Attack Ads! The Podcast

Every so often, a book emerges that gets a lot of buzz from the media and gets tongues wagging.  Sadly, too often those books say things that stretch credulity to the breaking point and start to smell a lot like a massive propaganda campaign stuffed into a hardcover.  I follow the abundant evidence of one such book being bunkum in this Episode 269: An Abundance of Lies. Find the Show Notes Page at: https://attackadspodcast.blogspot.com/2025/09/episode-269-abundance-of-lies.html

While most of us have heard of the Sherman Act, few have savored Senator John Sherman's speech to the Senate in defense of that act.  Today, I present to you my reading of an edited version of that speech, in this Bonus Episode: Senator John Sherman's Address to The Senate.

Monopolies are nothing new. Government allowing companies to merge and acquire and metastasize into monopolies, though, that is relatively new. The ideas that support monopolies come from a handful of jerks supported by other jerks, who provide trucks full of money. I focus my hairy eyeball of criticism today on one such full truck funded fuck in this Episode 268: Rich Uncle Money-Bork, Welfare Queen.  Find the Show Notes Page at: https://attackadspodcast.blogspot.com/2025/08/episode-268-rich-uncle-money-bork.html  

Propaganda is not just a thing that happens in the here and now. Dig well enough, and you might find old institutional knowledge that started originally as a conspiratorial plot designed to sway society. Make such propaganda profitable enough, and we find ourselves in a world described by the title to Episode 267: Breathing Together, Choking Apart.  Find the Show Notes Page at: https://attackadspodcast.blogspot.com/2025/07/episode-267-breathing-together-choking.html

When propaganda falls, it can lead to social impacts more powerful than kinetic weapons.  The troubles come when the propagandists conceal their manipulation of society with misdirecting propaganda that we have trouble detecting, let alone responding to effectively.  Which brings us to today's Episode 266: Garbage Fires and Angry Weasels. Find the Show Notes at: https://attackadspodcast.blogspot.com/2025/07/episode-266-garbage-fires-and-angry.html

As I've quoted before, "ideas need patrons."  I'll dive into economic ideas bought by the wealthy and spread by those Chicago school economists in this Episode 265: A Stringent, Crystalline Vision. Find the Show Notes at: https://attackadspodcast.blogspot.com/2025/06/episode-265-stringent-crystalline-vision.html

Perhaps for the first time in human history, we people can now buy things more easily than we can fix them. Repair shops have become a thing only on television, even though so much of value could be repaired. I spend most of this Episode 264: Archeologists of a Bygone Age, planning my next big repair.  Find the Show Notes at: https://attackadspodcast.blogspot.com/2025/05/episode-264-archeologists-of-bygone-age.html

Ethics often interfere with profits.  When more profits are “required,” companies often face a hard choice…or an easy one.  Results vary.  I look into two compromises/profitable opportunities in this Episode 263: The Hits To Our Privates Just Keep Coming! Find the Show Notes at: http://attackadspodcast.blogspot.com/2025/05/episode-263-hits-to-our-privates-just.html

Explore the fascinating intersection of technology and privacy through the lens of a road trip memory. Delve into the historical role of propaganda in shaping economic attitudes after WWII, especially in academia. Discover how influential figures at the Chicago School of Economics crafted free-market ideologies, and the financial forces that shaped their teachings. Uncover the alliance between business elites and scholars that propelled libertarian thought forward, and its ongoing relevance in today's discussions about privacy and governmental roles.

I didn’t really know how much advertisers surveil us.  I started to look into it.  Then I stopped looking: how much we have all lost our privacy was just too scary.  I look back on 10 years of reading in this Episode 261: Ways We Are All Getting Torq'd. Find the Show Notes page at: https://attackadspodcast.blogspot.com/2025/04/episode-261-ways-we-are-all-getting.html