soft power
I enjoyed this video on Soft Power from this guy (audio by Mike Benz) so much, I decided to host a back up of it so that I don't have to search around to watch it. It's a little long, but totally worth it.
Smith-Mundt Act
On it's face, the Smith-Mundt Act seems like a pretty beneficial and benign act of congress:
AN ACT...To promote the better understanding of the United States among the peoples of the world and to strengthen cooperative international relations.[1] 
The Congress hereby declares that the objectives of this Act are to enable the Government of the United States to promote a better understanding of the United States in other countries, and to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. Among the means to be used in achieving these objectives are—
- An information service to disseminate abroad information about the United States, its people, and policies promulgated by the Congress, the President, the Secretary of State and other responsible officials of government having to do with matters affecting foreign affairs;
- An educational exchange service to cooperate with other nations in—
- the interchange of persons, knowledge, and skills;
- the rendering of technical and other services;
- the interchange of developments in the field of education, the arts, and sciences.
I underlined and made bold that part about "other services" because that term is so broad and sweeping, it might as well say something like "we are going to remove your government and install our own by any means necessary."[2][3][4]
This rendering of technical and other services used American tax dollars to change regimes all over the world from 1948 until 2013, when the Smith-Mundt Act was tweaked a bit by then President Obama. Before 2013, all of those "other services" could only be used by the CIA, DOD, and State Department on foreign soil. The Smith-Mundt Act was about them, not us.
the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act
The modernization of Smith-Mundt will facilitate global connectivity and audience engagement and will provide greater transparency into publicly-funded broadcasting.[5]
That tweaking done by Obama allowed all those nasty deeds to be used against Americans on American soil. If you ever sit there and wonder why things started getting REALLY crazy during the 2010s, this is why. The CIA, DOD, and State Department were now waging a war against you...because you didn't think they way they wanted you to.
I can see those backroom deals. A bunch of politicians laughing at American citizens and saying "We're going to change things so that they are OUR way...and we're going to make those suckers pay for it themselves."
further reading
- File:Apple Pie Propaganda .pdf This is a fun one.
- Even better.
