All About The Joy

Manipulation: Navigating Influence in Politics and Media

• Carmen Lezeth Suarez • Episode 161

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How often have you found yourself subtly influenced by a conversation or a piece of media without realizing it? Join me, as I lay bare the artful dance of manipulation in our everyday lives. We'll navigate the fine line where strategic communication meets influence, sharing tales from my work where loyalty conflicts with performance and where indirect maneuvers keep interpersonal peace. Through these stories, you'll learn to spot and harness manipulation's power positively, all while respecting the needs of those around you.

Political manipulation isn't just a topic for debate—it’s a reality affecting us all. Together, we'll explore how propaganda has shaped history and continues to influence modern political landscapes. By reflecting on historical examples like Nazi Germany, I’ll guide you on a journey to recognize the dangers of political tactics that divide us. In an era dominated by social media and AI, understanding these influences is more important than ever, especially when it comes to topics like immigration that can perpetuate damaging stereotypes.

As we round off our exploration, the spotlight turns to media literacy and the critical thinking needed to navigate today’s complex media environment. Let's challenge the romantic notion of objective journalism and embrace the diversity of perspectives to stay informed. I’ll provide insights on breaking free from echo chambers, adjusting algorithms, and responsibly engaging with digital content. Together, we'll advocate for a more informed world and emphasize the importance of reputable fact-checking to counter misinformation. Join me in this quest for thoughtful media consumption and a deeper understanding of global dynamics.


Thank you for stopping by. Please visit our website: All About The Joy and add, like and share. You can also support us by shopping at our STORE - We'd appreciate that greatly. Also, if you want to find us anywhere on social media, please check out the link in bio page.

Music By Geovane Bruno, Moments, 3481
Editing by Team A-J
Host, Carmen Lezeth


DISCLAIMER: As always, please do your own research and understand that the opinions in this podcast and livestream are meant for entertainment purposes only. States and other areas may have different rules and regulations governing certain aspects discussed in this podcast. Nothing in our podcast or livestream is meant to be medical or legal advice. Please use common sense, and when in doubt, ask a professional for advice, assistance, help and guidance.

Carmen Lezeth:

Hey, welcome everyone to All About the Joy. This is Carmen Talk, and today I really want to talk a little bit about this word manipulation. I think it's an important one, because I don't think we all realize how much we also manipulate people on a regular basis. Now, I know manipulation has a very negative connotation, but the fact of the matter is it's part of how we function. It's part of how we do things. Okay, let me give you a great example of something that happened at work last week.

Carmen Lezeth:

I have this job where I have to go in and talk to clients and tell them some actual truths that maybe their other team members or other people don't want to necessarily say to them. Right, in a lot of ways, the best part of my job is being able to be the outsider who can come in with no emotions attached to it, because I haven't been there that long and I can just tell them the truth. You need to fire this vendor or that vendor, or you need to add this employee or stuff like that. You know Well, one of the things that's really important is that I have to understand how people can take information and in that sense, I have to be able to choose my words, my arguments and my fights wisely, right? I have one client, for example, who never wants to fire anybody, even if they are doing actual damage to their company, because he has this loyalty. He really cares about people. They've been with him for so long and also, people do this amazing job of just constantly milking him because they know he's a great guy, right? Well, I've had to let go of people who are not doing their jobs. I've done it in plenty of other places and one of the interesting things is that at some point I can't fight with people. I have to say you know what? This is my recommendation. You have to do whatever it is you need to do, because I'm telling you this is the answer. So one of the things that ends up happening, right, is he fights back with me and I'm like, hey, I don't care, I don't care what you do, it's your money. If you want to take a million dollars and burn it in the middle of the street, that's your choice. As long as I get paid, then that is my kind of motto. I'm here to give you information, I've given you evidence to that information, and whatever you choose to do with that afterwards is your choice, but I'm not going to deal with it anymore. You know what I mean. I'm just going to move on.

Carmen Lezeth:

And that's what's happened again this past week. I've had to tell them this is not working, and here's why it's not working. You know it's not working. We've been talking about this for a year. Here is the final straw, and what happened was is he started arguing with me about something else?

Carmen Lezeth:

Because the way in which he works is that he wants to change a subject and then most people who have worked with him for a long time will turn around and just start answering those other questions that now he's asking that have nothing to do with the original subject at hand, which is we need to fire this person. And I'm like no, we need to keep talking about this. No, I'm not going to answer that. And it becomes like this fiery fighting match and, honestly, it's one of the reasons why I need to let go of this client at some point, because it's driving me up a wall. My point is is that once I learn how he has to argue with me and I have to keep fighting with him for him to hear what I have to say, like I need him to acknowledge it, then I can let it go. So he then answered the question and I could tell he doesn't want to fire this person and I said you know what, as long as you got it, it's fine, I don't care. And I moved on to the next thing because I understood. Now that's how he understands things, right. So why am I calling it a manipulation? Because I knew that's what was going to happen. I now know that's how he works. It's like one of my other clients. I'll just say that their spouse will always ask for X amount of dollars and they go through all of the channels through the bookkeeper, through the CPA, whatever and at the end of the day those people will come to me and be like I don't want to ask. I don't want to ask Because the wife is using manipulation of the staff people in order not to confront her husband, right?

Carmen Lezeth:

So I have to intervene and I have to say you know what? It's inappropriate for you to involve three or four staff members who don't want to do this because you can't have a conversation with your husband. You can't do that. It's not fair, right? So I'm kind of breaking the mold there.

Carmen Lezeth:

The irony was is then I said you know what? I'm going to set up a conversation with the two of you so that you can have a conversation and I'll be in on the meeting, because I understand why you need what you need and I understand his need to be angry and upset about it every single time. So why don't we just do that? And then, all of a sudden, the spouse was like no, no, no, no, oh God, no, carmen, I'm so sorry. You know what. I will talk to him when he gets home. So that was a form of manipulation on my part, because I knew that the minute I said you know what? I'm happy to intervene and be like a mediator between the two of you, whatever, but what I need to stop happening is that you're involving all of the staff members in this, and the anxiety that they're having is crazy.

Carmen Lezeth:

So I'm giving you examples of manipulation because I think in all of our lives, everyone anyone who's listening to this, all of us have an ability to manipulate other people. I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing. I think the definition of manipulation might be that it is intentional and maybe negative, but I'm using it in a way right now to say we learn how to speak to other people to get what we want or need. We do what we need to do, especially when we learn how other people work. If we're observers of other people, you're going to talk a certain way to your friends and that you hang out with and you go to the club with, or whatever than the way in which you talk to your mom and dad, for example, or the way in which you might talk to a teacher, or the way in which you might talk to a colleague at work. Right, we all have different ways in which we speak to people. Those are also small, nuanced forms of manipulation. We don't talk the same to everyone, and when we want something, we try to think of a way. How can I get this extra money from my mom or my dad so that I can go and buy these sneakers or whatever? It is Okay. So why am I bringing up the idea of manipulation? Because it's so part of our everyday culture and I don't think we realize it. It Back in the 1930s, there was a female director who made quite a few films, but two of them were critically acclaimed and they were technically and artistically spoken of, and also she was a woman.

Carmen Lezeth:

It was in the 1930s. Her name was Lenny Riefenstahl. For those of us who studied film or history, when I say the name, you know exactly who it is. This was a woman in the 1930s who was a master of propaganda films. One of the films is named Triumph of the Will and the other one was Olympia and sadly, because the films were so well done, they were able to manipulate the German people in such a way to have them believe that they were a superior race, that they were a superior breed, if you will, of human beings. Clearly I'm talking about the time during Hitler. It always fascinates me, because I know so many people of German descent or from Germany. It always fascinates me how such good people were so easily manipulated into believing such a thing.

Carmen Lezeth:

And then I started understanding. It's not just the filmmaking, it's the ability to understand who your audience is, or who your boss is, or what your mom and dad need to hear, or what your friends need to know, and hear how you say things in order for me to get what I want, in order for me to get what I want. And it's just next level when it becomes this thing, where we are talking about trying to influence people in such a way to let them know that they are better than other people, that they are superior than other people. It's just the next step, right, it's next level. It's the next level of manipulation, but it's still manipulation, and we are all part of that. We are all easily able to be manipulated.

Carmen Lezeth:

You have to start understanding that Not only do we do it manipulated, you have to start understanding that Not only do we do it, but we are easily manipulated. And the easiest way you can see this is, for example, in social media, the way in which things have changed and how we get information. On the one hand, it's pretty brilliant that we have the ability to get information from all different places, but, in the same respects, we keep getting information from only the places we like that are geared towards what we want to hear, and those people that are in charge of that message and communication and information know what it is we need to hear in order to get what they want from us right? It's just what I was talking about earlier how I'm able to talk to my clients in such a way because I know them so well that I'm able to turn around and do what I need to do to get what I want from them, because I understand how they function. It's the same thing that's happening. It's the same thing that happened in Germany in the 1930s. It's the same thing that happens in social media. It's the same thing that happens in our everyday lives.

Carmen Lezeth:

So why am I so into this and why am I so concerned about it? Lives. So why am I so into this and why am I so concerned about it? First of all, I'm fascinated by human behavior and just human workings of the mind and how we choose to do things. But I'm also fascinated as to why so many people cannot see clearly as to what's going on during this political season. And this isn't to make this all about politics. This is about making us better people who understand manipulation and how to fight against it. Manipulation can take so many different forms and I think that's what's so fascinating about what's happening not only on social media and not just about politics. I'm just using this moment to talk about this, but this is just throughout our entire lives and how the Internet is changing and how artificial intelligence is coming into play and how we are relying more on streaming as opposed to network television, for example. So all of this is part of this process, and let me just say that it takes so much more work to see if something is true than it used to in the past.

Carmen Lezeth:

Okay, so manipulation takes so many forms. One of them is propaganda. The other one is like censorship people using fear as a tactic. Manipulation also comes in this form of otherizing right, so making other people to blame for what's going on in your life, right? So in this example, you can just use something like immigration Somehow immigrants are taking Americans' jobs, and we all know that is absolutely not true. Immigrants are not taking jobs from Americans. Americans don't want to do the jobs that most immigrants will do. That's not even an argument or a discussion. It's just factual.

Carmen Lezeth:

People like to use the word fascism right now, or authoritarian, and I don't think most people know what those things mean. So I'm going to give you some definitions, because this has a lot to do what I'm talking about with manipulation. Okay, so fascism is basically the far right. It's a political ideology, so it's an idea that prioritizes the nation. So what's best for what they think is best for everyone, as opposed to individual rights? Okay, and it's based on, like, cultural terms and ethnic terms. So brown people are bad or Jewish people are bad, but all of white Aryan race people are good, right. So if you think about it as simple and it's not simple, but I mean the whole Hitler thing is a great way to think about it. So fascism is this idea that what's more important is the nation, and it's defined. The nation is defined as a cultural subset of greatness or whatever.

Carmen Lezeth:

Okay, it also means that there's a dictator, so there's somebody in power who has no checks and balances. It has somebody who is never going to let people oppose them, because a dictator never likes people opposing them and anybody who opposes them. They want to turn around and say like no, you're going to go to jail or no, you're going to be reprimanded or you're going to be fined. And so when people say fascism, that's what they're talking about. The manipulation here is having you believe that what they're doing is in your best interest and that it's not fascism, right? No leader ever wants to get up and say that they're doing something that is negative. There's no way anyone's going to get up and be like, oh, I'm being a negative person. No, they're going to keep telling you not only is this the right thing to do because it's in the best interest of us as a nation. But those people, those other ethnic, cultural people that are not like us, that are mean and dirty and whatever it is right Murderers and rapists or whatever, or drug dealers, always making others not like us right, not like the people that they're trying to manipulate and corrupt.

Carmen Lezeth:

It is so important to start understanding that by the time people listen to this podcast, we would have already voted in the United States. But the reason why I'm bringing this up is because, no matter what happens on Tuesday on election day and when we find out who the president is of the United States, I still think we are going to have a horrible time of it trying to get people back into the fold. I'm more concerned that there are so many people who don't understand that they have already been manipulated so badly that they keep excusing, and that's the other part of fascism. You excuse exactly everything you can see in front of you because it doesn't align with what the dictator wants you to believe. So, even if you see it with your own eyes, even if you know it to be true, you dismiss it. So you're being manipulated and you're falling in line with that right, because it's human nature.

Carmen Lezeth:

We want people to be good. We want people to be good and we want people to actually be doing good for us as well. So we can easily fall into that trap, evident on point in front of our faces, in front of our eyes, because that's what they've done. They've manipulated us. That's what Leni Reifenstahl I don't think I'm saying her name correctly, but that's part of what she did with these movies and these campaigns, these propaganda films, to make the German people, who were good and decent people, turn around and believe that other rising Jewish people and people with disabilities and anybody who wasn't like them, that were not blonde and blue-eyed and of whatever they thought was perfection. That's how that was done. Can you even fathom in your head for one moment that anyone would believe such a thing, that they were better than other people? Of course not, because you're a good and decent human being, you know that all of us have our strengths and our weaknesses.

Carmen Lezeth:

And so when we're talking about immigrants that come to this country and to the United States, when we talk about immigrants that come actually to any country, when we put that label on them, what has happened? Instead of it being about people who come from another country and come into the current country. What we've done is we've made the word immigrant a really bad and dirty word and we've made it a really bad and horrible thing to want something better for your country, for your family, for your life. That's what we've done. We've been manipulated into believing anybody who's an immigrant is a bad person, even though 98% of people who live in the United States are not native to this country, so I don't care how far back your lineage goes. Most people came to this country for a better life. That's how this country became established and again I apologize to all Native Americans who live here.

Carmen Lezeth:

I don't even know what to say because that's a whole other story and conversation, and it always breaks my heart when I think back on how much I love the United States and how much I hate all of our history that we seem to just dismiss all the time Because again, we've been manipulated into believing that this belongs to us, that all of this is ours, right? And for those of you who don't know, who've never seen the show, I am Latina and Black, so there's a whole other subset of this doesn't belong to me that we can get into right, because Brown is the bad thing in the United States, especially if you're an immigrant who came to this country. So I digress, but we're still on the topic of manipulation. So here's what I want to suggest. This isn't just about Donald Trump, because it's not. This is about all of it.

Carmen Lezeth:

This is about trying to figure out how we move from where we are right now as people who are being manipulated on a regular basis. Sometimes it's a small thing, right, it's something we do with our family and friends or our mom and dad to get what we want, or at work, when I'm manipulating the situation so that I know that this husband and wife will talk to each other and I don't really have to intervene. Right, going back to what we were talking about in the beginning, the question is how do we walk through this, knowing in our heart of hearts that social media is just getting more infused in our lives and it's just going to be harder and harder as we walk through, with artificial intelligence as well? So one of the things I want to talk about here is, besides Donald Trump and the upcoming election, understanding what fascism is, that word that keeps being thrown around. Trying to. I'm not comparing him to Hitler, but I am comparing the manipulation of the German people to what is happening to people in the United States, so that you can understand that the way it happens is so seamless you don't even realize it. And here's how I know that. So many people that even in my own family I don't even talk to half the people in my family anymore because they are Trump supporters and have been for a long time. So I keep my distance. But here's how I know.

Carmen Lezeth:

It's such a simple thing the portrayal that people have of Donald Trump whenever they're doing pictures or they're trying to show it's always some odd, weird, fantasized idea of what he looks like. He's always muscular and fierce and strong and he's none of those things Physically. It's like if we did that with Joe Biden, I could see doing it with Barack Obama, because he's still a young man. But it's just a weird ism where you can start to see they really think this is what he looks like. This is really what they think he embodies. I mean, there's a lot to it, why? No, it's so many people have been confused and manipulated. It's also just the denial of all the things he does wrong every single day. This isn't even about his convictions and all that other crap and all the other lies I could get into, because that just becomes like this partisan tit for tat thing.

Carmen Lezeth:

But I know for a fact that the people that I love in my heart and soul are not this stupid. I know they're not, but I also know that they've been so hoodwinked and so manipulated they cannot see, and it's not for me to teach them or show them, because I love them, I have to let them go Because I can't help them. Something else has to break that, and it's frustrating because, again, I think about the German people, and I'm sure there's somebody out there listening to this who's a Trump supporter, who's like well, why don't you think you've been manipulated? I'll tell you why. Because I do things to make sure I'm not manipulated. I do them every single day. I diversify my sources. Okay, I make sure that I consume media from all sources and not just.

Carmen Lezeth:

I love people who say this because then they're like on YouTube listening to conspiracy theorists. That's not what I mean, actually legit resources that actually have the backing of bona fide organizations that are trustworthy. There is also an idea of critical thinking. If you hear something and it sounds a little off. Investigate it, look into it. Find three references before you open your mouth, and I think that's a big one. Listen if you do not know, I don't talk about what I don't know. People hate that. I say this all the time and I say it and I will keep saying it. If you don't know, you don't have three or four different resources to show. Prove what you're talking about, then don't talk about it. Show, prove what you're talking about, then don't talk about it. Don't retweet shit unless you know it to be true. Right, don't redo something on TikTok unless you're positive. Oh yeah, that's absolutely right, because I got that from two or three other sources. I know it's going to slow you down, I know it's going to make you back up a bit, but isn't that where we're at right now?

Carmen Lezeth:

The problem with social media is that everybody wants everything instantaneously and no one takes the time. Critical thinking is part of that. Who's the source? Can I get two more sources? Is this something really important for me to retweet or reshare or re-give without looking into it? Nine times out of 10, half the crap that most people are sharing are not only lies but things they can't back up. But they've decided, because so-and-so, their friend, cousin or whatever did it, that they're going to do it too. And that's how this spirals out.

Carmen Lezeth:

Not everything you read, not everything that you consume, needs to be resent to your followers and friends. Not like. We've got to stop doing that. We got to get back to a place where we specialize in the things we're great at and leave everything Like I don't retweet things that I know nothing about. If somebody's writing something about medicine and I'm like, okay, well, that's my friend talking about some drug thing, I'm like, yeah, no, I'm not going to send that to anybody else, cause I don't. I know my friend is not a doctor or a researcher or whatever, and I know that thing sounds wrong and, no, I'm not resending that to my friends and followers because it's probably wrong and I don't have the time or the effort or the energy or the need to go and research it to find out. Stop retweeting, resending things to people if it's not that important.

Carmen Lezeth:

You can consume information just for yourself and be like, eh, maybe I do believe that, eh, maybe I don't, and then stick to the things you know and you're going to be so utterly thrown by how much less time you spend on social media because you realize you don't know jack shit. You know what I mean. I think that's the other part of this that fascinates me. You know what I mean Like, I think that's the other part of this that fascinates me is that people don't even realize how people are being manipulated and how they are being manipulated on a regular basis because they know you're going to resend that to all your friends. So let me talk bullshit about something I believe in and you don't have to do any research for it because you trust so in. It's the stupidest thing ever.

Carmen Lezeth:

Use critical thinking as part of that. There's also media literacy. What do I mean by that? Understanding that there is media bias. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think this idea that old school media was more objective, this idea that, like Tom Brokaw and Walter Cronkite and all these old timers, they were the better journalists, because it was. No, it wasn't. If you go back and watch any of those, it is pretty clear to me. Like Peter Jennings, all of them. It's pretty clear to me. All of these people, you could tell where they landed as far as what they believed in Tim Russert, all of them. If you just listen to them, you can pretty much get an idea of where they landed. On political issues or whatever.

Carmen Lezeth:

I don't think news is objective and I think that's okay. We're all human beings. We come to the table with information and biases. There's nothing wrong with that. However, can you deliver the news and that information and then also give that other side? People do not seem to understand that. If you can go to a source, or various sources and also get backup when you listen to stuff, that's how it's going to be. And look at, this is a lot of work, isn't it? It's a lot of work so that you're not hoodwinked into believing crap. Because we don't want to be fascist, we don't want to have an authoritarian government, we do not want to live under a dictatorship, so we need to be responsible for the knowledge and the information we are consuming, and the better that we do that, the more informed we are, the less manipulated we will be. I don't talk about anything unless I have three or four different sources. I really don't, and even then I'm like I'm so exhausted I'm not even going to talk about it.

Carmen Lezeth:

The other thing that is important is to educate others, your children, for example, one of the problems I'm having right now. I love kids I don't have any, but I have godchildren and nieces and nephews and I'm disappointed in some of the parenting because parents get really tired. They don't want to keep explaining to their children right from wrong when they turn a certain age, because it gets harder when they're teenagers. But to me, I'm like that's when your parenting actually matters. It's like when kids are being swayed into the wrong thought process. Yes, they have to come up with their own ideas or whatever, but there's got to be some guidelines, right, we don't just leave kids once they turn 13 to start figuring it out on their own. They still need some guidance. So I know it's hard and that's why I'm not a parent, because I was never stupid enough to believe I could do it.

Carmen Lezeth:

But I think the parenting part of this is key and it's not just about your children, it's also about educating others. It's also about sharing this kind of information with other people, which is what I'm trying to do now, because I know we're down to the wire here in the United States with voting, in the United States with voting, and I just think the political aftermath, regardless of who wins the presidency is going to be a difficult time for the United States, and I feel like we need to start being really hardcore about this issue of manipulation and social media. So let me talk about social media and the algorithms. I think it's really important to understand that as well. You need to tweak your social media settings so that you get a broader range of content. So, whatever social media you're talking about, what they do is, the more you watch or listen or whatever it is, some certain content it keeps bringing you down that rabbit hole. You have to force yourself to go into another direction in order to see other content. So I would suggest that that's part of what we need to do.

Carmen Lezeth:

We need to start changing the way in which we consume social media and news in general. We need to fight against it, not just keep consuming it. So if we take something on and we're watching it, we realize why am I down this rabbit hole? Like I'll be honest, I found myself on TikTok and somehow I ended up in the gay lesbian TikTok area. I was fine watching the content, but I'm like why am I just getting this information? It's because I had liked someone's comment on something about whatever it was. I don't even remember what it was, but that's what happened. It ended up forcing me down and I was like, okay, I'm fine watching this content, but I need to bring myself back. So that's what happens in all content on social media. That's what happens in all content on social media.

Carmen Lezeth:

Yes, I want to consume all types of things on TikTok and I love my gay and lesbian people on TikTok, but I also want the dancing and the awesome, just fun makeup tips and all that great stuff. I'm also into the like over 40 group on TikTok, so I force myself. I love there's also just music DJing stuff. That's happening too. I've also just started looking at the gray haired women thing. There's like a whole group of women who are just letting their hair go gray. I guess men too, I don't know.

Carmen Lezeth:

But you can force yourself into certain aspects of social media, but you got to look for it and you got to find it because it's easy as going into the search engine and typing in something else, right? So if you're only following democratic information or whatever, then you put Republican or whatever, so you can consume some of that as well. And look, I know that's hard because you don't want to keep listening to stuff you don't agree with, but this is why we're in the mess we're in right now. This is why we're all in our own separate silos, right? We've been manipulated into believing that only our side matters and only our thought process and only what we believe in is good and perfect. Okay, so adjust your algorithms on social media, and it's something as simple as going into the search engine and doing the opposite of whatever it was you were doing earlier, or making sure you put in cooking. Like I never look at cooking, I don't care about cooking on TikTok, but maybe I'll go check out cooking, you know. But it is that simple of a thing to be able to change some of the algorithms and interacting with other people who are not like you. So that's something else.

Carmen Lezeth:

Let me also give out I'll put these in the show notes reliable fact-checking sites. Okay, you can always go in here. Do all three of them. Go, do all five of them if you need to just get reliable information and to get it fact checked. Because sometimes, even when I'm reading something that I think is oh my, even if it's something I believe in, I'm like this sounds a little bit too good to be true. I'll go in and fact check it.

Carmen Lezeth:

Okay, so Snopes or Snoops, I don't know how they call it, but they're one of the oldest and most reputable, so it's S-N-O-P-E-S. There's factcheckorg, and that one is nonpartisan as well and it's a university affiliated. There's also PolitiFact, you know, and they have their truth-o-meter ratings. I don't generally love this one so much, but I do check out things there as well. Reuters fact-checked is another one. They're all from the major global news agencies. By the way, that's also a good one. Check out what's going on in other news areas around the world.

Carmen Lezeth:

Everyone in the United States should understand what the differences are with parliament and our form of government. You should understand that because it would make you appreciate both forms of government and give you some insight into why we are the country we are. You know simple things like that. The Associated Press is another great place to get some fact-checking done. They're another credible news source. Again, I don't just go to one. I use three of them most times when I'm fact-checking something. And you know you do the best you can with the information you have in front of you, right, but definitely try and also be more global about your outlook, don't just be about you and your own circumstances. When you know more about what's going on around in the world, you can also get a better idea of what's going on here in your own house, in your own state or country, and it also gives you different feedback and information and, again, helps you not to be so manipulated. It's just another resource.

Carmen Lezeth:

Why is this so important to me? Because if you speak to German people today and you talk to them about what happened back in the 1930s, they have not forgotten by any means what has happened. They tend to want to talk about it as a dark and tragic period in their history. They've made significant efforts to talk about it and educate their citizens and to know what the dangers are, and the dangers are so similar to what's happening today in the United States. It's the perceived economic hardship. Like if you talk to a Trump supporter today, they keep talking about how the economy is not any good, which is not true. The economy is doing great. The economy in the United States today this is I'm doing this on Friday, right before the Tuesday election in the United States for president. The economy is fantastic. We are the strongest economy still in the world and we have recovered so greatly after COVID. We are doing well, but if you talk to any Trump supporter, they will talk about how bad the economy is. So that's one of the key things that people in Germany will tell you, which is why it was so easy to be manipulated, right? Economic hardship, because it was the Great Depression of the time and there were the harsh terms of the Treaty of Versailles that created a widespread economic hardship and political instability for Germany in the time, so that, along with propaganda, again, we talked about Leni Reifenstahl.

Carmen Lezeth:

But it wasn't just those films, it was all of the propaganda, right, but it was like this sophisticated propaganda to manipulate public opinion and to promote this ideology, right? This ideology that involved basically a superiority in a culture and ethnic cleansing of other people who did not belong, other people who were let's call them rapists and murderers. Do you see where I'm going with this? You call those other people bad people, or the Haitian people, or the Puerto Rican people. I'm mixing those two things in for a reason, because it's the same thing. What they did back in the day of the Hitler regime, they said about Jewish people, is what they're doing right now about immigrants, what they're doing right now about Puerto Ricans is what they're doing right now about Haitian people.

Carmen Lezeth:

Other rising. It's this whole other rising right. And here's the weird thing that kind of kills me is I know you know better, I know you do, but that is part of the propaganda. And also along with that is the fear and the coercion right. You fear that if you step away from the Hitler regime, the Nazi regime, or you step away from the Trump, trump has already threatened that people who don't agree with him, people who have whatever, who go against him, will be be imprisoned.

Carmen Lezeth:

It's all the same. It's all so tragically easily the same, and it's because of manipulation. It's because you have been told things, you've been manipulated into believing things, because it's so easy to blame other people and because it's human nature. It's human nature to want to believe in somebody else who can find the answers and take care of you. But it goes against everything we believe in as Americans. It goes against everything that created the Constitution. That's exactly what they were against. And for all my problems with the Constitution because you know it's not a perfect document but one of the things that's great about it is how important it was to not do what has been done in the country that they left to establish this amazing government, and it's sad for me to watch so many people be so hoodwinked is basically what I'm going to say. No matter what happens on Tuesday at this election, I hope that we all understand that there's work to be done, not just as a country, and not just as neighbors and friends being human that we easily fall into, but also do ourselves right. That's how I started this whole conversation, and when we can understand that.

Carmen Lezeth:

I think the rise of social media is a great thing. It has connected me to so many people. It allows me to do something I love to do on a regular basis. It has so many people. It allows me to do something I'd love to do on a regular basis. It has so many possibilities it keeps me in touch with people around the world that I wouldn't be able to, and I don't think that social media, even artificial intelligence, is such a bad thing.

Carmen Lezeth:

I think what is bad is how lazy we've become as individuals to work hard to understand that all the information we consume is not correct and it is not easy to digest, or should not be easy to digest, that we still have to do the research and the information that we get. We still have to do the work with the information that we get in. We still have to do the work with the information that we get in front of us to make sure that it is correct before we start sharing it with other people, because this is how it happened before. We are not protected in any way, shape or form from doing what happened in Germany, and you can start seeing it happening right now and it breaks my heart. And so, no matter what happens on Tuesday, whether Vice President Harris is elected or whether Donald Trump is elected, I hope that we understand that we need to do a lot of work in this country to get people to see clearly and to understand that what we are believing on a regular basis needs much more research, much more factual-based information, and just listening to people on YouTube is not good enough. I'm so sorry. I know a lot of you are like, oh, but I listen to YouTube. No, you need to have people who are credible people. Maybe they are on YouTube, but they're not YouTubers. You see the difference. So, with that said, thank you so much all of you for following us, for helping us create such a great community here.

Carmen Lezeth:

We had a great weekly show this past Thursday. It was a Halloween silliness fun time and everyone was there Mario and Alma, rick, of course, and Cynthia and Tony D even stopped by, which was nice, and it was a really fun time. If you want to check that out, go to our YouTube page on All About the Joy. You can check out where the YouTube page is on allaboutthejoycom. We have all the links there. But go check that out, give it a like, give us a follow. We could really use that.

Carmen Lezeth:

Also on All About the Joy, we have some swag. So if you want to buy some t-shirts or buy a sweatshirt or something like that, we have that also at All About the Joy in the store area. But either way, we hope that you will continue to support us. We are having a great time and loving this so much and we hope you'll join us next Thursday at 6 pm Pacific, 9 pm Eastern. And yeah, that's it. Thank you so much for listening to this version of Carmen Talk and I hope you have a great weekend. But remember, no matter what, at the end of the day, it really is all about the joy. Thanks for stopping by. All About the Joy, be better and stay beautiful folks, have a sweet day.