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

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

#71

Post by monetus »

seydor wrote: post #47

It's difficult to understand the american strategy here , and even whether there is one. A state must have a strategy, it cannot be ran like a corporate, or else someone else with a strategy will become more successful. Imagine if the roman empire went "on holiday" sometime around 100AD and just declared "Rome first!" but withdrew from the known world and let the chips fall where they may. "America first" is not some…

The strategy is, "this will make trump feel good today." Trump is terminally online, or in front of a tv, never ending his media diet while simultaneously absorbing no real information about the world.

There is no strategy outside of that. They are a cult and sycophants lashing out at anything they enjoy being belligerent towards. In their minds, the abandonment of soft power is being strong by just throwing away all the mamsy pansy stuff "they" wanted.

Edit: sorry for the tone; I'm a bit perturbed.

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

#72

Post by ouilala »

mantas wrote: post #50
leptons wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America provides copious amounts of aid all over the world. That's soft power. It's not "propaganda", it actually helps people survive.

A lot of those money went to pushing US cultural wars themes worldwide. And many parts of the world don’t exactly share modern US (or democrats party voters) values. Then US soft power is closer to waging cultural war. Not exactly USAID, but similar topic. In my country US ambassador openly pushed for law that more than half of population is against for cultural reasons. That feels more like attempt of soft coloniali…

Afghanistan (as an example) should have been civilized, whatever effort necessary for it. If a peoples or country doesn't support human rights, capitalism, etc then what justification does it have to tell you to stop if you oppress and torture them? Human rights? Pish they don't believe that crap.

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

#73

Post by Gud »

coldtea wrote: post #59
mike_d wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Propaganda is a message. Soft power is a means. For example, Voice of America publishes "Learning English" radio/tv broadcasts, podcasts, and news articles. They are produced with a limited vocabulary (I think a few thousand words), shorter sentences, and are spoken slower. They often match up with native language reporting of current events so you can listen to both for context clues. Having people all over the worl…

> VoA does not broadcast propaganda, they hold themselves to a very high standard of reporting only the truth. Seriously?

Do you have any specific counter examples?

FWIW I am not American.

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

#74

Post by xist »

readthenotes1 wrote: post #61
chomp wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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

You'd really hope that's the same logic used when someone doesn't support something too.

Rarely are people's opinions that well informed unfortunately.

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

#75

Post by coldtea »

jltsiren wrote: post #66
coldtea wrote: post #58

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. 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.

>For a long time, the US announced that it wanted a world order based on democracy, capitalism, and the rule of law.

Yeah, that was still bogus. It collaborated with dictators (they are good, as long as they serve it's interests, they're a "regime" when they dont), brought down democratically elected governments, funded orange "revolutions" and opposition parties, and of course bombed, invaded, etc sovereign nations.

Further more, it's no place of any single country to try to build "a world order based on democracy, capitalism, and the rule of law". Even if that wasn't transparently and extremely self-serving hypocritical, not every people share its ideas about democracy, or about capitalism, or what are good laws.

>And when other countries saw the outcome, they sometimes changed their priorities and chose to support the American world order.

Oh, sweet summer child.

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

#76

Post by kennysoona »

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

> 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.

Republicans think this is a good thing because they think the US can rule the world through hard power alone. It's such a depressing monumental mistake.

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

#77

Post by kennysoona »

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…

> 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?

There is, but Trump is ignoring them, and no one in his administration is enforcing those rules. Additionally, as of today he has started ignoring court orders.

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

#78

Post by jltsiren »

coldtea wrote: post #75
jltsiren wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> For a long time, the US announced that it wanted a world order based on democracy, capitalism, and the rule of law. Yeah, that was still bogus. It collaborated with dictators (they are good, as long as they serve it's interests, they're a "regime" when they dont), brought down democratically elected governments, funded orange "revolutions" and opposition parties, and of course bombed, invaded, etc sovereign nations…

I don't understand what you are trying to say.

People often change their minds. Sometimes when the situation changes, sometimes as a response to incentives, and sometimes because they have thought about the matter and learned something new. And when enough people change their minds, entire countries change their minds.

The world order the US marketed during the Cold War was very attractive, and many countries tried to join it voluntarily. Some of them succeeded and some didn't. The US used various means to advance its interests, but that doesn't mean every other country was just a bunch of mindless zombies with no agency and no ability to make choices.

Sometimes people just make a choice, because it's objectively better than the alternatives that are available.

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

#79

Post by 01100011 »

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.

It's sad that otherwise reasonable folks either aren't aware or are too embarrassed to acknowledge their political biases.

But here we are. Trump is bad(and hey, he mostly is), so now we're justified in lying in any way shape or form that it takes to inflict some harm on his ideas, actions or person. The first casualty of someone like trump is our own character. We can't admit anything he does has positive benefits because to do so would be to give an inch to literal hitler.

If you went back 20 years and asked your average liberal activist they'd be all in favor of rolling back American "imperial actions and organizations" like USAID(long suspected to work closely with the CIA since at least the 60s). But here we are, debasing ourselves for politics' sake.

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

#80

Post by grandempire »

hermitcrab wrote: post #69
grandempire wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don’t follow the argument that if we don’t do this then we must have boots on the ground. We don’t have to do either one.
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