All language subtitles for Propagan

(soft orchestral music)

- «Astronaut» It's beautiful
Mike, it really is.

(explosion)

(dramatic orchestral music)

- Propaganda is
political brainwashing.

- It's a calculated
attack on the complexity

of other people's minds.

- Behold his mighty hands.

- It's the invisible hand.

It's getting you to submit
without realizing consciously

that you're submitting.

- What if the media is
the enemy of the people.

(dramatic orchestral music)

- Wherever there is power,
there is propaganda.

- If we grow up only
surrounded by propaganda,

then how do we
know what is truth?

- In my line of work you've
gotta keep repeating things

over and over and over again,

for the truth to sink in.

- We can take back control
of 350 million pounds.

350 million pounds.

- Propaganda is not
going to die out.

Propaganda is essential
for the modern state.

- How can we protect democracy

from people tampering
with the truth?

- The truth about
Negroes and foreigners.

- In the wrong hands,

the power of art is
a dangerous thing.

(upbeat jazz music)

(muffled speaking)

- «Narrator» We allow ourselves

to be manipulated by fictions,

as though they were
uncontestable truths,

as if we cannot distinguish
between the two.

- «Man» Okay, can you
go back and reshoot it.

I think we have to get it again.

- «Narrator» We have
always been captivated

by fairy tales and fantasies,

and the imagery that
accompanies them.

But how is it possible
that our powers of reason

have so often been
overtaken by the irrational?

- If we look back at the
history of humankind,

language is a medium

that provided humans

with a new kind of power.

The power of grasping

the symbolic layer of reality.

If we look back at the history
of magic, art, religion,

they all share the same roots.

(eerie electronic music)

- This is one of
the hand stencils

that El Castillo
Cave is famous for,

and the hand stencil
is probably the first

symbolic piece of art we find,

representing something
in the real world.

This is done with a
great deal of care.

The location is
deliberately chosen.

This is not just
art for art's sake,

this is meaningful art.

To know that they are
the hands neanderthal,

that 65,000 years ago,

the neanderthal stood
there and made this symbol,

it's mind-blowing.

This is the origin
of symbolic culture,

it's the origin of
art if you like,

and that plays a really
important role in propaganda.

symbolic communication lies
at the heart of propaganda.

And there are maybe 40 of these
hand stencils in this area.

So when we see large
concentrations of art like this,

maybe it was
designed to be viewed

by a large number of people,

by gatherings of individuals,

perhaps performing
some kind of ritual.

This is public art if you like.

- Great propaganda exploits
your need to believe something,

your need for belief,

and your craving
or your appetite

for a magical form
of empowerment.

We will at this point
lose our relative

insignificance in the universe,

and we'll be master of
the universe together.

- The shaman takes you
into the dark cave,

where you can't see very well
and things are flickering,

and pictures of the animal
spirits are on the walls.

The caves might be seen
as a rather elaborate way

of convincing people of
the power of the shaman.

That's propaganda.

- «Narrator» The
power of the image

has been with us
from the beginning.

Is that why we are so easily
seduced by propaganda?

And coerced into adopting
opinions that are not our own?

- You are fake news.

- «Narrator» Today we are
bombarded with loaded images,

and messages, like never before.

They scream out to us

from our own computers,
and cell phones,

as if the dystopian
fiction of George Orwell

has become our daily reality.

So how can we defend ourselves

against the inanities
of politics?

Of religion?

Of demagogues?

Of rabble-rousing leaders
who feed us false hopes,

deception, and hate?

(in foreign language)

When the very concept of
truth is being attacked,

when knowledge is debased,
and ignorance lauded,

when the rage within every one
of us is at a boiling point,

we need to stop and ask
ourselves how we got here.

This film is a cautionary tale,

and a call to action,

at a precarious
moment in our history.

- We can be manipulated,
we can be influenced.

Information is a
really powerful thing.

I'm Craig Silverman, I'm the
media editor for Buzzfeed News.

Our office in Toronto
specializes in

investigating
media manipulation,

digital deception, fake
news, online misinformation.

- «Interviewer» Let me ask you,

how did you come up with
the term, fake news?

- For me, my first encounter

with what I came
to call, fake news,

happened in the late
summer or the fall of 2014.

I kept coming across stories

that were just
completely 100% false,

but they looked like
they were published

on a news website.

One of the things that we
exposed during the 2016 election

was that there were a group
of young men and teenagers,

in the former Yugoslav
Republic of Macedonia,

who were launching Trump sites.

They had more than
150 that we found,

and they were publishing
a lot of stories

that were incredibly misleading,

and many that were
also 100% false.

And one of the
reasons for that is,

you could make a lot
of money from them.

Some of the fake
stories that we saw

during the election
that did well,

were a story claiming that
the Pope had endorsed Trump,

a story claiming
that Hilary Clinton

had approved a sale
of weapons to ISIS.

They were everywhere.

- Storytelling is
a powerful tool

to move people,

it's a powerful tool
to engage people.

People want to
believe in stories.

Storytelling is embedded in
the history of propaganda.

Good propaganda is a good
story, it's a good narrative.

There is an enemy,

there is a hero.

And this is how propaganda
worked through the centuries.

Taking some specific symbols,

and providing those symbols
with supernatural power.

- The use of
propaganda to depict

a cult of personality,

we can go right back
to Alexander the Great.

Alexander the Great was
one of the first leaders

to recognize the importance
of the way in which

his presence should
be symbolized.

- There's a case to
be made for him being

one of the greatest
propagandists ever.

He became a god.

That's the point,

and I think he did
that consciously.

He was the first person
to have to wrestle

with the problem of
having a vast empire,

and how do you keep
people believing in you?

You can't be
everywhere at one time,

so he and his people
came up with the idea,

well if Alexander
can't be there,

statues of Alexander
can be there.

Coins with Alexander's
head on them

can go to the ends of the world,

and they will carry
the Alexander message.

Believe in me and
everything's gonna be fine.

- Propaganda wants
to be everywhere.

It is only propaganda
when it is part

of a larger endeavor,

of constructing, of
engineering reality.

When we don't think
it's propaganda,

it works the best as propaganda.

- «Narrator» Arguably
the most effective

propagandist in history,
has been the church.

Could I ask you about the
origin of the word, propaganda?

- The word, propaganda,
as we use it in English,

does derive from a Latin term,

and the sense of the original
Latin term, is to plant.

The planting of ideas,

it's used in the Catholic church

as a way of describing the
process of Evangelization.

You plant, or you
seed, the faith.

- At the beginning
of the 16th century,

there were maybe 200
printing presses in Europe,

and these would turn out
to be the heavy artillery

of the propaganda war that
was about to break out.

Martin Luther, and the
people who worked with him,

in the reformation,

had a very clear idea of the
power of the printing press.

They produced enormous
amounts of stuff.

The first bestseller was one
of Martin Luther's tracts

about iniquitous
seller indulgences.

And he had the idea to use

the services of
really good artists,

who did woodcuts, that would
go along with his sermons,

railing against the
Catholic establishment.

- But then we have first
of all, various popes,

trying to counter the
propaganda of Protestantism.

- They decided to
go right through

the whole means of communication
of the Catholic church,

and make it more accessible
to the ordinary person.

And that went from
painting, sculpture,

architecture, music,

right across the whole
spectrum of the arts,

and gave rise to

the glory that is the baroque.

(dramatic orchestral music)

At the heart of any
propaganda campaign,

is an emotional
appeal of some kind,

some kind of emotional appeal.

The central baroque idea
of manipulating the senses,

is playing to the heart,
rather than to the mind.

and I'm probably best
known as the creator

of the famous, or infamous 1968

red and black Che Guevara
poster titled, "Viva Che."

I was working as a barman
in a pub in Kilkee,

and in walks Che Guevara.

And of course, being a barman,

you learn to talk to people.

It was one of my gifts.

So he came over near the bar,

and I said, what
brings you here?

And he looked at me
kind of startled,

and I said, "you're Che,"
and he said, "yeah."

He said he was in a
stopover fog bound,

for two days I think
in Shannon Airport.

It left an enormous impression,

because here was somebody
I admired hugely.

It was like meeting
Martin Luther King.

This was a man I looked
at and thought, my God,

the is the real hero
of the revolution.

I did many, many
versions of the Che,

before I came to
the final version,

and here's a couple of them.

As you can see they're
over-complicated.

I needed to simplify so
I started simplifying.

These are not in sequence.

You can see what I'm up to.

This was one I was going to
do as a poster, and didn't,

because that's what he looked
like when I actually met him.

Che had been murdered,

executed as a prisoner of war.

Then they committed
the most obscene act.

They put him on this thing

for draining the
blood from cattle.

And he looked like
the dead Christ.

I was so outraged at the
manner of his murder,

and the fact that they
tried to disappear him,

which has resonance in Ireland,
for we had many disappeared,

and we know during the
Argentina dirty war

what disappearance meant.

And I thought, **** them,
that's not gonna happen.

When I did the
Che Guevara image,

I did that deliberately
as a piece of propaganda.

I wanted that as
simple as possible,

so anybody could copy it.

I made leaflets, I made
prints, I gave it to everybody.

I made it free use.

I rather grandly stated that
it was to be copyright-free

for all revolutionary
and leftist use.

The Che image began to
proliferate of its own accord.

I've seen it in the
most incongruous places.

I've seen it in
toilets in Tokyo.

I've seen it
endlessly on T-shirts.

It took off and
became so world-famous

it kind of intimidated me.

It got to the point where

I wouldn't even say I did it,

because nobody'd believe you.

I'm very lucky, kind
of accidentally,

I created one of the most
iconic images of all time,

and I try not to laugh,

because it's a serious image,

but it feels kind of good.

You know, it's nice at my age

to be looking back and thinking,

well I did something
decent with my life.

I commemorated a great man,
and made him live again.

(grungy music)

- In the first world war,

you have nations
fighting in total war.

You don't just have armies,

but you have whole populations

pitted against
whole populations.

And as a result of that,

governments have to justify,
really for the first time,

on a major scale,

why they are fighting total war,

and that's where
propaganda comes in.

(eerie electronic music)

Propaganda is used by
all the belligerents.

They used the old media,

the print, posters, et cetera,

but they also used
the new technologies,

of in particular the cinema.

(majestic orchestral music)

In stark terms,

many of these stories
were perceived

in the immediate aftermath
of World War I to be untrue.

And so propaganda in
Britain and America,

became firmly associated
with lies and falsehood.

Now what's interesting,

is that other countries,
like Germany, Italy,

Russia, eventually
the Soviet Union,

would actually take a
different lesson from

the experiences of
the first world war.

They wouldn't see
propaganda necessarily

in these negative terms.

(dramatic orchestral music)

(orchestral music continues)

If you look at films, such
as, "The Fall of Berlin,"

here you see Stalin
depicted in cinematic form.

We have an actor who
becomes a national treasure,

who plays Stalin in
a number of films.

And plays Stalin as this wise,
kind of benevolent figure,

that really sacrifices
everything for his country,

and in "The Fall of
Berlin," of course,

it's the celebration,
it's the apotheosis,

of this wise and
benevolent leader.

(in foreign language)

- Long live Stalin!

- Propaganda is something
that we cannot bring

our full intelligence
to bear on.

So there's something
about propaganda,

that actually disables
our intelligence.

So we might look back and think,

how could I have believed that?

It's a bit like the end of a
love affair, where you think,

how could I have possibly
fallen for that person?

The disillusionment over Stalin,

it seems to me is
very telling here,

because what it shows
us in retrospect,

is how much selective attention

was required to go on believing.

In other words, people had quite
actively, if unconsciously,

attacked their capacity for
perception and for thought.

It's as though it had never
really occurred to them.

And this seemed to me to be
an active part of oneself,

that can determinedly
not know what one knows.

Propaganda is based on how you
stop yourself knowing things.

- Propaganda is something
other people consume.

I mean I think that that's

sort of our default
definition, right?

We don't go, nobody
goes around and says,

my name is Astra, and
I love propaganda,

because we all like to
flatter ourselves and think,

we don't consume propaganda,

other people do.

If you look at standard
histories of propaganda,

what do you see?

You see the Catholic church,

you see the Soviet Union,
and Nazi propaganda.

And what's striking to me

about these conventional
narratives of what
propaganda is,

is how much is left out.

- «Announcer» Adrian
knows that for some reason

she doesn't fit
into the picture,

but she doesn't know why.

- As a woman in this
world I know there are

patriarchal messages,
there are sexist messages.

(whistling)

There's no bureau
of male affairs,

pushing those from on high,

they're just sort
of in the ether,

and being transmitted
through the culture,

and we call them stereotypes.

We talk about bias, but we
don't use the term, propaganda.

Take a show like "The Bachelor."

- Lauren D.

- «Astra» All these stereotypes
are endlessly reinforced.

- Lauren, will you
accept this rose?

- For me, when I look around,

and I look at American culture,
North American culture,

the stuff that strikes me
as the most propagandistic,

is actually the most
mainstream culture,

it's the films coming
out of Hollywood.

You know like, "She's All That."

Home improvement shows,
or real estate shows,

like "House Hunters,"

these things that present

a sort of idealized,
consumeristic mode of life.

- Your grand staircase.

How's that make you feel?

- Kind of happy inside.

- The most successful
propaganda ever in the world,

has been the
propaganda that says,

what you really
want is to be rich.

Capitalism creates
tremendous envy,

because a lot of people
feel extremely deprived,

and resentful, because
they're living in a culture

in which it appears as though

1% of the population is enjoying
life as it should be lived,

and everybody else
is just suffering.

The trouble is, we've been sold

the wrong picture
of a good life.

- «Interviewer» What do
you see your role to be?

- I see myself as a
political guerrilla artist.

What do you call it?

A **** disturber.

I think it's your
duty to disturb ****

when you think things are wrong.

I believe something's wrong,
and it needs to be changed,

and for some strange reason,
the smartest among us,

don't seem to get it.

It's one thing to have an idea,

but what good is the idea if
you can't get it out there?

Now, I can have something
go from my mind,

to like the Drudge Report,
or Glenn Beck, or wherever,

Breitbart, and within 24 hours.

(dark electronic music)

I think the Obama Drone
series that I did,

it's basically a celebrity
that drones on and on and on

with the public
about their politics.

And I kind of figured Hollywood
is like the drone base,

for these celebrities that
fly out into the country,

and they spread their message.

And of course at the time,
Obama had a drone policy,

to where it's like he
actually joked about it.

- I have two words for you,

predator drones.

(audience laughing)

- He won a Nobel Peace Prize.

It's like, for God's sakes.

He dropped a bomb every 20
minutes for eight years.

All these political artists,

what were they doing?

They were falling
all over themselves

to get in the galleries,

with their ******* wallpaper.

So it's like, you know what?

You had an opportunity to show

that you really
spoke against power.

If there's power out there
that was being abused,

it was your job as an
artist to speak against it.

I'm a Republican, I've
always been a Republican.

I'll probably die one.

Here in LA, here in Hollywood,

you're in the closet,
you have to wear a mask.

We're the Zorros,
we're the heroes,

we're the black sheep,
we're punk rock.

It's like the left isn't,
the left is establishment.

Over there, over
there, over there.

And the left, they control
the school systems,

they control Hollywood, they
control the music industry.

You name it, they control it.

To which they'll
say well, well yeah,

but we have a president
that's a Republican,

isn't that the establishment?

No, the establishment
is the people

that control the narrative.

And that is a cop.

****, we're ******.

It's really bad when you
reach a point in time,

when just telling the
truth, is revolutionary.

(uptempo jazz music)

- There are a lot of dangers

to putting work up in
public without permission.

I've been arrested 18 times.

(police siren blaring)

Being arrested is never fun,

it's especially dangerous for
me as a type one diabetic,

because often I'm not
given my insulin in jail,

so it becomes life-threatening.

But, street art is
important enough,

for me to take that risk.

It interacts with people where
they live their daily lives.

You know what I'm
trying to do is,

I'm trying to use the
tools that propaganda uses,

and I even call my
work, propaganda.

Propaganda has a
negative connotation,

but I don't think it
has to be negative,

so I'm using the
tools of propaganda

in a way that I think
is socially responsible.

The Obama Hope poster was like,

lightning in a
bottle, perfect storm.

I created the Hope poster as
just a grassroots initiative.

But after I made the image,

which originally said, progress,

they found that it caught
on very quickly, virally.

- We need (muffled)
and we need (muffled).

- The campaign,
the Obama campaign,

reached out to me and
said, we really like that,

but would you mind using
the word hope, or change,

and I liked the word,
hope, because I think

during Bush a lot of
people felt hopeless,

and without hope
people don't act.

The Obama branding was
excellent, his logo,

the type choices they made,

but there hadn't been anything
with that human connection.

And I'd like to think
that beyond just the
human connection,

that they way in which
I illustrated Obama,

felt patriotic, it
portrayed him in a way

that he seemed to have
vision, and legitimacy.

His biggest challenge
I think was that he was

fairly unknown and unproven
in American political life,

so having a
two-dimensional sculpture

made of this figure,
is a way to legitimize,

and also de-racialize.

That's a big obstacle in
the United States, racism.

So illustrating Obama
in red, white, and blue,

even though it's not the usual,
exact red, white, and blue,

it's American, rather
than, African-American.

People are looking back
very fondly at that poster,

and it's because they
don't want to lose hope.

(dark jazz music)

(children chanting)

- «Narrator» Ai Weiwei
has been called,

the most powerful political
artist in the world.

A brave and unrelenting critic

of the Chinese
authoritarian regime,

he is now in exile,

and a symbol of the
struggle for human rights.

- In totalitarian regimes,

what gets erased
often is the idea

about who created the art.

Even propagandistic posters
for instance that you have

during the cultural revolution.

These are created by people,
by individual people,

but what gets erased
is their authorship.

The author becomes the state.

And so, the recognition,

the coming to the fore
of the individual itself,

is itself a political act.

- «Woman» You have
to wait here, please.

(muffled speaking)

- They were aware of the
potential of propaganda,

because they were sensitive
to the power of art.

Art moved them,

and they knew it could
move other people too.

- Art is a powerful means of
tapping into the emotions.

There is something
very unifying about it,

and transcendent, the
feeling of transcendence

is one of the most powerful
emotions we can have,

and it can be very dangerous.

(dramatic orchestral music)

- Trump, every picture of him
is a revelation, you know.

The sides of his
face are interesting,

and the back of his
head is fantastic,

and the colors and textures.

There's so much to
draw there, you know.

Too bad he is who he is.

I got a lot of these,

but this was when no
lawyer would represent him,

so he's in court
here getting advice

from his lawyer who is
wearing a bag over his head.

Here he is, standing
Marilyn-like over
a subway grate.

I have no idea what this means.

I've looked at so many pictures.

I slide pictures
out of news stories,

and keep a folder, and the
folder is very expansive.

I've got a lot of
pictures of Trump,

probably 600 pictures
of Trump on my desktop.

I mean it's like he's made
of rubber, or pudding.

It seems like he's in
the process of melting.

Here's a fat joke, here's
Trump getting stuck in an MRI,

around the time
of his healthcare.

Another healthcare,
Trump in traction.

This was just an excuse to
draw him, sieg heil, basically.

I'm racked with self-doubt

about what I'm
doing half the time,

I am pushing a worldview whether
I like it or not, you know.

And cartoonists, there's
nothing particularly pure

about what we're doing, I think.

I'm trying for a
laugh, basically,

and I will go to
depths to get a laugh.

Believe me.

I think Trump would be delighted
with some of my drawings,

but I know he didn't
like the cover I did,

which was a palm chart of
his hand, of his little hand.

And I know Graydon Carter,
who is one of the architects

of pointing out
Trump's small hands.

That seems like propaganda
to me, in a way.

That's part of the
propaganda of satire,

because Trump, he
doesn't really have

incredibly small hands,

maybe they're a tiny
bit out of proportion

for the rest of him,

but it's not anything
I would have noticed,

it's a great joke.

That's when I feel
like a cartoon

is sort of propaganda itself,
or it's pushing a certain,

I mean like Napoleon
apparently, didn't do this.

Or Gerald Ford apparently
was an athletic guy.

He wasn't a bungling fool,

but satirists fix
on one tiny thing,

and if enough of
them are doing that,

that becomes the way
someone is viewed.

That's taking an untruth,

and making it into
an iconic image.

Seems like there's an element
of propaganda in that.

I'm trying to get a laugh.

If I can do something funny.

Going for pure outrage
is another thing,

and it's got its place,
but it's dangerous.

(guns firing)

(murmured conversation)

- A photograph by
definition is a lie.

It's a frozen moment in time.

Come stand in here.

We don't know what
happened before,

we don't know what
happened after.

And also you are
getting that story

through my perception.

But this is the thing,

that's what its job is.

The job of art is
to be propaganda,

it's to sell something.

My name's Tyler Shields,

I'm a photographer, a
director, a writer, and

a lot of people call me
provocateur, I guess.

I think a lot of people thought

that we planned it out for
months, and done a whole thing.

She wanted to do something
with Trump involved,

and her hair stylist was like,

oh I have a wig, I
can fashion a wig

that looks like Trump's hair.

And they had a Trump mask.

And so they showed me the mask

and I was like,
this looks terrible.

Did you see how it was a
fake, like Halloween style,

it was just a fake mask.

And so I was like, okay
what can we do with this?

And I said, well if we cover
it in blood, it'll hide it.

If I put some blood on
it, and then I was like,

oh yeah this works.

It went live on my
site, I was asleep.

I wake up,

and it's on TMZ, and it's,

everywhere.

I had the FBI, and the Secret
Service, all these people,

and then, Kathy
started to get this,

ISIS thing, and she had
called me and was like,

people are really mad at me.

I don't know what to do.

- I sincerely apologize,

I am just now seeing the
reaction of these images.

- When the whole world
is saying, you did this,

and you're career's over,

that's scary to anybody.

- I made a mistake,
and I was wrong.

- And then the President
tweets about it.

And when he tweeted about it,

that took it to a level that
I had never seen before,

and that was all orchestrated.

Apparently there
was a whole thing

between Fox News and Trump,

to push all the attention
to the Kathy thing,

and take all the attention
away from the Paris Accord,

and take all the attention away
from all these other things.

It did work.

All the attention to
everything was on this photo.

It's genius though.

It's misdirection.

It is all propaganda,

it's all to just keep
the hamster wheel going.

The more chaos that you
can create in the press,

the less anyone's gonna
look at what you're doing.

It's the greatest
magic trick ever.

Look at this crazy tweet,

while I **** everything
up over here.

It's genius.

And never before in
history have you really

had the ability to do that.

Obama was the first president
that had social media,

of any type, right?

But he never used it the way
that it's being used, now.

Now it's weaponized.

Social media has
been weaponized.

(slow rock music)

- Facebook is an idealistic
and optimistic company,

and has Facebook has grown,

people everywhere have
gotten a powerful new tool,

for staying connected
to the people they love,

for making their voices heard,

and for building
communities and businesses.

- Facebook, Twitter, Google,

these massive platforms have
always pitched themselves

as a level playing
field, saying,

everybody come on,
share your stuff,

and whatever is the
most interesting

and valuable to people will win.

There was always this kind
of Utopian element to it.

- It's clear now that
we didn't do enough

to prevent these tools from
being used for harm as well.

- They are not able
to manage a platform

that has more than two
billion people on it.

- «Narrator» In Myanmar,
hate speech on Facebook

has led violent crimes
against the Rohingya people.

650,000 of them have
had to flee their homes

with their lives.

- You only have to look
to countries like Myanmar,

where Facebook, for all
intents and purposes,

is actually what people
are using as the internet.

And it is an engine for
spreading hate speech,

for planning harassment,

and for in some ways
enabling genocide.

- The capacity to
persuade people,

of blatant untruths,

that capacity seems
to have gone up.

People have always tried to
manipulate opinion, that's true,

but the capacity to do that,

in manufactured huge numbers,

through algorithms
and things, is new.

Although propaganda's always
sought to hide itself,

its capacity to do that in
social media is enhanced.

A lot of confusion
has been sown really,

by a lot of the ways
in which intellectuals

have talked about truth.

There is no such
thing as the truth.

That's what undergraduates
write essays,

they start, undergraduate,

who've never tried to find
out what the truth is,

say, in this Olympian way,

there are many truths.

There's been a philosophical
and sociological

undermining of the fact that
trying to establish reality,

is a very fierce discipline.

- «Narrator» Perhaps we
should regard the lessons

of human history as
a cautionary tale,

and try to veer away from
the horrors of our past.

But is it actually possible
to take the icons of history,

and infuse them
with new meaning?

(engines roaring)

- «Narrator» We are a
highly social species.

We have retained our
tribal instincts,

and have a deep
need for belonging,

that is firmly rooted
in our evolution.

Since our earliest existence,

our inclination to imagine
collective fictions

has allowed great
civilizations to rise,

and for humanity to flourish.

But we must also constantly
examine these narratives,

with disciplined
reason, and skepticism.

We must strive to
reclaim history where
it has been erased,

to stand firm against
authoritarianism,

to combat demagogues with
an arsenal of humor and wit.

We must all be aware
of our own emotions,

and how they can be maliciously,

and manipulatively exploited.

There are no easy answers,

there is only personal
responsibility.

- In a democracy, it
matters what people think.

Therefore, you're always
gonna have wars of persuasion.

You're always gonna have battles

over the hearts and
minds of the citizenry.

That's what it
means to engage in

self-government as a society.

- Decisions have
to be rationalized,

decisions have to be explained.

Propaganda could be good or bad.

It could be a warning
on the cigarette packet,

or it could be,
"Triumph of the Will."

Maybe we should just
understand it more.

- I think everybody has to
take real responsibility

to live a much more
uncomfortable, awkward life,

testing themselves, because
that it really matters.

- Anything that
satisfies or reassures,

is gonna be very compelling,

and I think in a way,

it's as though the
commodity here is hope.

And you can either poison
people with false hopes,

or you can inspire them.

What's being sold though,
is a better future.

(dramatic orchestral music)

Subtitles by Broadcast Intelligence Ltd