US President Donald Trump has signed an order to strip back the federally-funded news organisation Voice of America, accusing it of being “anti-Trump” and “radical”.
A White House statement said the order would “ensure taxpayers are no longer on the hook for radical propaganda”, and included quotes from politicians and right-wing media railing against the “leftist”, “partisan” VOA.
I don’t understand the naysayers here.
This is hilarious. Trump wants to simultaneously expand the American empire, while he dismantles the tools of it that he’s too stupid to understand the importance of.
No matter their mission statement, or any tangible benefits they might have provided, both USAID and VOA, were tools of empire. These aren’t mutually exclusive concepts.
Trump’s mission is to weaken the US, NATO, and the EU. Eliminating VoA helps do that. Notice how he isn’t threatening China with invasion, but Canada and Denmark instead.
Because Trump knows that China can and will fight back.
Canada and Denmark are friends of ours that Trump is now throwing salt in their eyes and saying “neener neener” while showing them his ass.
Because of our history, they aren’t fighting back.
If they do, Russia wins.
That’s why we call him JDPON Don - this dumbass is going to dismantle the empire and usher in global proletarian revolution.
Everything Trump does – everything – suddenly makes sense when viewed through the lens of “how does Putin benefit?”
That’s an incredibly myopic take that confuses correlation with causation.
These moves may benefit Putin, but Russia isn’t the only county to benefit. Infact, Russia is in a historically weak position to fill gaps left by a receding American empire.
I’d wager that China is likely to see much more geopolitical gains because they have the resources and capacity to take advantage of the situation.
I’m not saying Putin won’t benefit, just pointing out how limiting it is to view Trump through a singular lens.
Broken clock strikes again.
Glad to see US propaganda go away, sad it was Trump to do it.
Leftist and partisan are not how I, an actual leftist, would describe the various propaganda outlets scattered around the world such as VOA.
It’s a cia op. And literally always was. Since 1942 when it was established.
ml user cries about propaganda. The irony always gives me a chuckle
Libs not actually caring about imperialism, lies, and propaganda. No irony. Just the usual.
They correctly called out VOA for what it is. You pointing out that they made an account on the lemmy.ml instance adds nothing.
Maybe we’ll get lucky and he’ll move against the nuclear arsenal and the Army will finally give him the boot.
Is this sarcasm? They fired 350+ workers in charge of overseeing the nuclear stockpile before they even knew who they were firing, and nothing happened. To pretend that there is some line in the sand is, at this point, naive.
America. Its institutions are fairly tales.
This is the same country that classified its nukes so hard that the engineers couldn’t find non-redacted procedures for making a critical component of fusion bombs.
We’ve always been incompetent, now it’s just partnered with enhanced stupidity.
What will the shills on Lemmy post now?
Isn’t Voice of America like the USA’s equivalent of Deutsche Welle?
Basically a vehicle for internationally transporting news from the US American perspective?
Trump really hates any and all soft power the USA have available.
Yes, it’s one of the US’s propaganda presses
How is everything that is “anti-Trump” radical? You fucking dictator.
“If you smell shit everywhere you go it’s probably because you’re covered in it” Anon
usagm is an independent agency. it and its predecessors, and voa, were created by congress. only congress can eliminate them
Yeah, those checks and balances will kick in any day now!
Yeap, any day now.
Under $300 million a year to spread US propaganda to over 300 million people. That’s a fucking bargain man.
This is going to give up so, SO much soft power because of a snowflake’s ego. This is a bad deal.
As someone who used to listen to a lot of shortwave radio, this just bums me out.
I know foreign people who listened to VoA, and now it won’t be there anymore for them.
Makes me wonder who they’ll listen to, who will fill the void, with the VoA being gone.
I know foreign people who listened to VoA, and now it won’t be there anymore for them.
Stuff like this is a perfect example of how little Trump understands soft power. That was an outlet for American ideals (ok, propaganda) and American culture to diffuse across the world. Seeing how power abhors a vacuum, I won’t be surprised when China increasingly fills this void.
Right wingers are generally too stupid to think that abstractly.
It was mostly a propaganda machine against socialist movements. I’m glad it is gone, but it should have been gone way before Trump. Because he doesn’t deserve credit for shit.
What socialist movements?
The communist party of China.
The least communist communist party on the planet.
“Socialist” movements like:
checks notes
People’s Republic of China with its draconian:
- One Child Policy that almost got me killed because they were trying for force my mother to have an abortion against her will (since I was the second child)
- Rich people and high-ranking party members get away with crimes (as long as they do not go against the paramount leader)
- If you want treatment, you have to wait a long time, and you have to pre-pay, even if its an Emergency Room life and death situation
- 户口 (Hukou, Household Registration) System that confines you to where you’re born, and you cant even to move to other parts of your own country, and if you tried you are treated as a second-class citizen, essentially Casteism
Such “Socialism” aka: State-Capitalism
Every single one of them since the end of World War 2. Voice of America, Radio for Europe, Radio Free Asia they’re all arms of US imperialist propaganda.
As an American, I would like to apologize that the idiots of this country re-elected Mango Mussolini. And I’m sorry that the rest of the world has to suffer because of this idiot and his cronies.
You don’t have to self-identify as “American” if you don’t want. You don’t need to apologize for a system over which you have virtually no control. The first step to resisting an evil system is probably disavowal.
Sooo… Weakening US influence around the world in order for Putin to fill the vacuum? What is Trump’s Russian codename again?
