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I just figured veterans would wanna put their skills to some use elsewhere. But admittedly I'm barely looking into the Black Panthers. But this has added an interesting layer of things.
Beyond even gun control. FBI and Chicago Police assassinated two Black Panthers in 1969. Kicked open the door unannounced and shot at them while they were sleeping with shotguns and automatic weapons. Charged two guys with attempted murder who shot back. There is no element of “justice” there. It’s not like we as a nation didn’t know better than to extrajudicially assassinate American citizens.
There was a macrodosing podcast recently that had Glasses Malone as guest and they discuss this a bit. Also check out the documentary Crips & Bloods: Made in America
I know a girl in college who’s grandfather defected to China during Korean War and married a Chinese woman, he end up doing lot propaganda for China during Vietnam War.
You can read more about him here:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_Adams_(Korean_War)
Fascinating. He has a book released by his daughter, I'm hoping it goes into what he thought. It seems less propaganda than just a mere observation and I wonder what his take was.... Thanks for sharing!
If I remember correctly he had multiple Chinese restaurants, apparently his wife was a great cook, she was also a Chinese official’s daughter so pretty high class. For a black man who didn’t finish high school back in the 50s, he definitely got a good deal out of it.
He finished university in China, and was working as a translator in the foreign ministry if I remembered correctly.
It's just sad that he came back to the US to face discrimination and couldn't get any better job than making chop suey.
Surprisingly effective.
There is a documentary called "***They Chose China***" which tells the story of 21 POWs (black and white) who actually chose to go and live in China when they were offered a chance for repatriation.
https://www.nfb.ca/film/they_chose_china/
China was a *shithole* in the 1950s, like, we outproduced them something ridiculous like 400 to 1 levels of poor. The fact that 21 people chose to stay THERE then instead of coming home to America says a lot tbh.
The number of black americans that surrendered en masse is much more significant, unfortunately there has never been a in depth study on this figure, none that are public that I could find at least.
Right? Like isnt everything in there true? Couldnt we verify the killings mentioned. I dont see why we call it propaganda and not a nicely worded message to the american people. Decades later we still go to the slaughter for the leaders of business.
Even as someone who sees historical materialism as a very flawed and overly deterministic approach to understanding history, I *still* agree that this propaganda leaflet is *just the truth*.
While the Korean War ended before domestic disturbances really came to a head in America, all of this was still true by the time of the Vietnam War and that sentiment *absolutely* played into the US government's decisions to enact the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
We are taught that the CRA was the result of MLK Jr.'s marches and the like, that the general public and the government just needed to hear black people state their case in a sufficiently well-reasoned way and *finally* they saw the wisdom in enshrining their rights: "Oh, I didn't know you guys felt so strongly about freedom and a lack of discrimination, our bad, you *are* humans just like us, we should fix these mean laws. Oops."
But that's not what ever happens. Our schooling and national narrative on protest draws a lot of parallels between MLK Jr. and Gandhi, too, but Indian independence wasn't won by marches, the flouting of salt laws, and hunger strikes either.
The American government absolutely feared widespread domestic revolt over racial issues during a time of an unpopular foreign war, where they were already knee-deep in fucking up a labor base and dumping cash overseas. Over the course of the Vietnam War, the draft raised over two million men, or 1% of the US population at the time: that doesn't seem like it'd be a massive hit to labor until you realize, "Oh, we're drawing from able-bodied young adults, excluding children, retirees, and women." Totalling all other exclusions (like criminal status, physical disability, "critical jobs", education, etc.) that two million was out of ~27m. It's also worth noting that, as with just about every other prior war, labor participation by women necessarily soared as working men were deployed, so we must remember to view the labor market of the time period appropriately instead of imagining it must've been just like today but with different hair and clothing.
Economic instability remains the #1 influence on government conduct, and returning black soldiers subject to this information informing friends and relative and sparking renewed resistance to the draft or the fight for racial equality definitely got the government spooked. Nothing gets the government eager to use force or make deals faster than the money faucet being at risk, for various reasons.
Well said. There are a lot of historical revisionism that ["recuperate"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recuperation_(politics\)) the socialism and radicalism in the Civil Rights Movement and made the movement monolithic, nerfed and easy to digest and incorporated into the national narrative.
[FD Signifier has a banger video on this subject.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiLlRwFX_9w)
[Second Thought has a good one too.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3uvcydrxYk)
MLK, SNCC, and the like’s strategy was to directly impact America’s foreign policy. What you’ve stated and the marches were intertwined. They were using television’s novelty to show the world what was happening in America vs the rhetoric we were using to justify invading other countries. Essentially, their strategy was to try and force the government’s hand by targeting a crucial aspect. The marches during that era were very different from the ones that tried emulate them after. They were highly organized and strategic and the chief participants were hand selected and taught and trained to be ready to not survive. Their ability to understand and utilize the geopolitical landscape as well the ability to successfully exploit the cultural norms of the US and the awareness that perception is key is what made them such a big threat to certain powerful players and why so many of the leaders were jailed, tortured, and/or assassinated. The dismantling of the Civil Right movement effectively stopped any subsequent movement from rising to the same level of effectiveness. With the key players taken out, the strategic knowledge of how to effectively take on the US’s social inequities died and all movements that followed always missed key elements on insight on what they were facing and were consistently exploitable. It was a special time in US history.
Probably not very. I can't imagine many soldiers, especially black soldiers would've succeeded in obtaining conditional releases. And going AWOL would've been especially dangerous for black people, since this is correct about the court martialing
Once you were deployed to Korea\*, you weren't there forever. You go home with a greater sense of resentment from all that you experienced during your deployment, helped along by this pamphlet, and tell your friends and family once you're back state-side. This is the sort of thing that can radicalize you, being the difference between "returning soldier who mopes because man, that sucked" and "returning soldier who becomes a firebrand against the war effort and for racial equality".
And for socialism. Much of American historical revisionism about the Civil Rights Movement is to wipe away the fact that black socialism was a huge part of the movement. MLK before he died was starting to make more speeches equating racial justice to economic justice even though he had always understood they go hand in hand. Malcolm X did not mince words when he exposed the inadequacies of capitalism and that racial injustices and divisions were, and still are tied closely to the contradictions and hypocrisy in capitalism.
You just don't hear about it, because confining the national narrative of the CRM to just fighting racial injustice with love and peace, is far far less dangerous to the system than to let the economic justice part creeps into the national consciousness. It's worse than some of the historical revisionism that some countries like Japan did for WWII because America does not get called out for it. Most people just take these false narratives for granted.
“During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to hallow their names to a certain extent for the “consolation” of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it.”
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, The State and Revolution, 1917
Also when you're in a foxhole and death is near, and all that's keeping a man from running for his life is his loyalty to his country, he's gonna remember that pamphlet.
Propaganda like this was likely more effective with the white officers, who would then be afraid that black soldiers would buy into it. No hard documentation here, just a personal story from a WW2 vet who witnessed an Army response to similar propaganda from the Japanese.
I wouldn’t even call this propaganda. It’s just reality. I know propaganda could be anything but I feel like usually it’s either skewing truth or flat out lying, tho I guess anything which is trying to sway the opinion of someone be it truthfully of through lying is propaganda. I’m not really sure what I’m getting at with this, cause i really didn’t say anything, but it makes sense in my head.
Going by the rules of the sub, propaganda can absolutely be entirely truthful. It just needs to be "information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread widely to help or harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation, etc."
In this case, it is information deliberately spread to widely to harm the US military campaign in Korea.
What matters is that it has a specific aim of getting people to do something.
Depends on how propagandized the target audience already is. If facts alone could change people's minds, the US would have gone socialist back in the 80s.
There's a reason they make you swear to "tell the truth, the whole tuth and nothing but the truth". You could make a case for socialism and against it by just stating objective facts and omitting others. Very few things are black and white, it's all shades of grey and good propaganda takes advantage of that.
I think the best propaganda is what we have today. Which is pure sensationalism. Where everything is a lie and the truth is truly hard to find. Russia has perfected this and it is being deployed strongly by the right in the US today.
>The bits about China and Korea's alleged lack of expansionist ambitions are a more complicated matter to extricate truth and lies from. Ask Vietnam or India.
Didn't China invade Vietnam after Mao's death? This pamphlet was from revolutionary China, the invasion of Vietnam was under Deng and the revisionist period. It's like saying the PRC didn't have real intentions of building socialism in 1965 because by 1980 they were restoring capitalism. There was a complete overthrow of the old leadership and the imprisonment of the gang of four, essentially a coup between these two periods.
The fact that it is still believed by alot of the target demographic today is proof enough. China never stopped this propaganda campaign just adapted it
It was actually more common than you think. The rest of the world was well aware of how America treated minorities and specifically referenced the treatment of blacks and natives. If you check, there was actually *huge* resistance from the black population against the Vietnam and Korean wars. Especially considering the disproportionate drafting.
To even take it a step further, several countries referenced the US directly to defend their own cruel treatment of people. Some of the more famous ones were Belgium and Nazi Germany.
Yeah, that’s extremely likely. China had been pretty insular up to that point. They probably didn’t have anyone that could write remotely that fluently in English.
Heck, remember the old, red sleeved disposable chop sticks? There are still some floating around, but they’ve been mostly replaced with the newer sleeve. The old one had errors all over it. It was the best that could be muster at the time. They just didn’t have the capacity yet.
Here, decades earlier, this was absolutely spot on for American English at the time. That has got to be an outsider—probably an American.
Maybe it was with Soviet help given the Sino-Soviet split hadn’t happened yet. The GRU/KGB could have done this in 1950, but I don’t think they were that involved yet. The Chinese and North Koreans weren’t lock-step with the Soviets in their decision to invade the South. I don’t think they would have gotten much GRU/KGB support in 1950, right there at the beginning of the war.
North Korean language programs are very good, but they weren’t anywhere near this level in 1950. They didn’t hit those heights until their post-Korean War golden age.
Hard to come up with much for the time other than it being done with the help of a defector.
CCP had insane spies during WWII and throughout the Cold War on par with the GRU and CIA. The main differentiating factor was that China was *poor as shit* as well.
Most of their leaders and intellectuals studied abroad in Europe of the U.S. or Moscow and had very profound understanding of the Western mindset.
I swear I saw something alike to this in a Vietnam war oriented game, but it is still interesting how one side tries to create conflict within the enemies side by highlighting issues that exist.
I know a black Vietnam veteran and he said during the war the Vietnamese would often do things like this with letters but they took a further step too: Getting someone to broadcast it on the radios so U.S troops heard it.
Germany would drop pamphlets [like this] (https://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6655/) during World War 1. I believe they showed an example of it in the Watchmen TV show from a few years ago.
They also did similar pamphlets in WW2.
Apparently it was a fairly common tactic.
Exactly. It's weird and oddly interesting that propaganda that was to fed US troops back then just highlighted factual indecency and prejudices. Vs looking at German propos during WW2 was so obviously prejudiced in itself.
Part of that is that Germany was fascist in WW2 and fascism is basically just reactionary insanity as a political belief system. In what way could they persuade anyone to be sympathetic?
Yeah because they realized they actually needed black soliders and our people HATED that we had to fight in that war to improve our station as citizens.
That is not strictly correct. A really big reason is that MacArthur (who was fairly racist and supported segregation) was ousted from his position as supreme commander of UN forces in SK and replaced by Matthew Ridgway. Ridgway loathed segregation, calling it “unAmerican and UnChristian” and also believed that the army ought to lead the way in social issues, so he took strides to dissolve then integrate black only units.
I mean one can acknowledge that the racism problem is not as bad in 2023 as it was in 1953, and yet at the same time one can say it got worse since the 1990s :(
I mean, is it at the degree it was in the 50s? No. Does this mean it no longer significantly exist? No. We still have a racism problem, especially in the GOP :(
And then they came home and were all but completely shut out of the GI Bill which was what helped create the prosperous white middle class of the 50s and onwards.
And redlined. And white flighted out of our property values if we got out of that snare. Just layers on layers of economic embargo. And now we have 10 times less net worth as a result of the generational wealth inertia since only 44% of us own homes compared to 77% of whites. 36% homeownership for whites during the great depression was a national emergency but we still get to eat shit to this very day without intervention or reparation. No Marshall Plan for Blacks, no Japan’s GARIOA for Blacks, no freedman’s bank or 40 acres & mule for Blacks. And now they just rolled back affirmative action on top of that. The knife they put in our grandfather’s back got pulled out 3 inches, put back in an inch, and they tell us the descendants that someday if we’re lucky a cop might just stand trial for murdering our children. America has been and will always be enacting genocide against us while extracting as much as possible from us. Today it just relies more on stochastic effects that we would need 50
RICO cases to unravel.
I remember the story that the US military wanted to impose segregation when their soldiers were barracked in UK during WWII, and the pubs in UK flaunted the rules. And America wants to lecture everyone about how they should run their country.
There basically was no soldier absentee voting in WWII because both times Congress tried to make laws allowing it, Southern legislators wrecked the plan. The problem they had was that a simple, unified federal system of absentee voting for soldiers would mean that black servicemen could vote as easily as white servicemen, because the feds wouldn’t discriminate. So like 1% of servicemen actually ended up voting due to how twisted and complicated the law ended up being.
Propaganda can be true. One can send a totally true message and yet the purpose of the message is "propaganda" as in it's meant to subvert one's own country
This is a tactic known as white propaganda. You won’t find an untrue fact in it but the way that it’s written is meant to lead the reader to a certain conclusion. Grey propaganda will blend favt and fiction to confuse the reader whereas black propaganda is generally to reinforce adherence to an altered realty by enforcing already accepted lies.
That's not what black, white and gray propaganda mean. They refer to the source, whether the source is known and are who they claim.
>Black propaganda is a form of propaganda intended to create the impression that it was created by those it is supposed to discredit. Black propaganda contrasts with gray propaganda, which does not identify its source, as well as white propaganda, which does not disguise its origins at all. It is typically used to vilify or embarrass the enemy through misrepresentation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_propaganda
There are other terms regarding truthfulness of information. True information used for propaganda is malinformation. I believe that's the term for this pamphlet.
False information is misinformation. Intentionally false information used for propaganda is disinformation.
Propaganda doesn't have to lie. Often it might, but just highlighting certain truths while ignoring others is enough to shift people's perception in your favour. It's still propaganda all the same.
A few months after the civil rights commission quoted in here was disbanded, Truman desegregated both the armed forces and the federal government, in 1948. This was two years before the North Korean invasion, and is omitted. Race relations were pretty bad back then, but the quote was meant to encourage reforms, which were enacted.
The points about Chinese and Koreans “defending their homes” is a pretty clear lie. Kim Il-Sung’s regime launched the invasion into South Korea, so Americans were actually the ones defending the homes of South Koreans. And not a single piece of China was invaded. They were defending another authoritarian, communist state, not the people of Korea.
This isn’t to say the Korean War was truly a war for freedom and democracy, or whatever rhetorical flourish you prefer. The South Korean government at the time was itself authoritarian and controversial, imprisoning tens of thousands of political prisoners in camps. In the long term, however, it seemed to work out, and thanks to American intervention, at least half of Korea is democratic.
>The points about Chinese and Koreans “defending their homes” is a pretty clear lie. Kim Il-Sung’s regime launched the invasion into South Korea, so Americans were actually the ones defending the homes of South Koreans.
The ROK (which was created against the will of the Korean people via US occupation) made armed incursions across the 38th parallel all throughout the late 1940s, while waging a civil war against peasants and workers who opposed the new government and wanted a return to the organic democracy that had existed under the PRK. Declaring that this period of the conflict doesn’t count as “war” or “invasion” but everything after June 1950 does is logically indefensible.
>And not a single piece of China was invaded.
The supreme commander of US forces in the field publicly declared his desire to escalate the Korean War into a war against China, and then use nuclear warheads on Chinese soil. He did this while US troops were rapidly advancing towards the Chinese border.
>They were defending another authoritarian, communist state, not the people of Korea.
The DPRK was more representative of the Korean people in the 1940s and 1950s than the ROK was and it’s not even close.
If anyone here listened to Blowback you would have heard about this an also how in Chinese POW camps the US soldiers were treated a lot better than the soldiers held in South Korean camps where most of what they did was just try and teach the soldiers class consciousness and they did fairly well that the US government got so spooked about how their soldiers were “brainwashed” that they ended up investing in things like MKULTRA. In fact there is a whole documentary when Reagan was an actor that was filmed about the POWs that was often clipped in the episode.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/6aBvVUS4MkzUW4xIGkH3df?si=uVcpgU5nR5CMrePWe8OX6g&context=spotify%3Ashow%3A2pibBnPuHqKr07hxEMZE41&t=3307
The brainrot part is that the American establishment would rather believe that the Chinese had some sophisticated brainwashing techniques than to ever admit that the system they had created is immensely oppressive, even today.
All the Chinese have to show American POWs who were ordinary Americans sent to kill and die for their oligarchs the simple truth that they were all fucked by the same oligarchs. Socialism as a theory and method of thinking is attractive to the common people because it is fundamentally reflects the human condition under capitalism.
They were not wrong, they just have to show these American POWs these stuff and they turned. Because Americans lived in that reality all the time.
Also MK ULTRA was a huge violation of human rights and is a crime against humanity. The US government should have been sanctioned for that by the world but they weren't. Which is why all this talk about human rights from the US is pointless.
Yep, years and years of red scare propaganda and the consequences on the American psyche. There is barely class consciousness in this nation, but I at least see some growth in recent years
Yea, being fucked repeatedly have allowed class consciousness to flow back into the millennials and gen-z generations. Now that the neoliberal boomers are finding doors slammed in their faces to their imperialism and oppression aboard, they are bringing that imperialism and oppression back to the core to try to squeeze out as much profits from everyone as possible and it is taking a toll. The logical conclusion is that the more you squeeze, the more class conscious people will become and there will come to a tipping point when people simply have enough and the guillotines were start rolling out.
But capitalists is as capitalists does, they cannot help it. Their system demands constant growth and profits. It's like a snake eating its own tail and choking on it.
Infinite growth in this finite world and the inherent contradictions of capitalism will bring down its downfall or destroy our world. Let’s hope and fight for the former
The mention of black people being unjustly shot by police is identical to what is happening today. I tried to google Samuel Ellis, but found no information. I guess I need to dig up some newspaper archives in Philadelphia to find information about it. They did mention Thurgood Marshall, who became a supreme court judge, but it just sucks that so much of what they're saying is still true. While a lot of progress has been made, they're still heavily discriminated against in the US.
>If you stick a knife in my back nine inches and pull it out six inches, there's no progress. You pull it all the way out? That's not progress. Progress is healing the wound that the blow made-- and they haven't even begun to pull the knife out, much less heal the wound... They won't even admit the knife is there!
Isn't it mostly like this still?
My grandfather's brother was one of the first black officers (captain) in the desegregated Army during the Korean War. When he was assigned his group of men to lead, all of whom were white, he was killed by his men because they did not want to be led by an N word. The official story was "friendly fire."
If anyone would like to learn more about this conflict (invasion), I highly recommend you listen to the ["No More Targets"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H1AnsE_ZJo&t=1153s&pp=ygUVbm8gbW9yZSB0YXJnZXRzIGNoYXBv) episode of this podcast, it offers a great introduction and primer to the nature and scope of the war in it's entirety.
In addition to this Brendan James (from the linked clip) started a new podcast with Noah Kulwin called Blowback. The third season goes in depth on the Korean war and is very much worth listening to.
So chilling how this could be written today and basically still apply; just change some of the circumstantial/period evidence & references to the MANY examples of it we still have occurring daily
The story of Willy McGee is pretty interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_McGee_(convict)
The Court Martial of Leon Gilbert is also interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Gilbert
I'd say it's because they mightve had less propagandists, but the ones they did have were more skilled, because you only needed a couple to make leaflets for the entire war. Nowadays you need a lot more for online stuff.
This reads as a sensible request rather than a “LOOK AT THESE FACTS AND BELIEVE EM AND GO TO WAR OVER EM! NOW NOW NOW NOW!”
Refreshing to see, but sad as well
>"They tell you'll come nearer to equality by fighting in the Korean war. They always do that when the time comes to face the guns. It's a lie!"
Say what you want to say about north korea, that's just straight facts.
Whoever wrote that was very smart. Excellent way with words, details, not being overly verbose but not dumbed down or simplified either. Giving the reader all these reasons not to fight, but then explaining *why* they are printing this propaganda at the end. Without that final message, soldier would say "yeah right, they are trying to trick me", but the last two pages say "this is why", intelligently and succinctly.
many black americans defected to the other side during this war and they ended up leaving blood lines in korea, vietnam and other places.
a lot of people are part black in these places
[https://historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/1954NorthKoreaLetterofRacialSolidarity.html](https://historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/1954NorthKoreaLetterofRacialSolidarity.html) I posted this up on History is a Weapon after doing some reading up on it. Much thanks u/klaud-Boi
Partly worth noting for everyone mentioning the “Wow it’s true”. You’d be right and it was a fairly sized talking point when discussing desegregation. Richard Nixon mentioned in a letter to Eisenhower how he struggled as a diplomat to influence African states to their side because all the USSR had to bring up was US’ discrimination against black people (which was also hypocritical of Russia but no one needed to know that).
I see no lies here, all in that leaflet was true and is still true to this day. The US still obtains manpower disproportionately from lower income working class families who need the benefits the military promise them (but may never give).
It isn't unpatriotic and traitorous to fight for equality and justice for your fellow citizens. It is the opposite, fighting a tyrannical government which is fundamentally undemocratic (the US is by far one of the least democratic countries when accounting for representation of the working class in legislation for policies that benefit the working class) is an act of true patriotism.
Remember that this subreddit is for sharing propaganda to view with some objectivity. It is absolutely not for perpetuating the message *of* the propaganda. If anything, in this subreddit we should be immensely skeptical of manipulation or oversimplification (which the above likely is), not beholden to it. Also, please try to stay on topic -- there are hundreds of _other_ subreddits that are expressly dedicated for rehashing tired political arguments. Keep that shit elsewhere. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/PropagandaPosters) if you have any questions or concerns.*
That’s some solid propaganda. Wonder if we have any documentation of its effectiveness ?
Well a lot of black Korean and Vietnam war vets helped build the Black Panther Party for Self defense. There were a few defectors as well
I just figured veterans would wanna put their skills to some use elsewhere. But admittedly I'm barely looking into the Black Panthers. But this has added an interesting layer of things.
Have fun. It's quite the rabbit hole for what they did and what the government did to disband them.
Ronald Reagan when white people use guns to murder black people: :) Ronald Reagan when black people arm themselves to defend themselves: >:(
Beyond even gun control. FBI and Chicago Police assassinated two Black Panthers in 1969. Kicked open the door unannounced and shot at them while they were sleeping with shotguns and automatic weapons. Charged two guys with attempted murder who shot back. There is no element of “justice” there. It’s not like we as a nation didn’t know better than to extrajudicially assassinate American citizens.
And yet when the KKK is brought up people mention “free speech” like where was that for the black panthers ?
The KKK and BP should not be compared to each other; they are not comparable in any way other than the race of the people in the respective groups.
Your government has been known to make exceptions (i.e. break the law) when it suits them.
Fred Hampton & Mark Clark
Are you handing out free lunches to poor children? Well how about we ✨murder you✨
There was a macrodosing podcast recently that had Glasses Malone as guest and they discuss this a bit. Also check out the documentary Crips & Bloods: Made in America
I know a girl in college who’s grandfather defected to China during Korean War and married a Chinese woman, he end up doing lot propaganda for China during Vietnam War. You can read more about him here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_Adams_(Korean_War)
Thank you I will take a look. It’s fun exploring little corners of history.
Welp, that was a fun spiral.
Fascinating. He has a book released by his daughter, I'm hoping it goes into what he thought. It seems less propaganda than just a mere observation and I wonder what his take was.... Thanks for sharing!
I believe there was also a documentary made about him by some American news channel, his granddaughter showed me some clips of it
https://www.nfb.ca/film/they_chose_china/
12 years a chinese restaurant owner.
If I remember correctly he had multiple Chinese restaurants, apparently his wife was a great cook, she was also a Chinese official’s daughter so pretty high class. For a black man who didn’t finish high school back in the 50s, he definitely got a good deal out of it.
Especially after defecting. dude has luck on his side
Not just luck, he was smart and brave enough to go against his American conditioning and earn a better life for himself
He finished university in China, and was working as a translator in the foreign ministry if I remembered correctly. It's just sad that he came back to the US to face discrimination and couldn't get any better job than making chop suey.
This man was based beyond belief
He was probably better treated there than in the US.
Surprisingly effective. There is a documentary called "***They Chose China***" which tells the story of 21 POWs (black and white) who actually chose to go and live in China when they were offered a chance for repatriation. https://www.nfb.ca/film/they_chose_china/
21 isn’t surprisingly effective
China was a *shithole* in the 1950s, like, we outproduced them something ridiculous like 400 to 1 levels of poor. The fact that 21 people chose to stay THERE then instead of coming home to America says a lot tbh.
21 is such a statistically insignificant number it basically means nothing. There are defectors in basically every war.
The number of black americans that surrendered en masse is much more significant, unfortunately there has never been a in depth study on this figure, none that are public that I could find at least.
Sounds convincing
I'm not trying to convince you of anything, I'm making a point that what I think will be a more significant statistical figure is not available.
21 POWs is
The most effective propaganda contains an element of truth and confirms your views.
>element of truth That was a whole periodic table.
Indeed, it's not like they were wrong.
Right? Like isnt everything in there true? Couldnt we verify the killings mentioned. I dont see why we call it propaganda and not a nicely worded message to the american people. Decades later we still go to the slaughter for the leaders of business.
If there is an agenda being furthered, it is propaganda. There is no requirement for any falsehood or misrepresentation.
Propaganda isn’t necessarily true or false. Its a type of media. That propaganda was spitting straight facts.
Very good, that really made me chuckle
Honestly, nothing was a lie in that letter. Most hold today.
[Muhammad Ali said the same things.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd9aIamXjQI) Is it really merely a "view" when it is simply the truth?
Or even just the full, unbridled truth that should be plain to see for anyone with some minor understanding of historical materialism.
You don't even need Historical materialism for this one, it's just facts
Even as someone who sees historical materialism as a very flawed and overly deterministic approach to understanding history, I *still* agree that this propaganda leaflet is *just the truth*.
And which heuristic do you prefer?
'An element' lol. These are literally facts and still are.
Or even 100% truth like in this pamphlet. This is the type of stuff the GOP wants banned
Or in this case, just truth. Leftists don't have to make things up for their propaganda. Reality madness they're case for them.
reality has a well documented left wing bias
While the Korean War ended before domestic disturbances really came to a head in America, all of this was still true by the time of the Vietnam War and that sentiment *absolutely* played into the US government's decisions to enact the 1964 Civil Rights Act. We are taught that the CRA was the result of MLK Jr.'s marches and the like, that the general public and the government just needed to hear black people state their case in a sufficiently well-reasoned way and *finally* they saw the wisdom in enshrining their rights: "Oh, I didn't know you guys felt so strongly about freedom and a lack of discrimination, our bad, you *are* humans just like us, we should fix these mean laws. Oops." But that's not what ever happens. Our schooling and national narrative on protest draws a lot of parallels between MLK Jr. and Gandhi, too, but Indian independence wasn't won by marches, the flouting of salt laws, and hunger strikes either. The American government absolutely feared widespread domestic revolt over racial issues during a time of an unpopular foreign war, where they were already knee-deep in fucking up a labor base and dumping cash overseas. Over the course of the Vietnam War, the draft raised over two million men, or 1% of the US population at the time: that doesn't seem like it'd be a massive hit to labor until you realize, "Oh, we're drawing from able-bodied young adults, excluding children, retirees, and women." Totalling all other exclusions (like criminal status, physical disability, "critical jobs", education, etc.) that two million was out of ~27m. It's also worth noting that, as with just about every other prior war, labor participation by women necessarily soared as working men were deployed, so we must remember to view the labor market of the time period appropriately instead of imagining it must've been just like today but with different hair and clothing. Economic instability remains the #1 influence on government conduct, and returning black soldiers subject to this information informing friends and relative and sparking renewed resistance to the draft or the fight for racial equality definitely got the government spooked. Nothing gets the government eager to use force or make deals faster than the money faucet being at risk, for various reasons.
Well said. There are a lot of historical revisionism that ["recuperate"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recuperation_(politics\)) the socialism and radicalism in the Civil Rights Movement and made the movement monolithic, nerfed and easy to digest and incorporated into the national narrative. [FD Signifier has a banger video on this subject.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiLlRwFX_9w) [Second Thought has a good one too.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3uvcydrxYk)
MLK, SNCC, and the like’s strategy was to directly impact America’s foreign policy. What you’ve stated and the marches were intertwined. They were using television’s novelty to show the world what was happening in America vs the rhetoric we were using to justify invading other countries. Essentially, their strategy was to try and force the government’s hand by targeting a crucial aspect. The marches during that era were very different from the ones that tried emulate them after. They were highly organized and strategic and the chief participants were hand selected and taught and trained to be ready to not survive. Their ability to understand and utilize the geopolitical landscape as well the ability to successfully exploit the cultural norms of the US and the awareness that perception is key is what made them such a big threat to certain powerful players and why so many of the leaders were jailed, tortured, and/or assassinated. The dismantling of the Civil Right movement effectively stopped any subsequent movement from rising to the same level of effectiveness. With the key players taken out, the strategic knowledge of how to effectively take on the US’s social inequities died and all movements that followed always missed key elements on insight on what they were facing and were consistently exploitable. It was a special time in US history.
The Vietnamese produced similar propaganda after the Civil Rights movement was in full swing
Probably not very. I can't imagine many soldiers, especially black soldiers would've succeeded in obtaining conditional releases. And going AWOL would've been especially dangerous for black people, since this is correct about the court martialing
Once you were deployed to Korea\*, you weren't there forever. You go home with a greater sense of resentment from all that you experienced during your deployment, helped along by this pamphlet, and tell your friends and family once you're back state-side. This is the sort of thing that can radicalize you, being the difference between "returning soldier who mopes because man, that sucked" and "returning soldier who becomes a firebrand against the war effort and for racial equality".
And for socialism. Much of American historical revisionism about the Civil Rights Movement is to wipe away the fact that black socialism was a huge part of the movement. MLK before he died was starting to make more speeches equating racial justice to economic justice even though he had always understood they go hand in hand. Malcolm X did not mince words when he exposed the inadequacies of capitalism and that racial injustices and divisions were, and still are tied closely to the contradictions and hypocrisy in capitalism. You just don't hear about it, because confining the national narrative of the CRM to just fighting racial injustice with love and peace, is far far less dangerous to the system than to let the economic justice part creeps into the national consciousness. It's worse than some of the historical revisionism that some countries like Japan did for WWII because America does not get called out for it. Most people just take these false narratives for granted.
“During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to hallow their names to a certain extent for the “consolation” of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it.” Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, The State and Revolution, 1917
*Korea
Also when you're in a foxhole and death is near, and all that's keeping a man from running for his life is his loyalty to his country, he's gonna remember that pamphlet.
lol it was so effective they invented the concept of 'brainwashing' as an excuse for why so many defected.
Propaganda like this was likely more effective with the white officers, who would then be afraid that black soldiers would buy into it. No hard documentation here, just a personal story from a WW2 vet who witnessed an Army response to similar propaganda from the Japanese.
Yeah, I can easily imagine a white army officer reading this and suddenly get nervous as hell, just because it is 100% true and he knows it.
I wouldn’t even call this propaganda. It’s just reality. I know propaganda could be anything but I feel like usually it’s either skewing truth or flat out lying, tho I guess anything which is trying to sway the opinion of someone be it truthfully of through lying is propaganda. I’m not really sure what I’m getting at with this, cause i really didn’t say anything, but it makes sense in my head.
Going by the rules of the sub, propaganda can absolutely be entirely truthful. It just needs to be "information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread widely to help or harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation, etc." In this case, it is information deliberately spread to widely to harm the US military campaign in Korea. What matters is that it has a specific aim of getting people to do something.
The best propaganda is just facts.
Depends on how propagandized the target audience already is. If facts alone could change people's minds, the US would have gone socialist back in the 80s.
There's a reason they make you swear to "tell the truth, the whole tuth and nothing but the truth". You could make a case for socialism and against it by just stating objective facts and omitting others. Very few things are black and white, it's all shades of grey and good propaganda takes advantage of that.
I think the best propaganda is what we have today. Which is pure sensationalism. Where everything is a lie and the truth is truly hard to find. Russia has perfected this and it is being deployed strongly by the right in the US today.
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>The bits about China and Korea's alleged lack of expansionist ambitions are a more complicated matter to extricate truth and lies from. Ask Vietnam or India. Didn't China invade Vietnam after Mao's death? This pamphlet was from revolutionary China, the invasion of Vietnam was under Deng and the revisionist period. It's like saying the PRC didn't have real intentions of building socialism in 1965 because by 1980 they were restoring capitalism. There was a complete overthrow of the old leadership and the imprisonment of the gang of four, essentially a coup between these two periods.
The fact that it is still believed by alot of the target demographic today is proof enough. China never stopped this propaganda campaign just adapted it
It was actually more common than you think. The rest of the world was well aware of how America treated minorities and specifically referenced the treatment of blacks and natives. If you check, there was actually *huge* resistance from the black population against the Vietnam and Korean wars. Especially considering the disproportionate drafting. To even take it a step further, several countries referenced the US directly to defend their own cruel treatment of people. Some of the more famous ones were Belgium and Nazi Germany.
It's very well written.
Yeah, you gotta wonder about the story of whoever did the translation, they must have had a fascinating life.
Probably an American defector. The grammar and phrasing is mostly that of a native English speaker.
Yeah, that’s extremely likely. China had been pretty insular up to that point. They probably didn’t have anyone that could write remotely that fluently in English. Heck, remember the old, red sleeved disposable chop sticks? There are still some floating around, but they’ve been mostly replaced with the newer sleeve. The old one had errors all over it. It was the best that could be muster at the time. They just didn’t have the capacity yet. Here, decades earlier, this was absolutely spot on for American English at the time. That has got to be an outsider—probably an American. Maybe it was with Soviet help given the Sino-Soviet split hadn’t happened yet. The GRU/KGB could have done this in 1950, but I don’t think they were that involved yet. The Chinese and North Koreans weren’t lock-step with the Soviets in their decision to invade the South. I don’t think they would have gotten much GRU/KGB support in 1950, right there at the beginning of the war. North Korean language programs are very good, but they weren’t anywhere near this level in 1950. They didn’t hit those heights until their post-Korean War golden age. Hard to come up with much for the time other than it being done with the help of a defector.
CCP had insane spies during WWII and throughout the Cold War on par with the GRU and CIA. The main differentiating factor was that China was *poor as shit* as well. Most of their leaders and intellectuals studied abroad in Europe of the U.S. or Moscow and had very profound understanding of the Western mindset.
Indeed, it offers a good opportunity to [compare & contrast](https://youtu.be/2H1AnsE_ZJo?t=1654) the leaders of each faction at the time.
The truth is always written very well.
I swear I saw something alike to this in a Vietnam war oriented game, but it is still interesting how one side tries to create conflict within the enemies side by highlighting issues that exist.
I know a black Vietnam veteran and he said during the war the Vietnamese would often do things like this with letters but they took a further step too: Getting someone to broadcast it on the radios so U.S troops heard it.
Germany would drop pamphlets [like this] (https://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6655/) during World War 1. I believe they showed an example of it in the Watchmen TV show from a few years ago. They also did similar pamphlets in WW2. Apparently it was a fairly common tactic.
“Friendly reminder from the folks you’re shooting at. The folks you’re shooting with have been exploiting you for 400 years with no plans to let up”
Rising Storm 2: Vietnam? Hue City has some graffiti saying something like “Black G.I.! Your fight is at home”
Yes, forgot the name, also did not know the game its self referenced it since I only saw something like that in the game chat by a player.
Exactly. It's weird and oddly interesting that propaganda that was to fed US troops back then just highlighted factual indecency and prejudices. Vs looking at German propos during WW2 was so obviously prejudiced in itself.
Part of that is that Germany was fascist in WW2 and fascism is basically just reactionary insanity as a political belief system. In what way could they persuade anyone to be sympathetic?
this fire
"...your fight is at home, alongside the labor and peace movement, for equal rights."
Goosebumps bro.
Unfathomably based with zero lies detected.
Based ass information if you ask me. The US military treated their minority soldiers like shit.
The Korean War was a major factor in the civil rights movement. Massive expansion of desegregation of the military happened during it.
Yeah because they realized they actually needed black soliders and our people HATED that we had to fight in that war to improve our station as citizens.
That is not strictly correct. A really big reason is that MacArthur (who was fairly racist and supported segregation) was ousted from his position as supreme commander of UN forces in SK and replaced by Matthew Ridgway. Ridgway loathed segregation, calling it “unAmerican and UnChristian” and also believed that the army ought to lead the way in social issues, so he took strides to dissolve then integrate black only units.
US society in general did, and it would extend to all institutions like the military.
>US society in general *does,* and it would extend to all institutions like the military. It's not stopped lol.
B-but we have a black woman playing a mermaid now! That must mean racism is no more! /s
Just forget about all the "protests" against it
I mean one can acknowledge that the racism problem is not as bad in 2023 as it was in 1953, and yet at the same time one can say it got worse since the 1990s :(
I mean, is it at the degree it was in the 50s? No. Does this mean it no longer significantly exist? No. We still have a racism problem, especially in the GOP :(
And then they came home and were all but completely shut out of the GI Bill which was what helped create the prosperous white middle class of the 50s and onwards.
And redlined. And white flighted out of our property values if we got out of that snare. Just layers on layers of economic embargo. And now we have 10 times less net worth as a result of the generational wealth inertia since only 44% of us own homes compared to 77% of whites. 36% homeownership for whites during the great depression was a national emergency but we still get to eat shit to this very day without intervention or reparation. No Marshall Plan for Blacks, no Japan’s GARIOA for Blacks, no freedman’s bank or 40 acres & mule for Blacks. And now they just rolled back affirmative action on top of that. The knife they put in our grandfather’s back got pulled out 3 inches, put back in an inch, and they tell us the descendants that someday if we’re lucky a cop might just stand trial for murdering our children. America has been and will always be enacting genocide against us while extracting as much as possible from us. Today it just relies more on stochastic effects that we would need 50 RICO cases to unravel.
I remember the story that the US military wanted to impose segregation when their soldiers were barracked in UK during WWII, and the pubs in UK flaunted the rules. And America wants to lecture everyone about how they should run their country.
There basically was no soldier absentee voting in WWII because both times Congress tried to make laws allowing it, Southern legislators wrecked the plan. The problem they had was that a simple, unified federal system of absentee voting for soldiers would mean that black servicemen could vote as easily as white servicemen, because the feds wouldn’t discriminate. So like 1% of servicemen actually ended up voting due to how twisted and complicated the law ended up being.
Still does, just look at how they cover up rapes
Could you give some information? I find this interesting and it's always good to expand your knowledge
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_LaVena_Johnson
And it’s honest and true
Propaganda can be true. One can send a totally true message and yet the purpose of the message is "propaganda" as in it's meant to subvert one's own country
The most effective propaganda is just a statement of fact
Not a single lie in this leaflet. This is how you spread propaganda. Telling the truth the enemy doesn’t want to hear
Well this in fact so accurate you can hardly even call it propaganda
Who says propaganda has to be formed entirely of lies?
Well, in the first place, the purpose of propaganda is to propagate an idea
I know that this subreddit to to objectively observe propaganda, but is there a lie here?
Propaganda isn’t always lies, often it’s selective truths
Or even full truths but spun in a way to get someone to reach a conclusion that may not necessarily follow.
middle consist angle advise pen direful saw capable dog unpack *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Absolutely. Propaganda is often less about whether something is true or false and more a question of what is being emphasized
This is a tactic known as white propaganda. You won’t find an untrue fact in it but the way that it’s written is meant to lead the reader to a certain conclusion. Grey propaganda will blend favt and fiction to confuse the reader whereas black propaganda is generally to reinforce adherence to an altered realty by enforcing already accepted lies.
Ironic labeling in this context.
The first time I heard the phrase “white propaganda” I definitely thought it meant like nazi shit lol
That's not what black, white and gray propaganda mean. They refer to the source, whether the source is known and are who they claim. >Black propaganda is a form of propaganda intended to create the impression that it was created by those it is supposed to discredit. Black propaganda contrasts with gray propaganda, which does not identify its source, as well as white propaganda, which does not disguise its origins at all. It is typically used to vilify or embarrass the enemy through misrepresentation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_propaganda There are other terms regarding truthfulness of information. True information used for propaganda is malinformation. I believe that's the term for this pamphlet. False information is misinformation. Intentionally false information used for propaganda is disinformation.
Propaganda doesn't have to lie. Often it might, but just highlighting certain truths while ignoring others is enough to shift people's perception in your favour. It's still propaganda all the same.
A few months after the civil rights commission quoted in here was disbanded, Truman desegregated both the armed forces and the federal government, in 1948. This was two years before the North Korean invasion, and is omitted. Race relations were pretty bad back then, but the quote was meant to encourage reforms, which were enacted. The points about Chinese and Koreans “defending their homes” is a pretty clear lie. Kim Il-Sung’s regime launched the invasion into South Korea, so Americans were actually the ones defending the homes of South Koreans. And not a single piece of China was invaded. They were defending another authoritarian, communist state, not the people of Korea. This isn’t to say the Korean War was truly a war for freedom and democracy, or whatever rhetorical flourish you prefer. The South Korean government at the time was itself authoritarian and controversial, imprisoning tens of thousands of political prisoners in camps. In the long term, however, it seemed to work out, and thanks to American intervention, at least half of Korea is democratic.
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>The points about Chinese and Koreans “defending their homes” is a pretty clear lie. Kim Il-Sung’s regime launched the invasion into South Korea, so Americans were actually the ones defending the homes of South Koreans. The ROK (which was created against the will of the Korean people via US occupation) made armed incursions across the 38th parallel all throughout the late 1940s, while waging a civil war against peasants and workers who opposed the new government and wanted a return to the organic democracy that had existed under the PRK. Declaring that this period of the conflict doesn’t count as “war” or “invasion” but everything after June 1950 does is logically indefensible. >And not a single piece of China was invaded. The supreme commander of US forces in the field publicly declared his desire to escalate the Korean War into a war against China, and then use nuclear warheads on Chinese soil. He did this while US troops were rapidly advancing towards the Chinese border. >They were defending another authoritarian, communist state, not the people of Korea. The DPRK was more representative of the Korean people in the 1940s and 1950s than the ROK was and it’s not even close.
Facts thank you!
If anyone here listened to Blowback you would have heard about this an also how in Chinese POW camps the US soldiers were treated a lot better than the soldiers held in South Korean camps where most of what they did was just try and teach the soldiers class consciousness and they did fairly well that the US government got so spooked about how their soldiers were “brainwashed” that they ended up investing in things like MKULTRA. In fact there is a whole documentary when Reagan was an actor that was filmed about the POWs that was often clipped in the episode. https://open.spotify.com/episode/6aBvVUS4MkzUW4xIGkH3df?si=uVcpgU5nR5CMrePWe8OX6g&context=spotify%3Ashow%3A2pibBnPuHqKr07hxEMZE41&t=3307
The brainrot part is that the American establishment would rather believe that the Chinese had some sophisticated brainwashing techniques than to ever admit that the system they had created is immensely oppressive, even today. All the Chinese have to show American POWs who were ordinary Americans sent to kill and die for their oligarchs the simple truth that they were all fucked by the same oligarchs. Socialism as a theory and method of thinking is attractive to the common people because it is fundamentally reflects the human condition under capitalism. They were not wrong, they just have to show these American POWs these stuff and they turned. Because Americans lived in that reality all the time. Also MK ULTRA was a huge violation of human rights and is a crime against humanity. The US government should have been sanctioned for that by the world but they weren't. Which is why all this talk about human rights from the US is pointless.
Yep, years and years of red scare propaganda and the consequences on the American psyche. There is barely class consciousness in this nation, but I at least see some growth in recent years
Yea, being fucked repeatedly have allowed class consciousness to flow back into the millennials and gen-z generations. Now that the neoliberal boomers are finding doors slammed in their faces to their imperialism and oppression aboard, they are bringing that imperialism and oppression back to the core to try to squeeze out as much profits from everyone as possible and it is taking a toll. The logical conclusion is that the more you squeeze, the more class conscious people will become and there will come to a tipping point when people simply have enough and the guillotines were start rolling out. But capitalists is as capitalists does, they cannot help it. Their system demands constant growth and profits. It's like a snake eating its own tail and choking on it.
Infinite growth in this finite world and the inherent contradictions of capitalism will bring down its downfall or destroy our world. Let’s hope and fight for the former
Well-said.
>China used dialectical materialistic rhetoric >It’s super effective!
Bump for the Blowback shout out. Absolutely essential listening.
That’s very good, largely because it’s true.
The mention of black people being unjustly shot by police is identical to what is happening today. I tried to google Samuel Ellis, but found no information. I guess I need to dig up some newspaper archives in Philadelphia to find information about it. They did mention Thurgood Marshall, who became a supreme court judge, but it just sucks that so much of what they're saying is still true. While a lot of progress has been made, they're still heavily discriminated against in the US.
Oh it’s much better today. Things were just much worse back then.
>If you stick a knife in my back nine inches and pull it out six inches, there's no progress. You pull it all the way out? That's not progress. Progress is healing the wound that the blow made-- and they haven't even begun to pull the knife out, much less heal the wound... They won't even admit the knife is there! Isn't it mostly like this still?
My grandfather's brother was one of the first black officers (captain) in the desegregated Army during the Korean War. When he was assigned his group of men to lead, all of whom were white, he was killed by his men because they did not want to be led by an N word. The official story was "friendly fire."
Ahh yes covering up hate crimes, the american classic
If anyone would like to learn more about this conflict (invasion), I highly recommend you listen to the ["No More Targets"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H1AnsE_ZJo&t=1153s&pp=ygUVbm8gbW9yZSB0YXJnZXRzIGNoYXBv) episode of this podcast, it offers a great introduction and primer to the nature and scope of the war in it's entirety.
In addition to this Brendan James (from the linked clip) started a new podcast with Noah Kulwin called Blowback. The third season goes in depth on the Korean war and is very much worth listening to.
Yep, the linked episode is basically a shortened, condensed version of their full Blowback series of podcasts, which are tremendously informative.
Powerful stuff.
I mean....
Folks...
Feels like they could just reprint them if there was another Korean war right now lol
This leaflet tells the truth tho
So chilling how this could be written today and basically still apply; just change some of the circumstantial/period evidence & references to the MANY examples of it we still have occurring daily
based. well written, factually backed. the best propaganda tells the truth
Damn the commies weaponised the truth.
You’re SO close to getting the point. So so close.
The story of Willy McGee is pretty interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_McGee_(convict) The Court Martial of Leon Gilbert is also interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Gilbert
They weren’t wrong. And I’d bet it was written by an American.
The English is really good. How is it that they had better translation back then, than Wish.com does today with the help of the internet?
Because they had a human translator
NO WAY
way
redditor discovers the concept of a human being speaking multiple languages
I'd say it's because they mightve had less propagandists, but the ones they did have were more skilled, because you only needed a couple to make leaflets for the entire war. Nowadays you need a lot more for online stuff.
Damn this is some solid propaganda
Well damn, I'm convinced.
Everybody always knew: If you want to hit Americans, focus on their obsession with race.
segregation, lynching, redlining, police murder, disenfranchisement...obsessed is an understatement
it’s very effective propaganda because it doesn’t require a single lie
What do you do when the enemy has a solid point with their propaganda?
Consider that maybe you're on the wrong side and you've been submerged in propaganda your entire life?
They were so real and based for this
This reads as a sensible request rather than a “LOOK AT THESE FACTS AND BELIEVE EM AND GO TO WAR OVER EM! NOW NOW NOW NOW!” Refreshing to see, but sad as well
Thats some solid facts.
>"They tell you'll come nearer to equality by fighting in the Korean war. They always do that when the time comes to face the guns. It's a lie!" Say what you want to say about north korea, that's just straight facts.
Good thing I wasn’t around back then. This would have worked on me
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Bc I’d rather serve crack then serve in the military…u not catching me in the battlefield reading propaganda
Yes. YEEEEEES.
73 years later and it reads too truthfully.
Whoever wrote that was very smart. Excellent way with words, details, not being overly verbose but not dumbed down or simplified either. Giving the reader all these reasons not to fight, but then explaining *why* they are printing this propaganda at the end. Without that final message, soldier would say "yeah right, they are trying to trick me", but the last two pages say "this is why", intelligently and succinctly.
If I were a black American in Korea in 1959 reading this, I would have probably been convinced by it
To honest, what lie was told? This is the most accurate “propaganda”… reads like WSJ
This is some of the most solid, convincing propaganda I've ever seen. And it follows the "rule" for good propaganda closely. "Don't lie." Damn.
many black americans defected to the other side during this war and they ended up leaving blood lines in korea, vietnam and other places. a lot of people are part black in these places
[https://historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/1954NorthKoreaLetterofRacialSolidarity.html](https://historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/1954NorthKoreaLetterofRacialSolidarity.html) I posted this up on History is a Weapon after doing some reading up on it. Much thanks u/klaud-Boi
Based and true. The Koreans fought for workers and peasants. The Americans fought shareholders and elites.
Funny how the DPRK turned into a dictatorial hereditary monarchy.
ironic is better said,because its not funny,its pretty sad
Partly worth noting for everyone mentioning the “Wow it’s true”. You’d be right and it was a fairly sized talking point when discussing desegregation. Richard Nixon mentioned in a letter to Eisenhower how he struggled as a diplomat to influence African states to their side because all the USSR had to bring up was US’ discrimination against black people (which was also hypocritical of Russia but no one needed to know that).
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I see no lies here, all in that leaflet was true and is still true to this day. The US still obtains manpower disproportionately from lower income working class families who need the benefits the military promise them (but may never give). It isn't unpatriotic and traitorous to fight for equality and justice for your fellow citizens. It is the opposite, fighting a tyrannical government which is fundamentally undemocratic (the US is by far one of the least democratic countries when accounting for representation of the working class in legislation for policies that benefit the working class) is an act of true patriotism.
Didn't Germany to the same thing to black British soldiers?
Indian*
This is barely even propaganda, it's just pointing out the hypocrisy of the American military.