1: they cut your throat just as soon as look at you,
Speaker 1: And they were always standing in these horrible breadlines, and
Speaker 1: like every single one of them wanted to escape, but
Speaker 1: the Russian government wouldn't let her. They wanted up toilet papers.
Speaker 1: They heard stories about they don't have blue jeans and
Speaker 1: they don't have toilets. Yeah, like you could get you know,
Speaker 1: five wives with the single pair of jeans if you
Speaker 1: wouldn't ever the kind of thing. Yeah, well, I remember
Speaker 1: when the Iron curtain fell and like actual news started
Speaker 1: coming out of the the former USSR states that I
Speaker 1: remember thinking, oh, yeah, what a surprise. All of that
Speaker 1: was lies And they're actually kind of nice folks by
Speaker 1: and large. I'm not saying that they weren't trying to
Speaker 1: do bad things. When we were trying to do bad things. Well, no,
Speaker 1: I think that that was the Russian people were good
Speaker 1: people that came that. That's what I figured out when
Speaker 1: the propaganda ended, the Cold War propaganda ended so abruptly,
Speaker 1: is that we're all people like the average Russian is
Speaker 1: like the average American at heart, with the same dreams, goals, aspirations,
Speaker 1: same things that Kim or her. You know, it's the
Speaker 1: same thing. And we didn't want our stockpiles of weapons
Speaker 1: pointed in their direction either. You know, you're average American
Speaker 1: probably didn't know, certainly not I didn't either. Let's just
Speaker 1: get along, all right, So, Chuck, what we're talking about
Speaker 1: clearly is propaganda, right, which in just that word, A
Speaker 1: very smart person once said, um that propaganda is not
Speaker 1: a dirty word, and it didn't end with the Cold War,
Speaker 1: and that's actually true. But propaganda still has horrible connotations
Speaker 1: just the word itself, right, I mean, it elicits images
Speaker 1: of like brainwashed mass and that's it's definitely the case
Speaker 1: in most cases when it comes to propaganda. But there's
Speaker 1: a classical, more classical definition of propaganda, and essentially, Um,
Speaker 1: it's that it's simply a tool for persuasive arguments, Um,
Speaker 1: that use facts and beliefs, but omit facts and beliefs
Speaker 1: that that would persuade people to the other side of
Speaker 1: the argument, right. It's it's accentuating the positive in a way,
Speaker 1: and you never talked about the negative side of the things. Right,
Speaker 1: So it's sort of like Facebook, it is. It's very
Speaker 1: much like Facebook. Um. I figured out that, um through
Speaker 1: reading this article how propaganda works. That technically the truth campaign,
Speaker 1: you know, to to get people to quit smoking comcials,
Speaker 1: that's propaganda because they omit the fact that cigarettes make
Speaker 1: you alive with pleasure and flavor country. Right, So it's
Speaker 1: that's a little bit of both. I'm not sure we
Speaker 1: should say the brands because I'm pretty sure Big Tobacco
Speaker 1: would sue our parents. And you're right, you've come a
Speaker 1: long way, nice chuck, Um. So yes, But the the
Speaker 1: main hallmark of propaganda is that it includes omissions of facts, right. Um.
Speaker 1: And actually, the where where did the whole word come from?
Speaker 1: You got any you got any info on that? Dude? Uh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: started with religion way back, and it started, you know,
Speaker 1: hundreds of years before it was officially coined. But in
Speaker 1: sixteen twenty two, Pope Gregory was I need to work
Speaker 1: in my room in new Pope Gregory fifteen established the
Speaker 1: Congregation of Propaganda in sixty two, and that was basically
Speaker 1: trying to win back Catholics who had taken up the
Speaker 1: Protestant faith. Yeah, Martin Luther made a real damp in
Speaker 1: the number of seats in the pews every Sunday. So
Speaker 1: Pope Gregory formed the what was it, the Congregation of Propaganda. Um,
Speaker 1: and they, oh you did say that, Holy cow man,
Speaker 1: I gotta pay more attention. Basically, this Congregation of Propaganda,
Speaker 1: you know, one Catholics back by pointing out that anyone
Speaker 1: who doesn't take communion every week as a loser. And
Speaker 1: it worked, it did, sure, I'm sure numbers increased. So
Speaker 1: since then, you know, from that point until I don't know,
Speaker 1: the nineteen forties, there was absolutely no propaganda whatsoever. That's
Speaker 1: probably not true. No, you don't think that's okay. I
Speaker 1: need to read a little more clearly World War One?
Speaker 1: Are we talking? Are we're gonna go with the history now?
Speaker 1: I don't think we should get to that party. I
Speaker 1: think we should talk more about propaganda's implications. Right in
Speaker 1: the article, you you read that there was an interview
Speaker 1: with a guy named em Laine Bruner. Yeah, he's a
Speaker 1: professor of what rhetoric at Georgia State. Yeah, I didn't
Speaker 1: know that was such a thing. I didn't either, but
Speaker 1: it's interesting for him. Um. But Brunner said that the
Speaker 1: the distinction for him between good and bad propaganda was
Speaker 1: whether or not, um, the the people perpetrating the propaganda
Speaker 1: have the best interests of their audience at heart. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but that's subjective. I agree wholeheartedly. I take issue with
Speaker 1: that because I think that it's up to the individual
Speaker 1: to decide what his or her best interests, all right,
Speaker 1: and to make the decision, you have to be fully informed. Well,
Speaker 1: propaganda is based on an a mission of facts. You're
Speaker 1: never fully informed when you're when you're being propagandized. Right,
Speaker 1: So therefore there's no such thing as good propaganda. Sure,
Speaker 1: you never see two both sides of the argument with propaganda, right, right,
Speaker 1: So that's I don't think there is such a good
Speaker 1: thing as I take issue. And he's a Georgia State.
Speaker 1: He's not too far. Maybe we should hop on the
Speaker 1: subway and go down him take issue with him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to take issue with this, professor, I got
Speaker 1: some propaganda for you. Yeah. Uh, so, Chuck, how do
Speaker 1: you how do you get propaganda? Cross, Well, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of techniques actually, and these are pretty cool. And
Speaker 1: I know that when people hear these are going to
Speaker 1: be very familiar, maybe not with the name, but with
Speaker 1: the result. Yeah. Um, name calling is a big one. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I I found a poster I showed you. Um, it's
Speaker 1: a takeoff on that Shepherd Ferry right Obama political poster,
Speaker 1: but this one it's a slightly different picture. He has
Speaker 1: his nose in the air and it says snob under.
Speaker 1: It's actually pretty funny. Yeah, especially since you want it's
Speaker 1: a lot funnier because he won, right Yeah uh yeah, true.
Speaker 1: I guess that was done before he won. Yeah uh.
Speaker 1: And you know, name calling is that's just typical playground stuff.
Speaker 1: But they do it on large you know, on a
Speaker 1: large scale. Grown men and women in the political spectrum
Speaker 1: call people out. They'll they'll use names to uh, they'll
Speaker 1: use names like terrorists and trader and like evil doers.
Speaker 1: Stuff that nobody wants to be right. Not to pick
Speaker 1: too much on George Bush, but when you throw down
Speaker 1: words like access of evil and evil doers. That's propaganda
Speaker 1: definitely form Yeah, it is, it is, and it makes
Speaker 1: you wonder like what exactly is going on in Iran
Speaker 1: right now? How much propaganda we're experiencing from that? Sure,
Speaker 1: so that's one technique. Sure, you want to talk about
Speaker 1: the bandwagon, Well, bandwagon is pretty simple. It's like get
Speaker 1: on the winning side, dummy, you know, which is actually
Speaker 1: that example mixed name calling and bandwagon. Nobody wants to
Speaker 1: feel left out, and again this is pretty much a
Speaker 1: playground technique, which is still come with us, then you're
Speaker 1: and your other group, right, or you're gonna be left behind.
Speaker 1: All your friends and neighbors are gonna be cooler than you,
Speaker 1: smarter than you, richer than you, whatever, um. And you know,
Speaker 1: everybody wants to be a part of something good, you know.
Speaker 1: So yeah, basically with with the bandwagon technique, you're made
Speaker 1: to feel like you can be a part of something
Speaker 1: good if you join in, or be left behind if
Speaker 1: you don't. You got it. Thanks. I like this one
Speaker 1: a lot. The glittering generalities. Yeah, it's a great name. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is really common in political propaganda, and that's when
Speaker 1: you combine words that have positive connotations the concept that
Speaker 1: is beloved. So basically, no one's gonna come out and
Speaker 1: denounce something that you call And I have another example,
Speaker 1: and again not to put on pick on Bush, but
Speaker 1: he was in office for eight years. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of years. You know, there's a lot of recent things
Speaker 1: you can point to, like the Patriot Act. Like anyone
Speaker 1: who would come out and say, oh, the Patriot Act
Speaker 1: is bad, then what you're not a patriot not supporting? Yeah,
Speaker 1: But and the worst part is is it worked. Yeah,
Speaker 1: although do you remember one of the original provisions was
Speaker 1: basically to turn postal workers into spies, and the post
Speaker 1: Office said, no, we're not going to do that, right,
Speaker 1: and it got left out. But they wanted postal workers
Speaker 1: to keep an eye on what was going on, to
Speaker 1: report on communities and individual people, right, Yeah, So other
Speaker 1: words you can use in the glittering general generalities or
Speaker 1: words like liberty and dreams and family and you you
Speaker 1: throw these words in there, and you know, God forbid
Speaker 1: you step up and say something that's anti family just
Speaker 1: because they tagged that name to it, right exactly, And
Speaker 1: all all politicians do this. We're not we're not gonna
Speaker 1: single things out. It happens all over the place on
Speaker 1: both sides of the spectrum. Yeah, it's just that Bush
Speaker 1: was in office for eight years, which I just said
Speaker 1: you should listen. Cards stacking. Card stacking is exactly what
Speaker 1: it sounds like. It's stacking. Uh, it's stacking the argument
Speaker 1: in the favor of one side over another. Right. Um,
Speaker 1: and again this is the is the one that where
Speaker 1: fact emission really comes into play, you know. Um And
Speaker 1: and it's most often seen in political campaigns where you know,
Speaker 1: one candidate is like Broadwater. Have you ever seen Ali
Speaker 1: g Yeah, did you ever see the barat where he
Speaker 1: follows around that candidate, Jim Broadwater. It's hilarious. At one point,
Speaker 1: he tells a voter that Broadwater is talking to that
Speaker 1: if you do not vote for Broadwater, Broadwater will take power.
Speaker 1: It's hilarious. And he compares him to Stalin. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: this is is poor you know Republican guys running for
Speaker 1: city councilmen. But yeah, have Betty last you didn't? He
Speaker 1: I don't know, I'd like to find that out. But yeah.
Speaker 1: Card stacking is basically just um saying, here's our candidates great,
Speaker 1: great attributes, leaving out any bad stuff. Well, details and
Speaker 1: statistics too, Like they'll throw out legitimate studies, but studies
Speaker 1: that don't mention the other study that can point out
Speaker 1: the exact opposite. Nice point, Chuck, card stacking like Facebook, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's exactly. And then it is my favorite fear. That's
Speaker 1: a big one. So, Chuck, say we were to point
Speaker 1: out that the guys who host tech stuff uh steal
Speaker 1: babies in America and then sell them to human traffickers
Speaker 1: in the Balkans. You're saying that Jonathan Strickland and Chris
Speaker 1: Puette would do that. I'm just saying I've heard things,
Speaker 1: So I mean, don't you think would be a good
Speaker 1: idea to not listen to their podcast and all the
Speaker 1: people who are tech stuff fans maybe come over and
Speaker 1: listen to us instead, because we certainly don't steal babies
Speaker 1: and we would never sell any to human traffickers if
Speaker 1: we did. That's spaganda. Great example, Josh, thanks, of course,
Speaker 1: we have to do them on the tech Stuff podcast
Speaker 1: so they'd hear it. Yeah, good point. Uh, subliminal subliminal messaging.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry I should say it. Subliminally subliminal messaging. Huh.
Speaker 1: I feel like doing your bidding all of a sudden exactly,
Speaker 1: and that is, uh, that's one of the oldest tricks
Speaker 1: in the book. And that's basically images and whip. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's oldest drick in the book. Now it's you know
Speaker 1: how it is. It's images and words that are so
Speaker 1: quick and abstract that you don't consciously recognize it. Again,
Speaker 1: we keep going back to politics because it's just so
Speaker 1: obvious with politics. But at any campaign poster for anyone,
Speaker 1: from it somebody running for school board to somebody running
Speaker 1: for president, they always have red, white and blue in them.
Speaker 1: They'll often have a star or the the there there'll
Speaker 1: be a wavy graphic that's kind of reminiscent of a flag.
Speaker 1: And none of these things are concrete like that that
Speaker 1: you never see the candidate dress as a statue of liberty.
Speaker 1: They're actually wrapped in a flag. It's a little more
Speaker 1: subtle than that, but it has the same effect. Obama
Speaker 1: symbol was exactly like that. The one that they designed.
Speaker 1: It was kind of looked like the wavy flag in
Speaker 1: the circle. It makes the Owen snob, It doesn't it does.
Speaker 1: I'll show you more closely. But yeah, so, and actually
Speaker 1: a really good way to kind of pick out this
Speaker 1: kind of propaganda. What it's called transfer, right, um, is
Speaker 1: to pretend you're from another country. Right, so all of
Speaker 1: a sudden that wave, what's that wave for? Or what's
Speaker 1: that star for? Like stuff we just take for granted
Speaker 1: that immediately because in our neurons are like patriot, patriot,
Speaker 1: you know, Um, if you imagine you're from another country,
Speaker 1: suddenly you deconstruct these abstract images and it seems a
Speaker 1: little clunky, clumsy, doesn't have the same effect. What these
Speaker 1: way they star exactly in Soviet Russia, wavy star doesn't
Speaker 1: understand you. That's good, thank you that what do? What
Speaker 1: happened to that guy? And then lastly there's plain folks propaganda,
Speaker 1: which is kind of weak. Actually, yeah, that didn't. That
Speaker 1: didn't strike me as propaganda when I read it, like
Speaker 1: kind of the politician trying to seem like your average ordinary,
Speaker 1: you know, next door neighbor American. Um, I guess it's
Speaker 1: propaganda if the article says so, But it never struck
Speaker 1: me as that. Well, technically it is, because it's an
Speaker 1: omission of fact. So you know, if they sure the
Speaker 1: candidate loves fishing, but is he really fishing in some
Speaker 1: rinky dink rowboat that he rented from like a local fisherman.
Speaker 1: Or is he on like an eight foot yacht, you know,
Speaker 1: using babies that he bought off the tech stuff guys
Speaker 1: bait or or what did they set up some you
Speaker 1: know TV commercial where they did take him to that
Speaker 1: farm in the rinky dink rowboat and said, hey, excellent
Speaker 1: points with you for five most decidedly propaganda. Yeah, so yeah, plane, folks,
Speaker 1: is propaganda to and Chuck. The more you start looking
Speaker 1: or thinking about propaganda, the more you realize it is
Speaker 1: everywhere it is, Chuck, how well it's it's it's where
Speaker 1: you would expect it to be, which is in print,
Speaker 1: on the internet, TV, radio, movies, you name it. Like
Speaker 1: I was talking about with the with the eighties movies
Speaker 1: and the Cold War, I mean every every action movie
Speaker 1: that came out, the Russians were the enemy pretty much,
Speaker 1: and then kind of later on it became Middle Easterners
Speaker 1: were the enemy. Like look who Rambo fought and who
Speaker 1: Rocky thought. Those were prime examples the Russian. But he
Speaker 1: helped the mujah hadein a k a. The Taliban. He
Speaker 1: did what in uh one of the Rambo movies the
Speaker 1: third Rambo movie. He and at the very end it's
Speaker 1: they said that they dedicated the movie to the muja
Speaker 1: Hadean freedom fighters and the mujah Hadein who we were
Speaker 1: funding to help fight the Russians in Afghanistan turned into
Speaker 1: the Taliban won. What Chuck Norris is not happy about
Speaker 1: that at all. He's been after still long since in
Speaker 1: right and show a thing or two? Yeah, so apparently, Um,
Speaker 1: according to one of the uh the the professor's interviewed
Speaker 1: in this article, UM, broadcast media like radio or TV
Speaker 1: is the most dangerous propaganda medium because people tend to
Speaker 1: believe it. Well, not just that there's no discourse, it's
Speaker 1: all one sided. It's all here you ingest this. And
Speaker 1: also it's it's much it's very entertaining. You know, your
Speaker 1: average TV shows usually more entertain aiming then your average
Speaker 1: AP news article. Yeah that's true, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: But ironically it's the AP news articles that are generally
Speaker 1: the least propagandic. Yeah, you're right, because you think about
Speaker 1: it's like fact fact fact, fact fact quote fact quack. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's that's actually a quote in a fact quack. Um,
Speaker 1: and then um, that's it, right, there's not. It's pretty
Speaker 1: bare bones. I like those political commercials. Those are great.
Speaker 1: Which one, you know, the big time propaganda where they're
Speaker 1: where they're you know, this candidate, your family, stuff like that.
Speaker 1: Do you remember the phone ringing one? I think it
Speaker 1: was a Clinton add against Obama. It was one of
Speaker 1: the last ones she ran during the primary, and it
Speaker 1: was just a phone ringing. Is that when the phone,
Speaker 1: when the phone rings in the middle of the night,
Speaker 1: who do you want as president to answer it? Something
Speaker 1: like that? Right, Yeah, that's that's definitely fear propagandia. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Those crack me up, though, I mean the people that
Speaker 1: buy into those, that's what scares me. The commerce themselves.
Speaker 1: I get a kick out of it. I think it's hysterical.
Speaker 1: Yeah that anyone wouldn't say this is so one sided.
Speaker 1: It's what's mind bogglingly frightening is that it actually works
Speaker 1: on some people, so um chuck. Propagana also sometimes is
Speaker 1: not necessarily contrived. It just kind of comes out. Like
Speaker 1: I spent a few years as a journalist, right and
Speaker 1: I realized that it is really easy for your beliefs
Speaker 1: to creep into a story. It doesn't matter whether it's
Speaker 1: a story about somebody who just turned a hundred or um,
Speaker 1: you know about the war in a rock is as
Speaker 1: unbiased as you try to be, it's impossible to be
Speaker 1: totally objective. Right in this very podcast. We get taken
Speaker 1: to task occasionally by people that think we're communist, communists,
Speaker 1: anti religious, sexist, Bommy worshippers, that kind of thing. But
Speaker 1: we're not any of those things. No, not really, And
Speaker 1: if we are, we're sure not aware of it anyway.
Speaker 1: But you know, your belief system informs your outlook, right,
Speaker 1: so you know, just the very position you're taking, just
Speaker 1: the very approach to an article, there's eighty hundred countless
Speaker 1: different ways to approach an article. The one you choose,
Speaker 1: even if you're trying to be objective, that's a choice
Speaker 1: that's a bias right out of the gate. And you're
Speaker 1: gonna choose the one that you identify with that you
Speaker 1: understand more. Yeah, so again, I mean, I guess what
Speaker 1: I'm trying to say is, if you're getting news, only
Speaker 1: get it from a p not a bad idea. Thank you, Chuck.
Speaker 1: You want to move along, uh different types of propaganda, Well,
Speaker 1: let let's talk about the internet real quick, because I
Speaker 1: find this interesting. The Internet actually has the potential to
Speaker 1: totally undermine traditional propaganda, right, So well, think about it, like,
Speaker 1: if broadcast programming is the most dangerous form propaganda because
Speaker 1: there's no feedback, then the Internet would be the least
Speaker 1: dangerous form because there's nothing but feedback. Social media has
Speaker 1: just opened the Internet up to everybody in any crack
Speaker 1: pot normal person saint can put this stuff on the
Speaker 1: Internet and and get opposing viewpoints out there, so you
Speaker 1: can conceivably just be a fully informed person to make
Speaker 1: your own decisions, which completely undermines um propaganda, right right.
Speaker 1: The problem is, you know, facts spreading lightning fast just
Speaker 1: as much as that undermines propaganda. Um, uninformed ideas or
Speaker 1: facts that aren't really facts can spread just as quickly,
Speaker 1: and that helps propaganda. So yeah, and the Internet is
Speaker 1: just rife with that kind of time. What my solution,
Speaker 1: Snopes dot com. Yeah, they're pretty good. So let's talk
Speaker 1: about the different types of propaganda and wrap this puppy
Speaker 1: up like a Christmas president. Religious propaganda was kind of
Speaker 1: where it all began, like we said earlier, and uh,
Speaker 1: missionaries yeah, for centuries have been uh even and they've
Speaker 1: been traveling to other countries trying to recruit others to
Speaker 1: their to their faith. And this is a form of
Speaker 1: propaganda pamphlets and the posters that they hand out, and
Speaker 1: and we're not saying that they're bad people and that
Speaker 1: they're spreading lies. What we're saying is that's a form
Speaker 1: of propaganda when you only evangelize the one side of
Speaker 1: the coin, and they do when you go to these
Speaker 1: countries tell people that this is the answer right here. Well,
Speaker 1: you can also make the case that another kind of
Speaker 1: propaganda the article points out, but doesn't join to religion,
Speaker 1: thought reform. There's actually a form of religious propaganda as well.
Speaker 1: You know, if you're running around worshiping like a d
Speaker 1: deities and the Christians come along and say, no, no,
Speaker 1: there's just one, we're monotheistic. Now, that's thought reform, right right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: although you know generally they don't give up kool aid
Speaker 1: that's laced with sinide. Now that that's a very cult
Speaker 1: But you know, all those those types of political religious,
Speaker 1: well especially political and religious propaganda, they kind of um
Speaker 1: underscore our divisive nature, right like us versus them. And
Speaker 1: actually took an anthropology us once in college and the
Speaker 1: professor challenged us to go a day, just one day,
Speaker 1: without using the words us or them or any variation
Speaker 1: on that theme. And I defy you to do it successfully.
Speaker 1: You can't start now the day's half over. You have
Speaker 1: to start tomorrow. Just those two words. You can say,
Speaker 1: we know no variation on the theme of us in
Speaker 1: us or them. Try it. It's tough. I'm gonna forget
Speaker 1: about that as soon as I leave this, yes studio check.
Speaker 1: The big one, though, of all of them, is government propaganda,
Speaker 1: right right, which is illegal since nightficially, and if you
Speaker 1: think about it, that government propaganda is taxpayers paying to
Speaker 1: be brainwashed, which is why it should be illegal, right yeah,
Speaker 1: And it has been since technically, but w Mr Bush
Speaker 1: in two thousand five actually signed the Stop Government Propaganda
Speaker 1: Now Bill to UH to keep some like blatant outright
Speaker 1: acts of propaganda commit by government agencies, like when you
Speaker 1: pay television reporters to skew a message like planting stories,
Speaker 1: planting stories exactly. Yeah. And it also established some that
Speaker 1: audio in printed press communication state who the agency is
Speaker 1: that funded it, like paid for by blah blah blah
Speaker 1: blah blah, that kind of thing, And we we see
Speaker 1: government propaganda, most prominently during times of war, right like
Speaker 1: Hitler and the Nazis were masters of propaganda. He was
Speaker 1: the king of propaganda in world history, I think. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he cut Germany off from the outside world. He sold
Speaker 1: radios for next to nothing. I think he was driving
Speaker 1: around in the back of a truck selling him. He
Speaker 1: made sure the prices were loft so every German could
Speaker 1: afford one, so they could tune into his radio addresses
Speaker 1: and and hear how great they were and how awful
Speaker 1: the Jews and everybody else was. Uh, and and the
Speaker 1: portrayal of what was going on, like Germans living in
Speaker 1: the in other parts of the world were being abused
Speaker 1: at the hands of their host countries and things like that. Um,
Speaker 1: And it was effective. Yeah. And they also made movies,
Speaker 1: the famous Nazi propaganda movies where they, you know, made
Speaker 1: out Jews to be rats and Hitler to be godlike
Speaker 1: and it was And they didn't like the Gypsies much either,
Speaker 1: or Gays or Catholics. Yeah. Yeah, you forget sometimes you
Speaker 1: know that it wasn't just the Jews that were persecuted
Speaker 1: in the Holocaust. There's a lot of other groups. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And here in the US here state side we had
Speaker 1: our own propaganda as well. And also we should say
Speaker 1: um on our very enjoyable sister podcast stuf you missed
Speaker 1: in history class, They actually did an entire podcast on
Speaker 1: the Nazi propaganda machinery. Yeah, yeah they should. People should
Speaker 1: check that out. You can get that on iTunes too.
Speaker 1: But again, state side, we had our own propaganda, and
Speaker 1: that's something that have become pop icons, right. Yes, and
Speaker 1: World War two was when it really kicked up. Like
Speaker 1: if you think of the famous Uncle Sam I want
Speaker 1: you posters with Uncle Sam pointing trying to get young
Speaker 1: American men to enlist in the army. Yeah, that was
Speaker 1: new in the forties. Yeah, and that was a big,
Speaker 1: big time propaganda posters were very effective back then. My
Speaker 1: favorite I had two favorites. One of them is what
Speaker 1: what which? One Rosie? Probably Rosie is pretty cool, um.
Speaker 1: But there was one that had somebody riding in a
Speaker 1: car by by by by himself and it said, um
Speaker 1: when you it was for car pooling, right, ration gas
Speaker 1: and stuff. When you ride alone, you ride with Hitler.
Speaker 1: How great would it be to have one of those posters? Now,
Speaker 1: I'm sure you can find at least a replica Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true. I mean that. That's the other thing about
Speaker 1: him is they're like great art. Oh yeah, propaganda posters
Speaker 1: have the best art. Yeah, I like that that that era.
Speaker 1: The The other one I like is just I just
Speaker 1: can't believe it, like that. These were up in in
Speaker 1: on public display. Um during World War Two. There's a
Speaker 1: Japanese soldier using the butt of his rifle to smack
Speaker 1: an American pow in the chin, and it says, what
Speaker 1: are you going to do about it? And below is
Speaker 1: the answer. And the answer, according to this propaganda poster
Speaker 1: is stay on the job until every murdering Jap is
Speaker 1: wiped out. You're kidding. It even has a little Government
Speaker 1: Office of Propaganda logo at the bottom. Look, I kid
Speaker 1: you not. That's something else. Yeah, it's a little nuts.
Speaker 1: So yeah, well you go a little overboard during times
Speaker 1: of war. I liked Rosie the Riveter. That's who I
Speaker 1: thought you were going to mention. Have you seen my
Speaker 1: favorite mechanic as a woman over indicatory riff on that? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Successfully too. Um Yeah, Rosie the Riveter was famous obviously
Speaker 1: because women at the time during World War Two were
Speaker 1: encouraged to help the war at home. On the home
Speaker 1: front by working in the taking these factory jobs that
Speaker 1: the men had to leave. And as she became like
Speaker 1: an iconic character, and one of the posters read longing
Speaker 1: won't bring him back sooner, get a war job. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love that. Yeah, it is. It's pretty cool that
Speaker 1: I saw another one who was a woman holding a
Speaker 1: giant key and it's a food ration ng is the
Speaker 1: key to the war effort. And and actually that was
Speaker 1: one of the things that I don't think you could
Speaker 1: predict that came out of propaganda was um, women suddenly
Speaker 1: were uh put into their proper position of power. They
Speaker 1: were elevated to that that kind of power. They were
Speaker 1: no longer the mirror little houndsewives. They were empowered to
Speaker 1: like actually help with the war effort, get a war job,
Speaker 1: or to um food ration food or do whatever. They
Speaker 1: suddenly had a role. And not just women but blacks
Speaker 1: as well. There was a propaganda poster that said like
Speaker 1: united we win and it was a black guy and
Speaker 1: a white guy working side by side, decades before the
Speaker 1: Civil rights movement. Yeah, so sometimes it's um it's foreshadowing
Speaker 1: of social change and possibly even a mechanism of social
Speaker 1: change that follows. Whatever the the the issue is it's
Speaker 1: being propagandized. I think definitely in the case of women,
Speaker 1: I think World two probably had a lot of good
Speaker 1: benefits for women, kind of having a voice for the
Speaker 1: first time, or not the first time, but probably a
Speaker 1: really big, curly on voice for the first time. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: um and Chuck, that's propaganda, baby. Yeah. You know. I
Speaker 1: had a movie idea, script idea when I was during
Speaker 1: my screenwriting days about a film student that gets um,
Speaker 1: like he wins the big student film award and then
Speaker 1: all of a sudden he gets whisked away by the
Speaker 1: government to the secret Layer and they recruit young filmmakers
Speaker 1: to the Ministry of Propaganda and like the moon landing
Speaker 1: was fake and all these things have been faked or what.
Speaker 1: We talked about that in another podcast. But this, yeah,
Speaker 1: this kid gets caught up into making these movies that
Speaker 1: are all faults and have the dog. Yeah. It's a
Speaker 1: great one too. Yeah, sort of a riff on that
Speaker 1: And I never wrote it, and I don't I'm not
Speaker 1: going to. So if anyone out there's a screenwriter a
Speaker 1: longs that idea, feel free, Yeah, just give a shout
Speaker 1: out to Chuck at the premiere, right right, Yeah, so
Speaker 1: again that's propaganda, that is right. So are we plugging
Speaker 1: anything to We haven't add nothing, Holy cow. That means
Speaker 1: we get to go right to listener mail Josh today.
Speaker 1: I think we uh, since it would be appropriate to
Speaker 1: talk about Molly Orshansky. Yeah, are less subject matter there.
Speaker 1: We were talking about the women in World War Two.
Speaker 1: We were uh, and also we mentioned that we have
Speaker 1: been called sexists and mommy worshipers. You want to read
Speaker 1: the letter in question. Yes, we actually got a couple
Speaker 1: of letters, um, one which we're going to read now,
Speaker 1: and one that was kind of nasty and mean, and
Speaker 1: we're not going to read that or we're not gonna
Speaker 1: say that uh, nasty, mean person's name. But this one
Speaker 1: was much more above board. Uh. This says you probably
Speaker 1: have received a bunch of emails about this, but I
Speaker 1: wanted to let you know that Molly or Shansky is
Speaker 1: a woman. If you recall, she is a woman who
Speaker 1: developed the poverty line. But in your podcast how much
Speaker 1: money do I Really Need to live? You referenced ms.
Speaker 1: Orshansky as a heat as a female graduate student of
Speaker 1: public policy with a specialization in poverty. I was so
Speaker 1: excited to hear you mentioned a woman who was so
Speaker 1: influential to the field. But then I was stremely disappointed
Speaker 1: when you got the gender wrong. Obviously she had a
Speaker 1: right to be and I hope you make this correction
Speaker 1: on your podcast. And that comes from Cheryl Master in
Speaker 1: public policy candidate at the John F. Kennedy School of
Speaker 1: Government at Harvard University. And I wrote Cheryl back and
Speaker 1: thanked her for being kind since we had gotten the
Speaker 1: nasty letter calling its misogynistic freaks and it was a
Speaker 1: big mistake. We were wrong, and the research that we
Speaker 1: got actually referenced uh, Molly rus Chancey as a key
Speaker 1: and so it wasn't some big assumption on our part
Speaker 1: that it had to be a man. Great wait, Chuck, Chuck,
Speaker 1: I've been thinking about this. I think at this point
Speaker 1: we should make up a research team and lay this
Speaker 1: hot in their feet. I don't think we should take
Speaker 1: any responsibility to what spear you right? Right, So, Chuck Um,
Speaker 1: it was our research team that really uh dropped the
Speaker 1: ball on this one. It wasn't you or I We
Speaker 1: were misinformed. We did We did not assume like a
Speaker 1: couple of readers or listeners have thought that we didn't
Speaker 1: assume that it is a man just because it was
Speaker 1: some big college. It wasn't us at all that we
Speaker 1: don't do that cut. But to make up for the
Speaker 1: failings of our crack research team, who have been chastised,
Speaker 1: um since we got this pointed out to us, well fired,
Speaker 1: We fired them both. It's a different way of putting it.
Speaker 1: In this economy, you want to stay chastised. We didn't
Speaker 1: fire anyone. I'm just kidding. UM. So we did a
Speaker 1: little research into Maali or Shansky. We found out that
Speaker 1: she is dead. She died in April two thousand seven.
Speaker 1: And she actually was quite a pioneer UM in her field.
Speaker 1: She worked for the Social Security Administration from nineteen fifty
Speaker 1: eight to nineteen eighty two, and uh, as historian Alice
Speaker 1: O'Connor wrote in Poverty Knowledge, she was one of a
Speaker 1: respected but mostly invisible cardro of women research professor professionals
Speaker 1: based at Social Security Administration and other government agencies during
Speaker 1: the postwar years. And I think that's part of the
Speaker 1: part of the problem. I think, um, we as you
Speaker 1: know thirty early thirty somethings, well, one of us is
Speaker 1: in early thirty somethings in two thousand nine kind of
Speaker 1: Um underestimated what women were allowed to do, I think
Speaker 1: in the sixties. Right, that's fair enough. Sure so, because
Speaker 1: you don't hear much about it. No, they were, no,
Speaker 1: I know, and that is that is the travesty. And
Speaker 1: I even thought, like when we were doing that podcast,
Speaker 1: like Molly is a weird name for a guy. But
Speaker 1: I did too. Still, I thought it was an Irish thing,
Speaker 1: and I thought Mally Orshansky. I could see a guy
Speaker 1: being named Molly or Chansky, right, So it was. It
Speaker 1: was a mistake, I would say, much more notable or
Speaker 1: noteworthy than being invisible, you know. But successful was that
Speaker 1: she actually um has helped countless uh, impoverished people in
Speaker 1: the United States absolutely by creating this poverty line, which
Speaker 1: basically forces the government's hand into saying, Okay, if you're
Speaker 1: below this, we're gonna help you, right uh. And this
Speaker 1: is largely due to her work as a mathematician and statisticians.
Speaker 1: True trailblazer. He was a great man. He was hats
Speaker 1: off to you, Mr George Shansky. So if you want
Speaker 1: to say, and checking emails, taking us to task, or
Speaker 1: pointing out an error or just say hi. Whatever, gender confusion.
Speaker 1: If you want to call us sexist mommy worshipers, whatever,
Speaker 1: We accept all comers. You can send that to stuff
Speaker 1: podcast at how stuff works dot com. For more on
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com and be sure to check out this stuff
Speaker 1: you Should Know blog on the house stuff works dot
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