Ep. 2 Free Speech: Propaganda
A father was imprisoned in communist Romania for protesting as a University student. Later his son, would grow up and emigrate to the states. How did the story of this son’s father and early years in Romania, shape experiences and ideas about free speech and propaganda.
Full Transcript
Taye 0:11
I'm Taye Mohler. And this is Anatomy of Change, a podcast series about the struggle and connection in making courageous change in the systems and structures that thread our lives.
On this episode, a father was imprisoned in communist Romania, for protesting as a University Student. Later his son would grow up and emmigrate to the west. How did the story of his father and early years in Romania shape experiences and ideas about free speech and propaganda?
Do we want to start there?
Romeo 0:57
Oh we can start there.
Taye 0:58
So why be anonymous?
Romeo 1:06
Well, this, first of all Taye, it was a hard question to ask myself, and it goes against what I truly believe, which is that freedom of speech is very important, and everyone should exercise it. I'm trying to do just that through this interview. But at the same time, I'm not an activist, I'm just a regular person, I have a family, I have a life. That is not activism. I'm not ready to put that on the line. What has been happening recently, and I think we recognize that everywhere around us, there are very vocal activist groups that have made it their mission to, to fight for their cause by going outside of, you know, just political discourse, they have gone into making it personal, doxing people, chasing people around , like getting in their face, messing up with their livelihood, the mob mentality is setting them up for just a lot of abuse on social media, or even at their workplace, getting in touch with their employer and you know, making demands that the person be fired just for holding a different point of view. And so on right? So, it is a sorry, state of affairs today, when someone has to, in the course of exercising their free speech, they have to think about consequences like that.
Taye 2:33
So for this series, we're going to use the name Romeo.
Romeo 2:42
Free speech is a societal construct. So we can only have free speech, when that free speech is protected at multiple levels. It's not just something that the government needs to protect or not infringe upon the society at large also has to respect that right. If the society doesn't, and if it becomes acceptable to prevent someone in exercising, you know, the rights of free thought and free speech, if it becomes the norm in society, that people self censor themselves because of the fear of consequences, then I would argue we already lost that free speech.
Taye 3:36
Can you take us back to your childhood? And what was it like to grow up in communist Romania? And you talked about your father?
Romeo 3:44
Yes, I grew up under communist Romania, I grew up under the Ceaușescu regime, the last surviving dictator in Eastern Europe, when the revolutions swept away communism from power. So everybody knows about the Berlin Wall and the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, and, you know, solidarity in Poland. So those were movements that they were successful in, in removing, you know, communism in those countries. And they happened ahead of Romania. So, in Romania was a very strong form of, of communism, that was enforced dramatically by the secret police and the country was, you could say very much like North Korea today, completely isolated from the world in general, and things were controlled with an iron fist, and people really didn't have access to information about what was happening elsewhere in Eastern Europe. So I can tell you that when we had our own revolution and Ceaușescu was swept away from power, and ultimately he was executed for the damage he did to the country. A lot of the people in the country, myself included, actually didn't know what was going on elsewhere in Eastern Europe. And we didn't know how those events were truly happening and what was driving them, because we had just been exposed to insane amounts of propaganda and lies. And the source of informations were very scarce. So people that were in the know, so to speak, or had access, yes, they may have had some information. And of course, they would spread it to the families, some people were listening to Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, some people, you know, they would have radio, like shortwave radio, and they would, would listen to those transmissions every night, but it was a clandestine thing. And, you know, if the secret police caught you doing that, you'd end up in prison in our house, this wasn't a regular thing, like, you know, we would maybe listen once in a while if we heard about something being happening. And why was it not the thing because my father had actually already spent five years in prison for his convictions or speech.
6:25
When he was a student, so in 1956, he was a student in university. And there were uprisings in Hungary. Now, Hungary is a neighboring country to Romania. So there were uprising in Hungary against the communism against the communist regime that had been installed there by Soviet Union after World War II. And for a time it looked like they were going to break away from the Soviet sphere of influence. And my father, you know, in university, he had started to get mixed up in demonstrations in support of Hunargarians and, you know, their desire for a free country. So he eventually got picked up by the secret police, and he spent five years in prison, very hard prison, you know, political prisoners, they had it really bad. He did hard labor in relocation camps because you know, that, that's what the communist regime would do, they would not just imprison you, but they would use you, as you know, unpaid workforce. Some of the biggest projects in Romania, were built with this kind of labor, actually. Prison broke his free spirit, for sure. And I can tell that retroactively looking at things, because he never wanted to talk about that experience. And, you know, we knew that he had done, you know, prison like that. And whenever we would ask him a question, he would just close up and, you know, not want to go there. So obviously, that's, that's the sign of abuse that he suffered and in our household, going against the regime wasn't encouraged or something that we would actively think about, because of his experience. And, you know, he would try to keep us far away from, from anything like that, because I'm sure, you know, having had the experience he had, he didn't want his children to end up, you know, in a similar situation. That's why we were in a way as a household, more shielded or more disconnected from, from events, because there was this element of fear that, you know, things that can happen based on based on his experience, and he wasn't encouraging that at all, right? That's why I said, you know, in our household, we weren't the type of people that we would listen regularly to Radio Free Europe or Voice of America. We were not activists in any way, you know, not like there was alot of activism to begin with back then, but you know what I mean, so, so there you have it.
Taye 9:29
You had shared with me earlier, that your family learned that the Berlin Wall fell down through Voice of America, and I realized I was in the dark about what is Voice of America.
In 1948, it became the legislative authorization for propaganda activities conducted by the US Department of State, sometimes called public diplomacy. Voice over America was only delivered outside the US and until 2013, with the signing of the modernization act, its content is now available to US citizens. Today, it is part of the US Agency for global media, USAGM, the government agency that oversees all non military, US international broadcasting, and it is funded by the US Congress.
Romeo 10:21
You are right to say that it's a propaganda outlet. And maybe we can talk about what propaganda is. Because a lot of people I find, throw this word around, without really understanding what it means. And it's used as a label many times to just shut down debate or shut down an opponent, you know, just saying... you're spewing out propaganda or what have you. So let's, let's first define what propaganda is right? And again, after having been exposed to that, and a lot of Eastern European people that grew up under those regimes, they learn to live with it, and they learn to recognize it. And that is, I find, I find, unfortunately, in the West, today, very few people have this ability to see propaganda, through and through and to discern when they're being exposed to it, you know, no matter who does it. Okay, so like I said, let's talk about propaganda is.
Taye 11:28
Let's do.
Romeo 11:29
So the first mistake that you know, people make, when they think of propaganda, they think it's all lies. And actually, that's not necessarily the case. Propaganda can be all truths. It's how those truths are shaped, and how they're directed at what audience and what is the objective, that define, you know, whether something is propaganda or not. So, to summarize, propaganda really is communication that is aimed to further a certain point of view. And the point of view might be considered wrong or false. But it's not about that. It's about how you can create in the minds of people, perceptions that can lead them to that point of view. And, there's propaganda that is more effective and propaganda that is less effective. The propaganda that is less effective is the blunt one, which is trying to create that perception, just by telling you this is how things are, take it or leave it. Well, I mean, most of the people will see through that, how can you tell me that white is black and white, right? That is the blunt form of propaganda and communist regimes were actually employing a lot of that. Because their control over their populations were so absolute, they actually didn't need to be sophisticated about it. Okay, but in the West, you have the other form of propaganda, which is the much more successful one and much more insidious. Where, no, it's not blunt like that. It's covered in layers and layers of truth, most of the time, that is just presented in a way that leads you to that perception that they want to create, right? So it seems like you're arriving at it through your own independent thinking when in fact you haven't.
That is the definition of successful propaganda changing or creating perceptions. And they might be very well using truths when they do that. So coming back to the example we're talking about Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, they were both Western anti communist propaganda outlets in the sense that their own objective back then and still is, was to further a point of view that, you know, capitalism and democracy are good, and you know, communism and socialism were were bad. They were trying to further this point of view, and create this perception with Eastern European countries to make those populations arrive at this conclusion, so that they could rise for themselves and tear apart the communist socialist regimes of Eastern Europe from the inside, right? And at the end of the day, their objective was very simple. We know that in the Cold War, there was this really cold, unspoken war between two ways of life. And two ways of ruling the world, right? Like, on one hand, you had the Soviet Union with its satellites. And the on the other hand, you had the United States, with NATO, and, you know, the other allied countries, and there was a very little gray area in between which were the non aligned countries, right? So at all turns, these groups or blocks they, they were making and broadcasting disseminated propaganda against each other in all ways possible, right? So Radio Free Europe and Voice of America were like that for the eastern audience. You can do propaganda through omission, when, for example, you're arguing the point and you're maximizing the good of your viewpoint, and you're not talking about any of the shortcomings of your viewpoint, or any, you know, or your system that you're defending that, in effect, is a form of propaganda. And that's what Voice of America used to do. So back then, so they, they would take any opportunity to speak about the shortcomings and the problems of these communist regimes, which, which were many, no one's arguing that right. But nowhere, ever would they talk about the individual problems that also existed in the West and in the United States,
particularly so you wouldn't hear things, you know, on Voice of America about the Vietnam War and opposition to it, you wouldn't hear about, you know, the racist crisis in America, you wouldn't hear about the support that America gave to the apartheid regime in, in South Africa for so many years, because they perceived it as a bulwark against communism in Africa, right. So you, you wouldn't hear about any of that all you would hear the faults of the Communist and socialist regimes magnified to no end, and so that is a form of propaganda. Sometimes there is propaganda that is actually good in the sense that it is following a defined objective that, you know, will have a beneficial effect the society at large, so we're talking public education campaigns, public education campaigns, you know, typically, if they, if they intend to establish you know, scientifical facts or, or things that can take the society in a direction, you know, to evolve as a society, you know, that they can be very, very beneficial. But they're still propaganda campaigns, right, having lived under those times and being exposed to both forms of propaganda, the blunt ones and more successful ones, we learned to quickly identify and see through propaganda of all shapes and forms. Here in Western world, because people weren't exposed to a lot of that, historically, this skill has not developed, and people don't really recognize when they're being subjected to such campaigns. And you know, I always tell people that I speak to about this, ask yourself, when you see that all of a sudden, you're been bombarded through all outlets of communication at the same time, with with the same message that should be your first red flag, start asking questions. If you have, what we consider a wide array of media or voices, and you know, 90% of them, at one point, they start, they start basically telling you the same thing over and over again, and it seems like they're all synchronized. And you know, they all started about the same time, it's time for you to ask questions, how is that possible? Because that's that's just not how it works in the real world, when that is the hallmark of an active campaign, you know, initiated by someone with an agenda that are being pushed on to the audience at the same time. So that is the mark of a propaganda campaign.
In 1986 there was the Chernobyl event. In Ukraine, when Ukraine is again, a neighboring country, to Romania, to the north of Romania, so we weren't parts of the country, actually parts of Romania or Moldova, which is a, the eastern province was actually pretty close to that event. And the information about that was suppressed. But we started seeing that there was a campaign that started where people would be distributed iodine, I hope I'm pronouncing that right. So that they would be distributed iodine, and you know, it would be done under the guise of public health, and you know, this something that will strengthen you, and so on and so forth, right? So that was something that came sort of out of nowhere. And people started asking themselves why, why am I being asked to, to take this thing, all of a sudden, what is the benefit to me, and it just sounded strange looked, looked and sounded strange, right? So then, next thing, you know, Voice of America starts talking about, you know, this radiological event in Ukraine, where, I don't know, if you're aware how this was exposed, or discovered, there was radioactive clouds, that actually, you know, the winds blew them away from Ukraine, and, you know, elsewhere in Europe, and those radioactive products were detected, you know, in the atmosphere. And there was a product of radioactive reactions that we are, were consistent with, you know, nuclear power or nuclear weapons. So it was clear, it wasn't, you know, nuclear weapons related, you know, it wasn't of that magnitude It was, so what else would could it be, then there will be a nuclear power accident, right. So that's how the facts came to light. And we learned about that listening to Voice of America. And this became something that was undeniable. So you know, a few days later, a couple weeks later, Soviet Union had to come clean and recognize that, yes, this is a major event. And this is where we are. By distrusting your government, that you start asking yourself questions. So generally speaking, I'm of the opinion that governments should have as little influence in the personal lives of people as possible. So you can say I'm a libertarian at heart. And that, of course, is is shaped by the experiences I had with the nanny state. When you are distrustful of your government, you stop taking, you know, everything at face value, and you start asking questions such as who benefits from this? Why are all media outlets presenting me only this point of view? And that, you know, there is no alternative voices? You know, example that comes to mind is the Iraq war. I know that's very controversial in the United States, but not so controversial in elsewhere in the world, where, if you ask, pretty much anyone, you know, outside of the United States, was iraq war, a good thing or a bad thing, they will tell you it was a bad thing. But if you ask the same question in the US, you might get a much more balanced view, or, you know, a lot of people will say, No, it was a good thing. And we got rid of Saddam. And it was, it was a good thing. So that, to me, is the mark of a successful influence campaign that took place in the United States where you had, you know, government basically was feeding the population information through all the outlets, they were basically saying the same thing over and over again until the point was disseminated in the population at large.
Taye
If this feels familiar, we don't have to look far to see how this shows up. According to the Pew Research Center survey on US Politics and Policy published in September of 2020, just 20% of American adults trust the government in Washington to do the right thing, almost always or most of the time. And this is consistent in the last three presidencies from Bush to Obama to Trump. I guess you could say we have trust issues.
Romeo
We have to be distrustful of, of government number one,
Taye 24:58
Really?
Romeo 24:58
Yes. There is always an average. Or, you know, the vast, vast majority of people or opinions fall within a certain area. And then there are some outliers to the left and to the right, you would see all those views and opinions, they're given not necessarily equal airtime, but they're given at least an opportunity to be presented when you have one viewpoint being presented exclusively, the other one being minimized and suppressed, even you know, being labeled conspiracy theories being labeled, you know, harmful content, you have active self censorship, even, you know, where things are being removed from, from social media and from various outlets. Again, that to me is not a free society, a free society presents points of view in support of the discussion to be had. And then the individual can make up their mind. If we bombard the individual with, you know, just an approved narrative, and then we cut down everything else, once again, I will have to say, it starts to resemble more and more what we used to deal with in the communist countries.
In the the heyday of newspapers and media, you had such things as the Washington papers, you know, the Watergate scandal, things like that, where you had major news outlets that, you know, that they were independent, and they were making money through the pursuit of, of journalism, and it was a good livelihood to be had, you know, people would subscribe to news, newspapers. These were companies that were doing good, you know, by any measure of the market, right? Hence, they had the financial independence. And they weren't part of conglomerates, even, they could live as separate entities, and they were free to pursue that truth. And they were free to pursue that journalistic integrity, right.
Journalists, today, they have started, abrogating their responsibility of holding power to account and they have become very much just another conduit for power to distribute approved information to the society at large. Journalists are people. And they want to be successful. Success in this profession has been defined for a long time in scoops. You know, like having the scoop, having the inside track to information, having your insider in the White House, enter the rise of the anonymous source, which provides these scoops, what we would call a source before it has become this anonymous attribution that's really being abused if you ask me. So you have journalists that you know, in the pursuit of that scoop or in the pursuit of that insider information, they are becoming cozy with power. So, then the information that arrives to them is not information they actively sought and uncovered, it is information that was fed to them by the power conduits. Do we really think that those power conduits will feed unadulterated information?, that is a rare thing. That is what we call a whistleblower. Okay, and that that is very rare, you know, that, because, again, people don't want to put their livelihoods at risk, because you have people like that, you know, their convictions, and, you know, they have no ulterior motive, and they become whistleblowers. And then, of course, immediately you start to see them labeled as, you know, Russian agents, Snowden comes to mind.
You have the blunt form of editorial control where you're gonna have somebody in the in the C suite, you know, that will tell you No, you cannot approach this or No, you cannot touch this subject. It's taboo right. Or you have the less blunt form of editorial control and Influence where you will have an element of self censorship that you feel you have to apply, in order to be in line with the editorial line of that outlet. Glenn Greenwald, the person that had the huge scoop from Edward Snowden, with the NSA and everything that the Guardian UK exposed with, with regard to that, he felt that he had to leave the Guardian, because several years later they started to assert more editorial control in his reporting. Now, this is a person that we can say, has already demonstrated that he is holding power accountable, and he is speaking truth to power. So, you know, the moment he felt that Guardian was not the place to do that anymore, he went and founded his own outlet, the Intercept. And then guess what, a month ago, he actually decided to leave that outlet. Because that outlet, you know, by and large, with contributions from from him had grown into a much larger monster than when he was one of the founders and editorial control had started to be asserted over his reporting at his outlet that he founded. Self censorship, moving away from stories that are uncomfortable. Case in point, it was the Hunter Biden story that broke before elections. And you know, he wanted to do some a piece about that, and some investigative reporting. And he wasn't allowed to, basically or not in the form that he wanted to. He had editors that said, very clearly to him, you need to adjust your piece before we can publish.
Enter the age of social media and the age of the internet, when now, we all know these news outlets have been whittled down by the advent of free services and free content, and why would I pay for a newspaper subscription when I can just go on Google or you know, Facebook, and you know, they feed me a diet of news that, you know, largely by and large is sourced from these outlets. We now have these corporations and economic behemoths that are needed for a media outlet to thrive financially. Because the advent of the internet and the social media basically reduced their financial streams and income streams to the point where it's become impossible to do independent journalism. So either you align yourself with, you know, a larger parent organization that has the financial muscle. Or you know, you, you may be you may be willing to pursue to journalism and through journalistic integrity, but how are you going to do it if you don't have the resources?
I do believe that social media and the so called platforms are responsible for a lot of this segregation and divisiveness in the society today. By the nature of their algorithms and their growth objectives, they create these thought bubbles, and they create what we call echo chambers. And why is that? It's very simple. What is the number one objective of any commercial enterprise, you know, under a capitalist system? Uh, is growth.
Taye 34:05
Next time on Anatomy of Change. Are we on an on-ramp to the unknown? We continue our conversation before and after the events of January 6.
Romeo 34:18
And that is why you have people that are abandoning these platforms because they feel discriminated against. They are abandoning these platforms and moving to alternate outlets. And is that a good thing or a bad thing? I mean, the answer is it depends. If those alternate outlets are just going to be a replica of Facebook or Twitter, just on the other side of the political discourse. No, they're not any better. You know, they will be the same problem only flipped on its head. Okay. But if those other outlets will allow diversity of thought and diversity of principle and will allow debate and arguments and they will allow you know the bell curve of opinion, then they will be successful and they will thrive. Otherwise they will just be at another echo chamber.
Credits 35:17
Anatomy of Change is executive produced by Taye Mohler with post production editing and mixing by James Fleege. Special thanks to Romeo, TM and AT. The original series music titled "Reborn" was composed by Adrian Berenguer. Additional music featured in this episode by Kadir Demir, The David Roy Collective, Philip Daniel and James Fleege. Our website where you can listen to all episodes, music and artists featured and find companion content is anatomyofchange.org.
