“Don’t Be A Sucker,” a U.S. War Department propaganda film from 1943, has gone viral after the weekend’s violent white supremacy rally.
The U.S. War Department made the myopic motion-picture show “ Do n’t Be a gull ” in 1943 to teach Americans about the danger of zealotry and hatred . 75 year later on , the anti - Nazi film is scarily relevant once again .
After a clip from the picture was pinch in response to the white nationalistic rally in Charlottesville , Virginia over the weekend , it ’s spread around the cyberspace — being viewed by C of one thousand of masses whom its creators likely never imagined would need its subject matter .
The magazine shows a man , Mike , watching a rostrum speaker rant about black mass , “ alien foreigners , ” and Catholics exact jobs aside from “ true Americans . ”
At first , Mike thinks the bozo has a power point . That is , until the man tot freemasons to his list of disagreeables .
“ Hey , wait a moment , ” Mike says . “ I ’m a freemason . ”
An aged Magyar man next to Mike proceeds to explain to Mike ( who ’s clearly not too brilliant ) why the guy cable on the soapbox is dangerous for everyone .
“ I have seen what this kind of talk can do , ” the wise Hungarian stranger enounce , bestow that he used to be a prof in Berlin . “ But I was a muggins then . I think nazi were gaga people , stupid fanatic , but unfortunately were not so . ”
“ You see , they knew they were not potent enough to conquer a unified rural area ” he become on . “ So they part Germany into smaller mathematical group . They used prejudice as a virtual arm to cripple the nation . ”
racist slowly taking over by creating enhance polarization based on lies and nationalistic concern mongering ? This sound familiar .
The 17 - hour film then goes on to give a history of the Nazi movement in Germany , showing police forcibly removing a Jewish store owner and a college professor being pick up for say his scholar that there ’s no such affair as a “ master race . ”
finally , the picture shows the confederate triumph and delivers its main stop : “ We must never let that happen to us or to our state , ” the professor says . “ We must never allow ourselves be divided by subspecies or color or religious belief . ”
In 1947 , the DoD made a helpful film about how not to fall in with stupid nazis . Please enjoy in full : https://t.co / kRPUQDosMQ
— Jennifer Brooks ( @stribrooks)August 13 , 2017
This is an interesting message for a administration film since , at the time of its dismissal , the U.S. was still implement schoolhouse and militarysegregation , Nipponese poundage , and a legion of other racist policies .
ButAtlantic author Robinson Meyerpoints out that — despite these discriminatory practices — the land was start to actualise that our res publica would be stronger with people working together .
“ build a divers res publica has never been just an ideal aspiration or moral avocation , ” Meyer wrote . “ It has been a essential of the republic ’s survival — the sole remedy to the Cancer the Crab of clean supremacy . ”
Since three people died over the weekend and our president took three days to explicitly condemn the hatred group now creditworthy , the fight against antiblack grandiloquence is just as authoritative now as it was in 1943 .
Next , chequer out thisexplainer on the Alt - Right . Then , get word whyWhite Lives thing is a hatred group and Black Lives Matter is not .
