Stuff You Should Know - How Propaganda Works

Episode Date: May 26, 2009

Propaganda, a persuasion tactic typically associated with deception, has been around for centuries. Explore the history of propaganda -- and learn how to spot it -- in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready, are you? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. Chuck Bryant's with me, as usual. As a matter of fact, I don't know what I do if Chuck Bryant wasn't with me. I'd probably curl up in the fetal position in the corner and cry myself to sleep. I think you'd be just fine. I don't know, Chuck. I don't ever want to find out, Chuck. Well, thanks. Don't ever leave me. I almost didn't make it today. Why? What's going on with you? I was out last night. I went out and saw Matt's band, as you know. Matt Frederick, our handsome young stand-in producer. Yeah, Matt Frederick of Stuff of Genius fame, an awesome new video podcast. Nice plug, Chuck. Going. It's really good. You guys should check

that out. Stuff of Genius. It's a video podcast, no less. It's video, and it's cool, and it has little like Monty Python-esque animation. I like it. Yeah, and we don't want to hear any of this. I don't have time to watch that crap because it's like a minute 42 tops. Yeah, it's quick. Yeah. But I went and saw his band last night, Lions and Scissors. Yeah, good stuff. And I wanted to say that they have a MySpace page, and it's good music if you're into... It's very shoegaze. Shoegaze? Like Mogwai. Yeah, Mogwai is good. It's sort of a radio-heady component at times. Nice. Explosions in the sky. You ever heard of them? I have. Big wall of sound. Loud. My ears are ringing, and I'm slightly tired and imbibed a bit too much, but that was my night. That's Chuck's

Thursday, everybody. So keep rocking, Matt. We love it. Yeah. Way to go, Matt. So can we get back to our podcast now, maybe? Yeah, but I just wanted to give Matt a shout out. I know, I'm just giving you a hard time. I think you're a good guy for doing that. Talented drummer. Great drummer. Okay. So Chuck, you grew up in the Cold War, right? That's a pretty funny jerk. You did? You're a Cold War baby like me. I'm a Cold War kid. Isn't it weird to think we actually work with people who weren't cognizant that the Soviets had nukes pointed at us at all times and vice versa? Yeah, that is weird to me. Yeah, but I remember being particularly unnerved from time to time that, like, dude, eventually they're going to come over and or missiles going

to be sent over, and that's that. I can't help but think that we were definitely shaped. Our personalities were shaped by that underlying constant level of paranoia that we grew up with. Well, in the movies, a lot of great Cold War movies of that era, the Ruskies out to get us. Yeah. Well, do you remember the movie Ruskies? Was there one called Ruskies? It was actually a counter propaganda movie where a bunch of kids that were probably my age, you would have been like, you know, 20 by then, were, I think they found a Russian sailor who washed ashore and they had to hide them because of course, you know, the government would shoot him in the head if they found him and they came to learn that the Soviets have hearts too. They they know how to love.

Was it a real movie? Like, yeah. Okay. It wasn't very good, but right. It was somebody actually put out the effort to say, you know, hey, we're all just people here. Sure. You know, and what they were doing actually was counter propaganda, right? What a segue. All the that was right off the cuff. Two pounds. Good. All of the all the stuff we were told, I would say, at least the vast majority of it was lopsided at best. Like, do you remember, what did you think of the Russians when you were growing up that they were like, they cut your throat just as soon as look at you? Yeah. And they were always standing in these horrible bread lines, right? Every single one of them wanted to escape, but the Russian government wouldn't let them. They wanted a toilet paper

that's you always heard stories about. They don't have blue jeans and they don't have toilet paper. Yeah. Yeah. Like you could get, you know, five wives with a single pair of jeans if you went over there kind of thing. Yeah. Well, I remember when the iron curtain fell and like actual news started coming out of the former USSR states that I remember thinking, oh, yeah, what a surprise. All of that was lies. Right. And they're actually kind of nice folks by and large. I'm not saying that they were trying to do bad things when we were trying to do bad things. Well, no, I think that that was the Russian people were good people that came. That's what I figured out when the propaganda ended the Cold War propaganda ended so abruptly is that we're all people like the average

Russian is like the average American at heart with the same dreams, goals, aspirations, same things that are Kim or her, you know, it's the same thing. And we didn't want our stockpiles of weapons pointed in their direction either. You know, the year average American probably didn't know. Certainly not. I didn't either. Let's just get along. All right. So Chuck, what we're talking about clearly is propaganda, right? Which in just that word, a very smart person once said that propaganda is not a dirty word and it didn't end with the Cold War. And that's actually true. But propaganda still has horrible connotations, just the word itself, right? I mean, it elicits images of like brainwashed mass and lies that it's definitely the case in most

cases when it comes to propaganda. But there's a classical, more classical definition of propaganda. And essentially, it's that it's simply a tool for persuasive arguments that use facts and beliefs, but omit facts and beliefs that that would persuade people to the other side of the argument, right? It's accentuating the positive in a way. And you never talk about the negative side of the things, right? It's sort of like Facebook. It is. It's very much like Facebook. I figured out that through reading this article, how propaganda works, that technically the truth campaign, you know, to get people to quit smoking. Yeah, those are great commercials. That's propaganda because they omit the fact that cigarettes make you alive with pleasure

in flavored country, right? So Newport, it's that's a little bit of both. Okay, I'm not sure we should say the brands because I'm pretty sure Big Tobacco would sue our pants. Yeah, you're right. You've come a long way, baby. Nice shock. So yes, but the the main hallmark of propaganda is that it includes omissions of facts, right? Right. And actually, the where did the whole word come from? You got any, you got any info on that dude? Yeah, it started with religion way back and it started, you know, hundreds of years before it was officially coined. But in 1622, Pope Gregory, what is that 25 15, 15, to work in my room in New York, Pope Gregory 15 established the congregation of propaganda in 1622. And that was basically trying to win back Catholics who had taken up

the Protestant faith. Yeah, Martin Luther made a real dent in the number of seats in the pews every Sunday. Sure. So Pope Gregory formed the, what was it, the congregation of propaganda. Yeah. And they, oh, you did say that. Holy cow. That's okay. Man, I got to pay more attention. Basically, this congregation of propaganda, you know, won Catholics back by pointing out that anyone who doesn't take communion every week is a loser. Right. And it worked. It did. Sure. I'm sure numbers increased. So since then, you know, from that point until, I don't know, the 1940s, there was absolutely no propaganda whatsoever. That's probably not true. No, you don't think so. Okay. I need to read a little more clearly World War One. Are we talking, are we going to go

over the history now? I don't think we should get to that part yet. I think we should talk more about propaganda's implications. Right. In the article, you read that there was an interview with a guy named M. Lane Bruner. Right. Yeah. He's a professor of what rhetoric at Georgia State. Yeah. I didn't know that was such a thing. I didn't either. Oh, but it's interesting. Good for him. But Bruner said that the distinction for him between good and bad propaganda was whether or not the people perpetrating the propaganda have the best interests of their audience at heart. Right. Yeah. But that's subjective. I agree wholeheartedly. I take issue with that because I think that it's up to the individual to decide what his or her best interests are, right? Exactly. And to make that

decision, you have to be fully informed. Right. Well, propaganda is based on an omission of facts. You're never fully informed when you're being propagandized, right? Right. So therefore, there's no such thing as good propaganda. Sure. You never see both sides of the argument with propaganda. Right. Right. So that's, I don't think there is such a good thing as propaganda. I take issue. And he's a Georgia State. He's not too far. Maybe we should hop on the subway and go pound him. Yeah. Take issue with him. Yeah. Take issue with this professor. I got some propaganda for you. Yeah. So Chuck, how do you, how do you get propaganda across? Well, there's a lot of techniques actually. And these are pretty cool. And I know that when people hear these, they're

going to be very familiar, maybe not with the name, but with the result. Right. Yeah. Name calling is a big one. Yeah. I found a poster I showed you. It's a take off on that Shepard Ferry. Right. Obama political poster, but this one, it's a slightly different picture. He has his nose in the air and it says snob underneath. It's actually pretty funny. Yeah. Especially since he won. It's a lot funnier because he won. Right. Yeah. Yeah. True. I guess that was done before he won. Sure. Yeah. And you know, name calling is, that's just typical playground stuff, but they do it on large, you know, on a large scale. Sure. Grown men and women in the political spectrum call people out. They'll, uh, they'll use names to, uh, they'll use names like terrorist

and traitor and like evil doers stuff that nobody wants to be right. Not to pick too much on, uh, George Bush, but when you throw down words like axis of evil and evil doers, that's propaganda. Definitely. Yours form. Yeah, it is. It is. And it makes you wonder like what exactly is going on in Iran right now? How much propaganda we're experiencing from that? Sure. Yeah. So that's one technique. Sure. Uh, you want to talk about the bandwagon? Well, bandwagon is pretty simple. It's like get on the winning side dummy, you know, right? Which is actually that example, mixed name calling and bandwagon. Right. Nobody wants to feel left out. And again, this is pretty much a playground technique. Right. Which is sad. If you don't come with us,

then you're in the other group. Right. Or you're going to be left behind. All your friends and neighbors are going to be cooler than you, smarter than you, richer than you, whatever. Right. Um, and, you know, everybody wants to, uh, be a part of something good, you know? So yeah, basically with, with the bandwagon technique, you're made to feel like you can be a part of something good if you join in or be left behind. If you don't, you got it. Thanks. Uh, I like this one a lot, the glittering generalities. Yeah, it's a great name. Yeah. This is really common in political propaganda. And that's when you combine words that have positive connotations with a concept that is, uh, beloved. So basically no one's going to come out and denounce

something that you call, and I have another example. And again, not to pick on, pick on Bush, but he was in office for eight years. So there's, there's a lot of things in office for eight years. You know, there's a lot of recent things you can point to, like the Patriot Act. Like anyone who would come out and say, Oh, the Patriot Act is bad, then what? You're not a Patriot? Right. Yeah. But in the worst part is, is it worked? Yeah. Although do you remember one of the original provisions was basically to turn postal workers into spies and the post office said, no, we're not going to do that. Right. And it got left out, but they wanted postal workers to keep an eye on what was going on to report on communities and individual people. Right. Yeah.

So, uh, other words you can use in the glittering gen, generalities are, uh, words like liberty and dreams and family. And you, you throw these words in there and, you know, you know, God forbid you step up and say something that's anti-family. Sure. Just because they tag that name to it. Yeah. What kind of terrorists are you? Right. Exactly. Yeah. And all politicians do this. We're not, we're not going to single things out. It happens all over the place on both sides of the spectrum. Yeah. It's just that Bush was in office for eight years. Sure. Which I just said. I know. You should listen. Uh, card stacking. Card stacking is exactly what it sounds. It's been said that a day of traveling will bring a basket full of learning. Fill your

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written by Lauren Shippen and created by me, Aaron Mankey. Something about all of this doesn't feel right. Hello. Is someone there? Something went wrong here. Olivia, we should hurry. We have a much bigger problem. What is that? Olivia, run. Listen to Bridgewater now on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And learn more over at GrimandMild.com slash Bridgewater. It's like it's stacking the argument in the favor of one side over another. Right. And again, this is the one where fact emission really comes into play. Right. And it's most often seen in political campaigns where one candidate is like broad water. Have you ever seen Ali G? Yeah. Did you ever see the barat where he falls around that

candidate, Jim Broadwater? No. It's hilarious. At one point, he tells a voter that Broadwater's talking to that, if you do not vote for Broadwater, Broadwater will take power. It's hilarious. And he compares him to Stalin. Really? Yeah. And this is this poor, you know, Republican guys running for city council mid trying to keep up. Yeah. I bet he lost it. I don't know. I'd like to find that out. But yeah, card stacking is basically just saying, here's our candidate's great, great attributes. Right. Leaving out any bad stuff. Well, details and statistics too. Like, they'll throw out legitimate studies, but studies that don't mention the other study that can point out the exact opposite. Nice point, Chuck. Card stacking. It's like Facebook. Yeah. It's exactly

like Facebook. And then here's my favorite. Yeah. Fear. That's a big one. So Chuck, say we were to point out that the guys who host tech stuff steal babies in America and then sell them to human traffickers in the Balkans. You're saying that Jonathan Strickland and Chris Paulette would do that? I'm just saying I've heard things. Okay. So I mean, don't you think it'd be a good idea to not listen to their podcast and all the people who are tech stuff fans maybe come over and listen to us instead? Right. Because we certainly don't steal babies and we would never sell any to human traffickers if we did. Right. That's a great example, Josh. Thanks. Of course, we'd have to do that on the tech stuff podcast so they'd hear it. Yeah. Good point. Subliminal messaging. I'm sorry. I

should say it subliminally. Subliminal messaging. I feel like doing your bidding all of a sudden. Exactly. And that's one of the oldest tricks in the book and that's basically images and words. Whispering. Yeah. It's the oldest trick in the book. No, it's you know how it is. It's images and words that are so quick and abstract that you don't consciously recognize it. Yeah. Again, we keep going back to politics because it's just so obvious with politics, but at any campaign poster for anyone from somebody running for school board to somebody running for president, they always have red, white and blue in them. They'll often have a star or there'll be a wavy graphic that's kind of reminiscent of a flag and none of these things are concrete. You never

see the candidate dressed as a statue of liberty or actually wrapped in a flag. He may as well. It's a little more subtle than that, but it has the same effect. Yeah. Obama's symbol was exactly like that. Sure. The one that they designed that was kind of looked like the wavy flag in the circle. It makes the O in snob. Right. Yeah. Oh, it does. And it does. Yeah. I'll show you more closely. Okay. But yeah. So in actually a really good way to kind of pick out this kind of propaganda, which is called transfer, right? Right. Is to pretend you're from another country. Right. So all of a sudden that wave, what's that wave for? Or what's that star for? Right. Like stuff we just take for granted that immediately goes and our neurons are like

patriot, patriot, you know. Right. If you imagine you're from another country, suddenly you deconstruct these abstract images and it seems a little clunky, clumsy. It doesn't have the same effect. Right. What is wavy star? Exactly. In Soviet Russia, wavy star doesn't understand you. That's good. Thank you. That was Yaakov Smirnov. Yaakov Smirnov. Yeah. What happened to that guy? And then lastly, there's plain folks propaganda, which is kind of weak, actually. Yeah. That didn't, that didn't strike me as propaganda when I read it. Like kind of a, the politician trying to seem like your average ordinary, you know, next door neighbor American. I guess it's propaganda if the article says so, but it never struck me as that. Well, technically,

it is because it's an omission of fact. So that's true. You know, if they, sure the candidate loves fishing, but is he really fishing in some rinky dink robot that he rented from like a local fisherman? Right. Or is he on like an 80 foot yacht? Right. You know, using babies that he bought off the tech stuff guys's bait. Right. Yeah. Or did they set up some, you know, TV commercial where they did take him to that farm in the rinky dink robot and said, Hey, you know, excellent point. Ken, our candidate fished with you for five minutes. Most decidedly propaganda. Yeah. So yeah, plain folks is propaganda too. And Chuck, the more you start looking or thinking about propaganda, the more you realize it is everywhere. It is. How? Well, it's, it's, it's where you would expect

it to be, which is in print on the internet, TV, radio, movies, you name it. Like I was talking about with the, with the 80s movies in the Cold War. I mean, every, every action movie that came out, the Russians were the enemy pretty much. And then kind of later on it became Middle Easterners where the enemy, like, look who Rambo fought and who Rocky fought. Those were prime examples. Oh, yeah. He fought the Russian buddy. Help the Mujahideen. True. AKA the Taliban. He did. What in one of the Rambo movies? The third Rambo movie. He, and at the very end, it's, they said that they dedicated the movie to the Mujahideen freedom fighters and the Mujahideen who we were funding to help fight the Russians in Afghanistan turned into the Taliban. Wow. I wonder what Chuck Norris

has to say about that. Chuck Norris is not happy about that at all. He's been after Stallone since in, right? And show him a thing or two. Yeah. So apparently, according to one of the, the, the professor's interviewed in this article, broadcast media, like radio or TV is the most dangerous propaganda medium. Right. Because people tend to believe it. Well, not just that, there's no discourse. It's all one sided. Right. It's all here. You ingest this. Right. And also, it's, it's much, it's very entertaining. Sure. You know, your average TV shows, usually more entertaining than your average AP news article. Yeah, that's true. You know what I mean? But ironically, it's the AP news articles that are generally the least propaganda.

Yeah, you're right. Because think about it. It's like fact, fact, fact, fact, fact, quote, fact, quack. Yes. Quack. That's, that's actually a quote in a fact. Right. Quack. And then that's it. Right. There's not, it's pretty bare bones. I like, I like political commercials. Those are great. Which ones? You know, the big time propaganda. Oh, yeah. Where they're, where they're, you know, this candidate, the phone, your family, right? Stuff like that. Do you remember the phone ringing one? Uh-huh. I think it was a Clinton ad against Obama. It was one of the last ones she ran during the primary. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was, it's a phone ringing is that it, when the phone, when the phone rings in the middle of the night, who do you want as president to answer it? Something

like that, right? Yeah. That's, that's definitely fear propaganda. Yeah. Those crack me up though. I mean, the people that buy into those, that's what scares me. Sure. The commercials themselves, I get a kick out of it. I think it's hysterical. Yeah. That anyone wouldn't say this is so unsighted. It's a joke. Well, what's mind-bogglingly frightening is that it actually works on some people. I know. So, Chuck, propaganda also sometimes is not necessarily contrived. It just kind of comes out. Like I spent a few years as a journalist, right? And I realized that it is really easy for your beliefs to creep into a story. Right. It doesn't matter whether it's a story about somebody who just turned 100 or, um, you know, about the war in Iraq is as unbiased as you try to be. Right.

It's impossible to be totally objective. You're right. In this very podcast, we get taken to the task occasionally by people that think we're, uh, communists. Sure. Communists, anti-religious, sexist, army worshipers, that kind of thing. Yes. But we're not any of those things. No, not really. And if we are, we're sure not aware of it. It's been said that a day of traveling will bring a basket full of learning. Fill your basket to the brim in Mississippi with family friendly experiences like the new Mississippi Aquarium, the recently expanded Hattiesburg Zoo, the Tupelo Buffalo Park and Zoo and sports and literary attractions too. Expand your sense of wander today at visitmississipi.org slash family fun, Mississippi wanderers. Welcome.

Starring Supernatural's Misha Collins, The Walking Dead's Melissa Ponzi and Rogue One's Alan Tudyk, written by Lauren Shippen and created by me, Aaron Mankey. Something about all of this doesn't feel right. Hello? Is someone there? Something went wrong here. Olivia, we should hurry. We have a much bigger problem. What is that? Olivia, run! Listen to Bridgewater now on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And learn more over at GrimAndMild.com slash Bridgewater. Anyway, but you know, your belief system informs your outlook, right? Yeah. So, you know, just the very position you're taking, just the very approach to an article, there's 80, 100 countless different ways to approach an article. The one you choose,

even if you're trying to be objective, that's a choice. That's a bias right out of the gate. Right. And you're going to choose the one that you identify with, that you understand more. Yeah. So, again, I mean, I guess what I'm trying to say is if you're getting news, only get it from AP. Not a bad idea. Thank you, Chuck. You want to move along? Different types of propaganda? Well, let's talk about the internet real quick. Okay. Because I find this interesting. The internet actually has the potential to totally undermine traditional propaganda, right? How so? Well, think about it. Like, if broadcast programming is the most dangerous form of propaganda because there's no feedback,

then the internet would be the least dangerous form because there's nothing but feedback. Right. Social media has just opened the internet up to everybody. Any crackpot, normal person, saint can put this stuff on the internet and get opposing viewpoints out there. Sure. So, you can conceivably just be a fully informed person and make your own decisions, which completely undermines propaganda, right? Right. True. The problem is, you know, facts spreading, lightning fast, just as much as that undermines propaganda, uninformed ideas or facts that aren't really facts can spread just as quickly. Oh, big time. And that helps propaganda. So, yeah. And the internet is just rife with that

kind of thing. Well, my solution, snopes.com. Yeah, they're pretty good. So, let's talk about the different types of propaganda and wrap this puppy up like a Christmas president. Religious propaganda was kind of where it all began, like we said earlier, and missionaries. Yeah, for centuries have been trying. Yeah. Yeah. And they've been traveling to other countries trying to recruit others to their faith. And this is a form of propaganda. Yeah, pamphlets and the posters that they hand out. And we're not saying that they're bad people and that they're spreading lies. What we're saying is that's a form of propaganda when you only evangelize the one side of the coin. And they do when they go to these countries,

tell people that this is the answer right here. Well, you could also make the case that another kind of propaganda, the article points out, but doesn't join to religion. Thought reform is actually a form of religious propaganda as well. Oh, yeah. Because, you know, if you're running around worshiping like 80 deities and the Christians come along and say, no, no, there's just one. We're monotheistic now. That's thought reform, right? Right. Yeah. Although, you know, generally, they don't give out Kool-Aid that's laced with cyanide. No, that's a very cult. But, you know, all those those types, the political religious, well, especially political and religious propaganda, they kind of underscore our divisive nature,

right? Like us versus them. Yeah, true. And actually, I took an anthropology class once in college and the professor challenged us to go a day, just one day, without using the words us or them or any variation on that theme. And I defy you to do it successfully. I'm trying to think now. Try. You can't start now. The day's half over. You have to start tomorrow. Just those two words. You can say we. No, no variation on the theme of us and us or them. Okay. Try it. It's tough. I'm going to forget about that as soon as I leave this. Yes, studio. Chuck, the big one, though, of all of them is government propaganda, right? Right, which is illegal since 1951 officially. And if you think about it, that government propaganda is taxpayers

paying to be brainwashed. Yeah. Which is why it should be illegal, right? Yeah. And it has been since 1951 technically. Yeah. W. Mr. Bush in 2005 actually signed the stop government propaganda now bill to, uh, to keep some like blatant outright acts of propaganda committed by government agencies. Like when you pay television reporters to skew a message or planting stories, planting stories. Exactly. Yeah. And it also established some, uh, that audio and printed press communication and state who the agency is that funded it, like paid for by blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, that kind of thing. And we, we see government propaganda most prominently at during times of war, right? Like Hitler and the Nazis were masters of propaganda. He was the king of propaganda.

He was in world history, I think. Yeah. He, he, he cut Germany off from the outside world. Yep. He sold, uh, radios for next to nothing. I don't think he was driving around in the back of a truck cell and he made sure the prices were low. So every German could afford one. So they could tune into his radio addresses and hear how great they were and how awful the Jews and everybody else was. Uh, and, and the, the portrayal of, uh, what was going on, like Germans living in the, in other parts of the world were being abused at the hands of their host countries and things like that. Um, and it was effective. Yeah. And they also made movies, the famous Nazi propaganda movies where they, you know, made out Jews to be rats and Hitler to be godlike. And it was, uh,

yeah. And they didn't like the gypsies much either. Oh, really? Or gays or Catholics. Yeah. Yeah. You forget sometimes, you know, that it wasn't just the Jews that were probably persecuted in the Holocaust. There's a lot of other groups. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. And here in the US, here's state side, we had our own propaganda as well. Oh, and also we should say, um, on our very enjoyable sister podcast, stuff you missed in history class, they actually did an entire podcast on the, the Nazi propaganda machine. Yeah. Yeah. They should, people should check that out. Yeah, you can get that on iTunes too. But again, state side, we had our own propaganda and that some that have become pop icons, right? Yes. And World War II was when it really kicked up. Like if you

think of the famous Uncle Sam, I want you posters with Uncle Sam pointing, trying to get the young American men to enlist in the army. Yeah. That was new in the 40s. Yeah. And that was a big, big time propaganda. Posters were very effective back then. My favorite, I had two favorites. I know what one of them is. What, which one? Rosie probably. Rosie's pretty cool. Okay. Um, but there was one that had somebody riding in a car by, by, by, by himself. Oh yeah. And it said, um, when you, it was for carpooling, right? Right. To ration gas and stuff. When you ride alone, you ride with Hitler. How great would it be to have one of those posters now? Oh, I'm sure you can find at least a replica. Yeah, that's true. Okay. I mean, that's the other thing

about them is they're like great art. Oh yeah. Propaganda posters have the best art. Yeah. I like that, that, that era. The other one I like is just, I just can't believe it. Like that these were up and on public display during World War II. There's a Japanese soldier using the butt of his rifle to smack a, a, an American POW in the chin. And it says, what are you going to do about it? And below is the answer. And the answer, according to this propaganda poster is stay on the job until every murdering jab is wiped out. You're kidding. It even has a little government office of propaganda logo at the bottom. Wow. Look, I kid you not. That's something else. Yeah. It's a little nuts. So yeah, we go a little overboard during times of war. I liked Rosie

the Riveter. That's who I thought you were going to mention. Have you seen my favorite mechanic as a woman? Yeah, yeah. Overindicator. Yeah, the riff on that. Yeah. Successfully too. Sure. Yeah. Rosie the Riveter was famous obviously because women at the time during World War II were encouraged to help the, the war at home on the home front by working in the, taking these factory jobs that the men had to leave. Yeah. And as she became like an iconic character, and one of the posters read, longing won't bring him back sooner. Get a war job. Yeah. I love that. Yeah, it is. It's pretty cool. I saw another one. It was a woman holding a giant key and it said, food rationing is the key to the war effort. Right. And, and actually that was one of the,

the things that I don't think you could predict that came out of propaganda was women suddenly were put into their proper position of power. They were elevated to that, that kind of power. Yeah, that's true. They were no longer demure little housewives. They were empowered to like actually help with the war effort, get a war job. Right. Or to food, ration food, or do whatever. They suddenly had a role. And not just women, but blacks as well. There was a propaganda poster that said like, United we win. And it was a black guy and a white guy. Right. Working side by side decades before the civil rights movement. Yeah. So sometimes it's, it's foreshadowing of social change and possibly even a mechanism of social change that follows whatever the,

the, the issue is it's being propagandized. I think definitely in the case of women, I think we're war two probably had a lot of good benefits for women kind of having a voice. Yeah. For the first time or not the first time, but probably a really big, brilliant voice for the first time. Yeah. Yeah. And Chuck, that's propaganda, baby. Yeah. You know, I had a movie idea, a script idea when I was during my screenwriting days about a film student that gets like he wins the big student film award. And then all of a sudden he gets whisked away by the government to the secret layer. And they recruit young filmmakers to the ministry of propaganda. And like the moon landing was fake and all these things have been

faked. Well, we talked about that in another podcast. Yeah. But this, yeah, this kid gets caught up into making these movies that are all faults and have you seen, like the dog? Yeah. It's a great one too. Yeah. Sort of a riff on that. And I never wrote it. And I don't, I'm not going to. So if anyone out there's a screenwriter and likes that idea, feel free. Yeah. Just give a shout out to Chuck at the premiere. Right. Yeah. So again, that's propaganda. That is right. So are we plugging anything to have an add nothing? Holy cow. That means we get to go right to listener mail. Josh, today I think we, since it'd be appropriate to talk about Molly Orshansky. Yeah. So our last subject matter there, we were talking about the women in World

War Two. We were. And also we mentioned that we have been called sexist and mommy worshipers. You want to read that letter in question? Yes. We actually got a couple of letters, um, one which we're going to read now and one that was kind of nasty and mean. And we're not going to read that or we're not going to say that nasty mean person's name. But this one was much more above board. This says you probably have received a bunch of emails about this, but I want to let you know that Molly Orshansky is a woman. If you recall, she is a woman who developed the poverty line. But in your podcast, how much money do I really need to live? You referenced Ms. Orshansky as a he is a female graduate student of public

policy with a specialization in poverty. I was so excited to hear you mentioned a woman who was so influential to the field, but then I was extremely disappointed when you got the gender wrong. Obviously she had a right to be. Sure. And I hope you make this correction on your podcast. And that comes from Cheryl, a master in public policy candidate at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. And I wrote Cheryl back and thanked her for being kind since we had gotten the nasty letter calling us misogynistic freaks. Yeah. Thank you little lady. And it was a big mistake. We were wrong. And the research that we got actually referenced Molly Orshansky as a he. And so it wasn't some big assumption on our part that it had to be a man.

Wait, wait, Chuck, Chuck, I've been thinking about this. I think at this point, we should make up a research team and lay this on their feet. I don't think we should take any responsibility whatsoever. You ready? Ready? So Chuck, it was our research team that really dropped the ball on this one. It wasn't you or I. We were misinformed. We did not assume like a couple of readers or listeners of thought that we didn't assume that it was a man just because it was some big policy. It wasn't us at all that we don't do that. But to make up for the failings of our crack research team who've been chastised since we got this pointed out to us, well, fired. We fired them both. It's a different way of putting it. In this economy, you want to say chastised.

We didn't fire anyone. I'm just kidding. So we did a little research into Molly Orshansky. We found out that she is dead. She died in April 2007. And she actually was quite a pioneer in her field. She worked for the Social Security Administration from 1958 to 1982. And as historian Alice O'Connor wrote in Poverty Knowledge, she was one of a respected but mostly invisible cadre of women research professionals based at Social Security Administration and other government agencies during the post-war years. And I think that's part of the problem. I think we, as early 30-somethings, well, one of us is an early 30-something in 2009, kind of underestimated what women were allowed to do, I think, in the 60s.

Right? That's fair enough. Sure. You know why? Because you don't hear much about it. No. They were... No. I... No. And that is the travesty. And I even thought, like, when we were doing that podcast, like, Molly is a weird name for a guy. I did, too. Still. I thought it was an Irish thing. And I thought, Molly Orshansky, I could see a guy being named Molly Orshansky. Right. So it was a mistake.

I would say, much more notable or noteworthy than being invisible, you know, but successful, was that she actually has helped countless impoverished people in the United States. Absolutely. By creating this poverty line, which basically forces the government's hand into saying, okay, if you're below this, we're going to help you. Right? And this was largely due to her work as a mathematician and statistician. The true trailblazer. He was a great man. He was.

Hats off to you, Mr. Orshansky. So if you want to send Chuck an email taking us to task or pointing out an error or just say hi, whatever, any kind of gender confusion, if you want to call us sexist, mommy worshipers, whatever, we accept all comers, you can send that to stuffpodcast at howstuffworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. And be sure to check out the Stuff You Should Know blog on the howstuffworks.com homepage. Brought to you by the re-invented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you?

For food lovers, there's no place on earth like Mississippi, where sweet, spicy, and smoky flavors satisfy your spirits. Wherever you wander, plan today and visit Mississippi.org slash dining. Mississippi. Wanderers welcome. In 1968, five black girls were picked up by police after running away from a reform school in Mt. Megs, Alabama. I'm writer and reporter Josie Duffy Rice. And in a new podcast, I investigate the abuse that thousands of black children suffered at the Alabama Industrial School for Negro Children and how those five girls changed everything.