Derek: 00:28

Welcome back to the Fourth Wave Podcast. In this episode, we are going to round out our section discussing corporate propaganda. We're gonna be kind of summing some things up, looking at resources, giving some recommendations, all that kind of stuff. So I I have to say that one of the things that sort of surprised me about propaganda in regard to corporate propaganda is just how chock full of propaganda the corporate world is. Now, I mean in one sense, don't get me wrong, I expected to find propaganda because, you know, there's advertising and all that kind of stuff.

Derek: 01:08

That that made sense, right? But I I think, you know, I've been to Hollywood before, just to, you know, to visit, not because I'm famous or anything. But when I was there, I was I was looking around and it it's just kinda gross. You know, when you see the the, like Hollywood on TV when they're like doing glamour shots and all that kind of stuff, it looks like it's just this beautiful, ornate, like fancy place. But when you're there, it's just kinda like bleh.

Derek: 01:40

I mean, it it's smaller, it's not really luxurious, it's it's just you recognize that that what they have is a facade. Same thing with Las Vegas. So in Las Vegas, it's really beautiful at night. It's gorgeous. It's amazing, just lights everywhere.

Derek: 01:58

It's it's also kind of overwhelming, I can see how you wouldn't like it, but it's it's pretty, like it's it's amazing. In the daytime, you're walking along the streets and it's hot and it doesn't smell great and it's arid and there's like pornography pamphlets all over the ground and you're like, this place is really gross. You know, at night when it's all nice and shiny and, you know, everybody's drunk, it kinda seems like, oh, well, is this is, you know, interesting. In the daytime, it's just gross. You just see it for what it is.

Derek: 02:34

I've sort of felt that way with corporate propaganda. I was like, you know, obviously they do propaganda, but it's it's really cheesy stuff. I mean, it's stuff that anybody can see through. It's stuff that isn't really of consequence, you know, they get you to buy this this product or that product. It's kind of child's play propaganda.

Derek: 02:53

So it's it's ubiquitous in corporate the corporate world and it's, you know, it's it's just it's very pronounced, but it's it doesn't matter. It's inconsequential. I have to say I was absolutely floored by by studying more about corporate propaganda. So let let's walk you through a few resources here. For me, How Propaganda Became Public Relations is the number one book that that I think really touches on propaganda and the corporate world.

Derek: 03:31

It it takes a deep, deep look into how propaganda functions in the corporate world, why they do it and what it produces, like how it works and how it forms us. It's it's a very philosophical but also very cultural, social, you know, whatever you want to call it. It's it's a fantastic book. And I would, you know, maybe mix that with Alex Carey's Taking the Risk Out of Democracy. Those are those are two books that go really well hand in hand.

Derek: 04:05

I would also mix with this Postman. Neil Postman has quite a number of books. The one that that maybe I'd recommend here would be Technopoly, or Amusing Ourselves to Death, perhaps. Those those are really good books. I really enjoy Postman.

Derek: 04:21

I know some people kind of don't like him that much, but I I think that what he says, I mean, he's he wrote, I think back in the eighties, maybe the early nineties, but what he says, like Alul, is just kind of predictive and extremely insightful. So personally, I like Postman and I think that he provides a lot of insight here into, into propaganda. So if you wanna dig into, you know, some more more specific examples and or conspiracy theories of sorts, so I'll I'll try to give you the more like, you know, straight up examples and then and get you into more of the, you know, murky ones. So you've got a a book called Thicker Than Water, which I can't remember the lady's name. She was actually I'm recording this in almost December of twenty twenty two, and the the lady who was, whatever, part of this this whatever scientific startup or something, who like scammed a bunch of people out of money, that that book Thicker Than Water is about that.

Derek: 05:30

And so he describes how she kind of hoodwinked all these people. And it's also really interesting because in in the book, a a portion a good portion about the book is about this guy's relationship with his grandfather who who takes this, you know, this scam artist's side over his grandson and it's kind of how how propaganda hijacked his his dad and how he's or his grand grandpa and how he kind of works through that and how he tries to uncover truth. So it's a really short book but I actually ended up enjoying it a lot more than I thought I did and and learned about, you know, some current events that I wouldn't have otherwise known about. The Hellhound of Wall Street was also good. It's it's a little bit more dry, but it's about, what led up to the Great Depression and and some of the things that were going on there and how, I think it was brokerages or insurance companies and things were, kind of, manipulating their customers and stuff.

Derek: 06:34

The Informant was about this this guy who worked for, I think it was AMD, and he was part of like one of the biggest busts in corporate history in The US or international, I don't know. But it was it's about price fixing. You know, price fixing is a really big thing that companies are able to do where they can control the prices. They can make the prices rise so that they make more money and they don't have to put out as much. So I didn't really enjoy the book that much, but it's a really good example of of the types of conspiracies that can go on in here.

Derek: 07:13

You can also read a book called Radium Girls. I forget the author's name of this, but she also wrote one, I think, The Woman That They Could Not Silence, and both of the books are fantastic, like two absolutely amazing books. But Radium Girls, oh man, it shows you kind of corporate cover up of these radium dial workers who are painting these luminescent clocks and basically with radium and end up getting all kinds of cancers and just falling apart and it's horrible, but it just kind of digs into some of that type of corporate propaganda. Then of course there's it's not a book, but it's the Powell Memorandum. You can go take a look at that and see what Supreme Court Justice wrote about, you know, protecting corporate interests and all that kind of stuff.

Derek: 08:08

And then infer how many things how many of those sorts of memorandums are written or under the table agreements made behind closed doors that you absolutely don't know about. And of course, the Powell Memorandum was just a slip up that we're able to get our hands on it, but it it just shows you the type of corporate finagling with politics that goes on. Another true conspiracy, you can take a look at War Is A Racket, Smedley Butler, and we've referenced that pretty much every episode in this season. But start looking into War's Racket then, start reading about the Banana Republic and all the stuff that corporations were responsible for in terms of South America, overthrowing of dictators, working with the government to create coups and all that kind of stuff. If you want to get into murkier waters, you can go ahead and get into one that's maybe not quite as murky, but Kleptopia.

Derek: 09:14

I I really had a difficult time following it, not because it wasn't a good book, but because I didn't really understand all of the strategies that were going on because when you get to that sort of scale of of like money and business and government, I just my mind doesn't comprehend it. But it was interesting and something that I think if you're into this kind of conspiracy in particular, you would enjoy. The creature from Jekyll Island. That's really murky to me. The the guy who wrote it, you know, he's kind of different, and so so I really don't know the validity of the stuff that he says.

Derek: 09:58

But at least the part that he talks about in regard to inflation, that is some some pretty good stuff explaining kind of the Federal Reserve and and inflation and how that kind of stuff works, and how a lot of like the the policies of of the big banks and and Wall Street and all that kind of stuff kind of go to screw over the regular tax paying people. Another one that's murkier is I think there are two different versions, I forget what the more recent version is, but there's Confessions of an Economic Hitman. And that would probably go more in politics, but, you know, it sort of functions in in regard to business because government sort of works alongside, in tandem with businesses, and this guy just goes into discussing how they they set these countries up, they loan them a bunch of money, and then they they end up kind of owning them. Right? Because when you have a debt to somebody, now you owe them.

Derek: 11:02

It's basically like the mafia, you know. And there's this this great quote from Thomas Jefferson that I just came across the other day. I came across it because I I think I'm actually gonna use it in our episode. I think I'm gonna do an episode on Haiti for our government conspiracy. But it was a letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote to William Henry Harrison in February of eighteen o three.

Derek: 11:27

I want you to just hear what he says here. Quote, our system is to live in perpetual peace with the Indians, to cultivate an affectionate attachment from them by everything just and liberal which we can do for them within the bounds of reason, and by giving them effectual protection against wrongs from our own people. The decrease of game rendering their subsistence by hunting inefficient, we wish to draw them to agriculture, to spinning and weaving, the latter branches they take up with great readiness because they fall to the women who gain by quitting the labors of the field for those which they are exercised with indoors. When they withdraw themselves to the culture of a small piece of land, they'll perceive how useless to them are their extensive forests and will be willing to pair them off from time to time in exchange for necessaries for their farm and families to promote the disposition to exchange lands which they have to spare and we want for necessaries which we have to spare and they want. We shall push our trading houses and be glad to see the good and influential individuals among them run-in debt because we observe that when these debts get beyond what the individuals can pay, they become willing to lop them off by a session of lands.

Derek: 12:42

At our trading houses too, we mean to sell so low as merely to repay us cost and charges, so as neither to lessen or enlarge our capital. This is what private traders cannot do for they must gain. They will consequently retire from the competition and we shall thus get clear of this pest without giving offense or umbrage to the Indians. In this way, our settlements will gradually circumscribe and approach the Indians and they will in time either incorporate with us as citizens of The US or remove beyond the Mississippi. The former is certainly the termination of their history most happy for themselves.

Derek: 13:18

But in the whole course of this, it is essential to cultivate their love as to their fear. We presume that our strength and their weakness is now so visible that they must see we have only to shut our hand to crush them, and that all our liberalities to them proceed from motives of pure humanity only. Should any tribe be foolhardy enough to take up the hatchet at any time, the seizing the whole country of that tribe and driving them across the Mississippi as the only condition of peace would be an example to others and a furtherance of our final consolidation. End quote. One of our beautiful founding father, rapist, slaveholder guys right there, Thomas Jefferson, he is basically saying, hey, you know what?

Derek: 14:06

We got two strategies for the the Indians, you know. We wanna be we wanna be nice to them because we are we are just and liberty minded people. We don't we know that they fear us. They know that we could crush them at any time. But what we really want for them is to just kind of come to that conclusion themselves without forcing our hand.

Derek: 14:23

And so we can do two things. First of all, we can or or one of the things that we can do is we can, at trading posts, sell so low that we can run out private competition. So have the government basically sell at cost so that they can run off competition, right? And what's the second thing? The second thing is to make them come into, go into debt and then they owe you and then you're like, you know what?

Derek: 14:51

I'll tell you what, we'll just take that piece of land over there and call it even. And so The US could gain territory in that manner, Right? That's basically what Confessions of an Economic Hitman talks about, how we do globally. The United States in particular, but I'm sure other countries do as well. So completely believable.

Derek: 15:14

I don't know about the specifics of the the book in particular, but I mean, we know that our founding fathers did it. So why wouldn't we do it today if we have more knowledge, we have, you know, more ability, more power, more influence in the world? Of course, we do that kind of thing. Like, of course, we do. Whether economic the Confessions of an Economic Capeman is a real story of this happening, a real account, I don't know.

Derek: 15:41

It's kinda murky, but that type of thing 100% happens. There are also some interesting things that have gone on with, like, in in modern day here with with like Robinhood and some of those brokerages and, you know, when when there was the the GameStop shorts and all kinds of things that you can look at, and I'll I'll try to post some YouTube videos or something of of that kind of stuff as well. And speaking of YouTube, there are a bunch of really good movies and video clips and, and other stuff, that you can check out. So The Big Short, which is based on a book maybe by the same name, I don't remember, But The Big Short is a really interesting look at, the two thousand eight financial crisis, specifically in the housing market. It's a really funny movie, really good.

Derek: 16:32

I heard the book is is really good too. But it's it's also it reminds me a lot of Lord of War where it's such a good movie because I'm a realist, so in part like at the end of the movie, the bad guy, the the gun runner, he gets away because he's like, Hey look, you know, my biggest employer is the government, so, you know, I get off. That's kind of like what happens in the big short and that's what really happened in real life, right? Everybody who's big and important and wealthy gets off. Like nobody gets any consequences for the greed and arrogance causing the crisis, right?

Derek: 17:17

CEOs got big bonuses and lots of people lost their homes and went bankrupt. Thank You For Smoking is a really fun one too. I don't think that's based on I mean, I guess it could be based on reality, but I don't think it's like a true story of any particular individual. But it's a really good movie about, you know, propaganda and also moral dilemmas and, you know, people in the smoking industry and how they kind of went about what they were doing. There are also some really good books on smoking out there and the tobacco industry which is a pretty big deal, which maybe I'll get to in just a second.

Derek: 18:00

There's, the Cash for Kids scandal, they have a documentary out about that. You can just search Cash for Kids scandal where judges basically were in league, guess with the private prisons or certain businesses, I forget how it worked, but the judges got kickbacks from these companies to basically sentence kids to really harsh sentences for sometimes doing like nothing. So it's a terrible travesty in the justice system. Veritasium, a YouTube channel that I really like which is usually about science, he does one on the light bulb and what do they call it? Planned obsolescence, that's what it is.

Derek: 18:43

So planned obsolescence, right? Apparently, you can make light bulbs last a really long time, like long, long, long, long, long time. I think the longest one that's been on has been like on a hundred years or something, I don't know. But in Veritasium, he kind of goes into that and he talks about how light bulb companies like, we know for a fact, literally came to an agreement to only have their light bulbs last a certain amount of hours. You know, how else would they sell light bulbs if if people only needed to buy them once?

Derek: 19:16

So, planned obsolescence is is a big concept that you can get into in regard to conspiracies in business. There's so many angles in business conspiracies, you know, you've got like safety issues like with the radium girls, you've got issues like planned obsolescence, I mean, you've just got so many different angles. The government, land takeovers, so so so many monopolies and price fixing. So there's a lot to look at in businesses. And on top of that, if your business is big enough, you start to get into the deeper waters too, right?

Derek: 19:57

Because businesses are going start lobbying, they're going to start working in politics. So when you I mean, business has so much overlap with some of our other propaganda categories. Some of the things that I wanted to read that I didn't get to. There's one book that was famous, I think it was Perot, no, it was one of those those, like old time politicians, maybe it was Ross Perot, was somebody around then, but wrote or had something to do with this book called Unsafe at Any Speed and it's this politician who basically is calling out the companies, the car companies about some of the safety issues. And so that that looked like a really good book that kind of kicked off some of the the big looks at business around this time because a little bit afterwards, you start getting into the Nestle, the the the baby killer conspiracy and stuff that we talked about.

Derek: 20:57

Smoke them if you got them is a book that looked really good. I did read one on cigarettes, I think it was just called cigarettes or the cigarette. It wasn't that good, I didn't think. But Smoke them if You Got them looked really good and it gets into it looked like it got into the history of big tobacco a whole lot more in in the vein that I wanted to get into it. But they didn't have an audiobook and I didn't have time to to read the physical copy there.

Derek: 21:23

So smoke them if you got them. And then there's another one, similarly called Everywhere the Soldier Will Be. I think I I have that link, but I think it's actually an article that maybe would be a good companion to doing tobacco studies. Have some other random articles I've thrown in here, most of them I didn't get to. Some of them about more conspiracy from back in the day like how railroads made public relations, some stuff on the Pecora Commission and and, you know, you can get in like The Delusion of Crowds and some other books talk about that kind of stuff.

Derek: 22:07

And and some stuff about stocks and politicians and who holds what and there's so, so much that you can look into in regard to this. Hopefully this is a good starting point for you. Like I said, go check out my Goodreads list and use this as a jumping off point if corporate corporate propaganda is kinda your thing. That's all for now. So peace and because I'm a pacifist, when I say it, I mean it.

Derek: 22:57

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