Question

The film "Don't be a Sucker"

why do you think the U.S. government sponsored this film?

What are the key messages of the film?

Why are these messages important today - in other words why did it become popular again this fall?

Answer 1

• A 1940s anti-Nazi propaganda video warning of the dangers of fascism has re-emerged this week, and struck a familiar chord with viewers following the violent events in Charlottesville, Virginia.
• The clip from a 17-minute short film called Don't Be a Sucker!, originally released in movie theatres at the height of the Second World War in 1943.
• Created by the United States' War Department and re-issued again in 1947, it shows a charismatic white male giving a hate-filled speech against 'alien foreigners' in the middle of a town square.
• As spectators look on, the man refers to himself as an 'American American,' before shouting: 'I see negroes holding down jobs that belong to me and you. If we allow this type of thing to go on, what's going to become of us real Americans?'
• And I tell you friends, we'll never be able to call this country our own, until it's a country without. Without what? Without negroes, without alien foreigners, without Catholics, without freemasons.
• 'These are your enemies. These are the people who are trying to take over our country. And it's up to us to fight them. Fight them and destroy them before they destroy us.'
• The rhetoric is then compared to that of the Nazis during the build-up to World War II, with a Hungarian man who saw both telling the man he's with: 'I thought Nazis were crazy people, stupid fanatics. But unfortunately that was not so.'
• Michael Oman-Reagan, an anthropologist and researcher in British Columbia, posted the clip to Twitter.
• He wrote alongside the video, which has been shared hundreds of thousands of times: '1947 anti-fascist video made by US military to teach citizens how to avoid falling for people like Trump is relevant again.'
• The video has resonated with many in the wake of the events in Charlottesville, Virginia on Saturday, which saw one person killed and at least 19 others injured after violence broke out between white supremacists and anti-racism protesters.
• Hundreds of white supremacists gathered to rage against the removal of a statue of Confederate general and slave owner Robert E. Lee from the city.
• The march was met with counter-protests and violence quickly broke out, with one member of the white supremacist group, James Alex Fields Jr, allegedly driving his car into a crowd of anti-racism protestors, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer.
• President Donald Trump has drawn criticism after he initially failed to explicitly condone the violence carried out by the white nationalists, many of whom chanted songs such as 'blood and soil' during the march.
• Senator Orin Hatch also drew parallels between the events in Charlottesville and the fight against Nazism.
• The Utah Republican said: 'We should call evil by its name. My brother didn't give his life fighting Hitler for Nazi ideas to go unchallenged here at home.'
• Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison posted a link to the anti-Nazi video with the words: 'PLEASE WATCH THIS!'