Don't Be a Sucker (1943) [video]
82 comments
·October 13, 2025neilv
swed420
Except for the endorsement of littering, which fit the time period.
It would be decades before they wheeled out a crying native american on TV to make people feel guilty about the matter(s).
113
Is it still true that Americans find it hard to see how this is very clearly propaganda?
Yes, it's anti-Nazi but it's still has very obvious problems.
neilv
My wild guess is that most people who are aware of this film recognize that it's a kind of propaganda.
Of course you're going to get nationalism-tinged anti-fascist propaganda from the US Dept. of the Army in 1945.
There are large voting blocs who need to hear and comprehend the message of this film that happens to be propaganda, right now.
2OEH8eoCRo0
What problems?
113
Well it's massively overtly nationalist for one. There's a hilarious sequence at the beginning that's just shots of American industry and agriculture.
cadamsdotcom
Awesome video. So much great content is so easily accessible today. The challenge is discovery!
Grateful HN is a quality “feed” - way better than all the algorithmic feeds..
If something as curated as HN existed & appealed to the masses - even if it was ad funded! - we could live in a different world.
mempko
These are precisely the kind of posts on HN that get flagged and blackholed. I will eat my hat if it stays on the frontpage.
jsheard
The post did dive but it managed to cling to the frontpage.
https://hnrankings.info/45573025/
My condolences for your hat.
tears-in-rain
so, we can agree that will be fedora?
cadamsdotcom
Did you lose faith in humanity gradually or all at once? :P
Grosvenor
Same as divorce, or bankruptcy.
Gradually, then all at once.
doitLP
Date must be wrong, because it mentions the end of the war and D-Day. Per this date was 1947: https://archive.org/details/DontBeaS1947
zaik
It could refer to the production date:
> It was said to have been produced in 1945, and Paramount Pictures allowed showings for the public "without profit" in 1946. 21st century sources describe a 1943 production and 1947 release instead of 1945 and 1946.
mogoh
YouTube description says:
> This item was produced or created: 1945
asveikau
I've been thinking about this video for a few months now. I've been telling people to "not be a sucker" referencing it. I haven't re-watched in a few years, though.
null
_ink_
Unfortunately we are more divided then ever. The algorithms place each of use in its own little echo chamber. And micro targeting makes it easy for people with money to control what each of us is fed in their bubble. Stay united. Don't give up over their perceived power. Don't be a sucker. Easier said, then done.
jrowen
I was watching a clip from the The Lost World (1925) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chwzrwHnCtk] the other day. I was struck by the silly (to my ears) orchestral fanfare scoring such a dramatic scene, and the fact that almost all of the men are wearing nearly identical outfits. It's still pretty much the same 20 years later in this video. The timbre of the voice of the narrator is another thing, so universal in media from that time and comically foreign today.
evanjrowley
Should be required watching in public school history classes.
twothreeone
One very interesting aspect is how the Churches are portrayed as "seeking truth" and speaking out in this piece. In the US today it is reversed - in large part due to Baptists. But even in Nazi Germany the relationship between the Church and Hitler was much more complicated than portrayed. For instance, many Catholics supported the NSDAP.
null
Aeroi
love this
2OEH8eoCRo0
I love this one. Relevant today.
Divisive nonsense belongs in the garbage.
Urthesucker
[flagged]
I love that this was US propaganda at one point.
The US always has failings, but this message is something we can be proud of.