Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

‘Bloody Saturday’ at Voice of America and other U.S.-funded networks

npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 140 posts

Re: ‘Bloody Saturday’ at Voice of America and other U.S.-funded networks

#61

Post by readthenotes1 »

chomp wrote: post #4
readthenotes1 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm interested in what you thought of recent Voice of America broadcasts.

It sounds like you’re not actually interested, and would like to make a point instead.

I am sorry it sounds that way to you. To the best of my recollection I have never heard a voice of America broadcast and have no idea what it's doing after the Soviet Union fell.

So I was asking someone who is supporting it what hen thought about the recent broadcast.

Surely, if you support something, you have some familiarity with it?

Re: ‘Bloody Saturday’ at Voice of America and other U.S.-funded networks

#62

Post by readthenotes1 »

throwaway89201 wrote: post #6
readthenotes1 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm interested in what you thought of recent Voice of America broadcasts.

Please be better than just stating a low-effort question. Are you familiar with Voice of America? Can you answer your own question? I'm not familiar with it myself, but I'm from the EU. I only know that it played an effort in the cold war propaganda effort with the (then) Munich-based Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

What should I do better than ask a low effort question that should require a low effort but high value response?

My supposition is that the person I was responding to has not heard of voice of America broadcast recently--in spite of supporting it-- but I was hoping to be proven wrong.

It sounds like you yourself are not someone who values voice of America enough to tune in.

I'm not either. I have no idea what sort of "soft power" a radio broadcast yields these days and for whom it yields it.

It seems like it is more the cavalry ca. 1950

Re: ‘Bloody Saturday’ at Voice of America and other U.S.-funded networks

#63

Post by bagels »

grandempire wrote: post #15
reaperducer wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why try to divert the discussion into an off topic quagmire?

He’s saying this is bad because it reduces soft power. I’m asking why that’s a bad thing.

Soft power benefits Americans. The foreign aid and cooperation is helpful to both sides.

Re: ‘Bloody Saturday’ at Voice of America and other U.S.-funded networks

#64

Post by fn-mote »

coldtea wrote: post #60
cassepipe wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever tried to be nice to people instead of threatening them to get what you want ? That's the idea

Doesn't work if what you want is against their interests. Hence "soft power" and, if that fails, "bombing for democracy".

> Doesn't work if what you want is against their interests.

There’s a world of difference between “against my interest” and “worth my effort”. Soft power could help in that gap.

I’m not actually sure we disagree - this is more of an elaboration.

Re: ‘Bloody Saturday’ at Voice of America and other U.S.-funded networks

#65

Post by crooked-v »

LeanderK wrote: post #21
crooked-v wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are protections, but not for 'probationary' employees (anyone who's been hired or transferred within the past X months). As for the rest, they're not 'being fired', they're 'being placed on administrative leave', which is a paper-thin excuse but one that will have to wind its way through the court system like all the other bullshit the administration is pulling.

ah ok, thanks for the clarification! But there shouldn't be too many probationary employees, right? So what's administrate leave exactly? Just relieved from your responsibilities? I guess you still get paid.

In theory, it should come with still being paid (https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/leave-ad...) but I'm sure the current administration will find ways to conveniently lose the checks in the mail.

Re: ‘Bloody Saturday’ at Voice of America and other U.S.-funded networks

#66

Post by jltsiren »

coldtea wrote: post #58
addicted wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Soft power is simply the capability to persuade others without coercion. So it’s usually a much less destructive tool to achieve the same goal when the alternative is “hard” power. Whether you build the soft power ethically or unethically (and false propaganda could be one of the many unethical ways to build soft power) is upto the country in question. And whether that soft power is deployed for “good” or “bad” purpo…

> Soft power is simply the capability to persuade others without coercion. So it’s usually a much less destructive tool to achieve the same goal when the alternative is “hard” power. Powerful countries don't use soft power to bring good, they use it to serve their interests - when the target country's interests and its people's inclinations are not favorable to them.

Interests are not immutable.

For a long time, the US announced that it wanted a world order based on democracy, capitalism, and the rule of law. Countries that chose to support the same values often benefited greatly. And when other countries saw the outcome, they sometimes changed their priorities and chose to support the American world order.

Re: ‘Bloody Saturday’ at Voice of America and other U.S.-funded networks

#67

Post by bagels »

LeanderK wrote: post #10

As someone from europe, I am baffled by the ability to just fire everyone on the spot. Are there no job-protections for federal employees? This makes agencies really dependent on the political climate, right? Can he really just fire everyone? Isn't there even a 3 months notice or something? A separate, connected thought is that I wonder why you would choose being a federal employee then. Here, the government promises…

Trump and Musk have done a coup and are violating the constitution and law. It doesn't matter though because Republicans in the Senate are complicit and the supreme court has granted Trump unlimited power with the immunity ruling.

Re: ‘Bloody Saturday’ at Voice of America and other U.S.-funded networks

#68

Post by bagels »

regularization wrote: post #37

Trump is not doing things that different than Biden in foreign policy - how much more damage can Trump do the Palestinians in Gaza that Biden didn't do? Trump is just more honest, and this embarrasses the professional-managerial liberals who support US imperialism. He's just saying what's happening as opposed to some nonsense about how he is neutral between Palestinians and Israelis while Biden was helping slaughteri…

Remind me which countries Biden threatened to annex? I'm drawing a blank on that.

Re: ‘Bloody Saturday’ at Voice of America and other U.S.-funded networks

#69

Post by hermitcrab »

grandempire wrote: post #8
hermitcrab wrote: post #2

The USA appears to be destroying much of the 'soft power' that it spent decades building. And it cost a tiny amount compared to the 'hard power' of the military. As an outsider, it seems very short sighted. The BBC is also cutting jobs in the BBC World Service, which seems similarly short sighted. But I don't think the cuts are as far reaching as the US ones: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpql1vvdn58o

What characteristics distinguish “soft power” from propaganda and why is it good? Is it just good in a Niestczhean kind of way in that serves American interests?

All countries are in continual struggle for influence, to further their own interests. Doing this through soft power means (student exchanges, radio programs, films, music, building roads, blue jeans etc) is surely preferable to doing it through violent means. If the US reduces it's soft power, then no doubt it's influence will wane compared to other countries.

Re: ‘Bloody Saturday’ at Voice of America and other U.S.-funded networks

#70

Post by Aloisius »

dlcarrier wrote: post #41
brickfaced wrote: post #22

Strikes me as odd how one flavor of commenters who've long called for the "end of the American Empire," reductions in our "overseas military imperialism," and closure of the VoA "propaganda outlet" now stand by the institutions of said Empire to the death.

Either party will argue against what the other is doing, while they do it, but it's what happens as the parties swap leadership that makes it clear what the party actually dislikes. They don't discontinue everything the other party implemented, even when it's easy to do so, and that's the true indicator that the party is okay with something, regardless of the partisan complaints made when it was initially implemented…

I don't think so. What's described isn't one party attacking another for positions they supposedly support. Neither of the mainstream parties supported the "end of the American Empire" - that's something you really only heard from paleo-socialists, anarchists and contrarians regurgitating Cold War Soviet propaganda.
Post reply on HN