How do you topple a regime?
John Adams said that the American Revolution was effected in “the hearts and minds of the people” before a single shot was fired. But there are many ways to influence hearts and minds in the run-up to a revolution.
In the Romania of the 1980s, one means was the dubbing of bootlegged foreign movies. It was a one-woman job: Margareta Nistor’s. She dubbed thousands of films, making hers the best-known voice in the country.
In a New York Times article and video, “VHS vs. Communism,” Romanian documentary maker Ilinca Calugareanu recalls her childhood under a Communist regime “that, among countless repressions, reduced television to two hours a day of dull propaganda” and other bland, censored fare. But one day, her parents borrowed a VCR and played Hollywood movies all night long. It was “like walking into a secret, magical and free world.”
The female voice translating the dialogue was always the same.
After the 1989 revolution that led to the demise of dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu, Calugareanu learned about Margareta Nistor. Once a translator for state television — which carefully repressed any hints that life was better in the West — Nistor had then teamed up with a “mysterious entrepreneur” who was smuggling in foreign movies.
For many Romanians, the movies provided a lifeline. Their forbidden, exotic glimpses into another way of life helped them both to escape the all-controlling regime and to resist it.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
2 replies on “Dubbing vs. Communism”
Second cousin to John, Samuel Adams was determined to get the American revolution off the ground. When an excited street crowd began harassing a lone British sentry at the garrison in Boston in March, 1770, 8 other British soldiers came to help defend him. In March there was cosiderable snow in Boston. The crowd began pelting the soldiers, first with snowballs, then with ice balls, then with ice and gravel balls and the Brits finally fired into the crowd, killing 3 people and wounding several, two of whom later died. John Adams defended them and all but 2 were acquited. The 2 were branded on their hand.
In the interim, Sam Adams did a heavy business playing up the “Boston Massacre” with pamphlets and oratory to help circulate the news and bad press as far as possible. Paul Revere made a nice engraving from a cartoon by a local artist that showed organized British tropps being ordered to fire and firing into an unarmed and panicked crowd. By the time the trial was over, there were few people in America who were not resentful of the British.
OT–Everyone should get behind this guy:
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — The New York Department of Financial Services Superintendent Benjamin Lawsky spoke about “accountability gap” on Wall Street on Wednesday, saying that individuals should face real, serious penalties and sanctions when they break the rules. Lawsky, speaking in Washington, also noted that not everyone on Wall Street is Gordon Gekko or Bud Fox, referring to characters in Oliver Stone’s 1987 movie “Wall Street.” The regulator also noted that blaming the misdeeds of a few on Wall Street to a “cultural problem” lets regulators off the hook far too easily. Lawsky suggested two approaches to curbing bad behavior, one is publicly exposing individuals who engage in misconduct and the other is putting people in jail when they break the law in the context of criminal prosecutions. Sanctions could also mean suspensions, firings, bonus claw-backs, and other types of penalties in the regulatory context, according to Lawsky. He also said the DFS was considering new ideas that could ban a company from conducting the type of business that was at the heart of its misconduct for an extended period
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/lawsky-wall-st-should-face-penalties-sanctions-2014-03-19-1391388