‘Bloody Saturday’ at Voice of America and other U.S.-funded networks
99 comments
·March 16, 2025hermitcrab
kennysoona
> 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.
marban
I do some consulting work for PSM in Europe, and there are cost-cutting measures across the board, but nowhere near as earth-shattering as in the US.
grandempire
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?
addicted
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” purposes is also dependent on the actions and goals of the nation.
So it’s kind of as meaningless to ask whether soft power is “good” or “bad” as it is to ask whether a hammer is good or bad, except generally “soft” power tends to be a better way to achieve the goals of a country than the alternative (which involves the threat and/or actual dropping of bombs) and the methods of developing soft power tend to generally be better than the alternative (distributing medicines for Thberculosis, cultural exchanges, etc instead of building a bigger and more dangerous military).
coldtea
>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.
mike_d
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 world able to speak a basic level of English helps further the dominant role of the US in international trade, allows our military to use friendly locals as translators anywhere they go, and gives people around the world some level of "connection" with us - shared common ground to work from.
VoA does not broadcast propaganda, they hold themselves to a very high standard of reporting only the truth. Which is why repressive governments hate it, as do people who want to create them.
grandempire
Is your claim that Va primarily produces English language learning material and the content is secondary?
coldtea
>VoA does not broadcast propaganda, they hold themselves to a very high standard of reporting only the truth.
Seriously?
throw0101d
> What characteristics distinguish “soft power” from propaganda and why is it good?
A report from the American Enterprise Institute:
> To improve the US government’s response to the exploitation of youth by terrorist groups, the report recommends (1) adopting clear criteria to be used in weighing young peoples’ vulnerability to radicalization and recruitment and in creating and targeting terrorism prevention programs, (2) fostering both attitudinal and behavioral change to build youth resilience to recruitment, (3) moving beyond a traditional focus on young men to confront the radicalization and recruitment of girls and young women, and (4) engaging the family as a potential site of radicalization and recruitment.
* https://www.un.org/sexualviolenceinconflict/wp-content/uploa...
For example:
> Cuts to health and food programs that wind up costing lives will embitter affected populations and be exploited in propaganda by anti-American groups. This will have at least a moderate effect in boosting recruitment by terrorist organizations.
* https://www.newsweek.com/islamic-state-will-capitalize-after...
hermitcrab
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.
grandempire
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.
cassepipe
Have you ever tried to be nice to people instead of threatening them to get what you want ? That's the idea
coldtea
Doesn't work if what you want is against their interests. Hence "soft power" and, if that fails, "bombing for democracy".
krapp
Propaganda is a form of soft power, as is foreign aid, as is trade and cultural exchange. These things are "good" in the sense that they allow a nation to further its interests and strengthen its influence, and thus maintain stable and peaceful relationships with other nations, as opposed to furthering those interests through the direct use of violence.
Also what on earth does Nietzsche have to do with anything?
leptons
America provides copious amounts of aid all over the world. That's soft power. It's not "propaganda", it actually helps people survive.
kcplate
It’s only power if the recipients view the US positively, or if other countries view the US positively for that aid.
Unfortunately I think it backfires when US power of all sorts (both hard and soft) is viewed as meddling.
At that point is the altruism worth the negative optics? I wonder.
null
mantas
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 colonialism than soft power tbh.
Another example I recently noticed. When looking for kids cartoons online, I realized I try to stay away from recent US content. Why? Too much of a chance of blatant cultural propaganda. Meanwhile asian, even Chinese, stuff feels fine in the back of my mind. I guess PLC is pushing its own propaganda too, but I don’t even notice among the dragons and all that jazz.
IMO US soft power went south a good decade ago.
grandempire
That makes sense. But then this kind of journalism/talk radio, would not be included.
reaperducer
Why try to divert the discussion into an off topic quagmire?
grandempire
He’s saying this is bad because it reduces soft power. I’m asking why that’s a bad thing.
pjc50
VOA is the old world propaganda network. Twitter/Facebook are the new ones. Direct mirror image of TikTok effects.
hoseyor
What I find the most interesting is that to me at least it seems like there has been some strange inversion over the course of my adult life, where the same people that used to lament things like the COA VOA propaganda, warfare, instigating and stoking and orchestrating coups, subverting democratic elections, etc. are exactly the ones doing and supporting all those things they used to decry.
I get the sense that I’ve just remained consistent in my views, but it still does not expiration things like how the same “liberals” who decried the invasion and corruption of Iraq, cheer on and demand limitless warfare and corrupted spending today on the likes of the Ukraine, while the “conservatives” want to stop wars and limit profligate spending and corruption.
It’s upside down world, and terrifying to witness how quickly people can be manipulated to take directly contradictory positions.
ckemere
I don’t think this in quite fair. Since the time of Reagan, I think that liberals have consistently upheld the possibility of non-military government service being of value in contrast to the Reagan-ite generalization that only military service was generally honorable.
(E.g., VOA, diplomatic service, DOJ)
krapp
You're confusing "liberal" with "leftist," I suspect intentionally. Liberals supported the Iraq war.
And the conservatives don't want to stop wars, they're literally the pro-war, pro military industrial complex party, and nothing they're doing is actually limiting profligate spending or corruption.
Nice bit of propaganda and misidrection though. I can tell you worked hard on it.
jmye
> how the same “liberals” who decried the invasion and corruption of Iraq, cheer on and demand limitless warfare
This is an absurdly dishonest take on Ukraine, and why “liberals” (or whatever you’re trying to say) support it.
There isn’t a single, real, person who supports “war” above and beyond “Russia should stop invading and leave” and it is extremely difficult to believe that stating otherwise was done in good faith.
01100011
This. I was surprised to see the outrage over USAID, which up until now I had considered an arm of the CIA. Of course you are downvoted, because right now the progressive thing is to support these institutions and not question them. But this attitude used to be the domain of the left and so was seen differently. Now that the right is saying it, we have to downvote you.
Edit:
Some pre-2025 links:
https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/04/03/cuban-twitter-and-other...
https://search.library.wisc.edu/digital/AA2RFE4CPSKBZ78P
https://mronline.org/2008/09/23/usaid-key-weapon-in-dirty-wa... (from a socialist magazine, so take w/ a grain of salt)
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2004/11/coup-connection...
Please do not be blinded by your well deserved distaste for trump. People calling for the ending of USAID are not all MAGA.
symbolicAGI
In the USA, Republicans build the military and Democrats wield it.
readthenotes1
I'm interested in what you thought of recent Voice of America broadcasts.
throwaway89201
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.
readthenotes1
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
chomp
It sounds like you’re not actually interested, and would like to make a point instead.
readthenotes1
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?
LeanderK
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 job security but it usually means less pay and slower processes compared to industry. If you don't have job security, is then the government forced to be more competitive with industry positions in pay/processes?
WarOnPrivacy
> I am baffled by the ability to just fire everyone on the spot.
It often isn't about ability. Many of these are being challenged and courts are ordering reinstatements.
It's about leveraging sensitive, protected processes to generate so many constitutional crisis and other chaos knowing that Congress won't exercise it's safeguarding duties.
That leaves the public to engage a limited number of courts to issue orders against individual whitehouse actions - and the whitehouse undermining or outright ignoring those orders because the white house controls federal law enforcement.
andrewflnr
Historically (for decades), stability has also been the pitch in the US, with the same tradeoff in pay and bureaucracy. I'm not sure about the exact legal authority, but no one has attempted it before. So much of our legal system depends on convention and what a given judge feels like on a given day that it's really hard to say whether this is "legal" or not.
crooked-v
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.
bink
There absolutely are protections for probationary employees, just not as many as there are for those not in probationary status. Courts are already re-instating people who were clearly fired without cause. Our courts just aren't equipped to deal with these types of events as frequently and widely as they are happening now.
LeanderK
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.
crooked-v
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.
cemerick
VOA/RFE operations were actually run by a separate non-profit org that got the vast majority of its operating funds from the feds. So, federal worker protections aren't relevant by dint of the org(s) being set up at arm's length.
That said, the current regime has had no problem acting outside of the law and existing federal employee union contracts. Tell people they're dismissed, cut off the email and building access, wait for the lawsuits, and then simply ignore the decisions weeks/months later and/or follow them with as much malicious compliance as they need to achieve their original aims.
tl;dr: No, employment protections fundamentally don't exist in the US, and doubly so for those employed by the federal government within an atmosphere of rampant lawlessness.
reaperducer
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 are, but these actions are intentionally designed to be so rapid and so numerous that the media and the legal system can't keep up.
The White House hasn't even been shy about it. They're calling it "flooding the zone," itself a sports reference.
kennysoona
> 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.
leptons
Republicans want to privatize everything. They want to make their rich friends richer by doing this. It's going to be a disaster for the average citizen.
netbioserror
Article II of the Constitution exists and you can read it anytime:
https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/article-2/
In short: Job protection for executive employees defeats the entire point of an executive that is accountable to the people. Major magistrate positions are subject to Senate approval before being vested authority, but they are appointed and serve at the behest of the president, who literally embodies the executive.
LeanderK
I am having trouble understanding the document. Where is it stated? I can not exactly follow your argument. I am not sure why being accountable to the people necessitates having not any job protection?
I would have expected this to be codified (What is accountability for a federal employee). I mean regulatory bodies should also be accountable but also shielded from political influence, right?
freeone3000
You’re looking for the Reduction in Force Act for federal protections.
For the second part: no, US government regulatory bodies are expressly political, down to their very existence. You likely intended “partisan”, but, one party is against them existing at all, so…
seydor
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 revelatory slogan, america was already first, but if it wants to be alone , that's their prerogative. But then the rest of the world is not ready to deglobalize nor does it want to. The great powers of the 19th century are no longer, so by necessity the world will have to remain globalized with an increasingly closed off america. This would be a loss for the USA - why would a scientist go to work in america if her work might eventually be subject to restrictions of collaboration.
On the other hand, the US launched an attack against the Houthi terrorists, which is a clear sign that the US is interested to maintain the world's essential trade and oil routes. So maybe america is not alone yet.
monetus
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.
lkrubner
Here in the USA we currently have a regime that is focused on destroying all forms of American power: they are destroying our economic power, they are destroying our cultural power, they are destroying our military power. They are destroying the idea called "America." They have gone to war against each of our traditions and values. Some critics ascribe this to rational motives, such critics claim that the goal here is to make Trump wealthier, or to make Elon Musk wealthier, or to make all rich people wealthier. But I think it is a form of psychological denial to want to believe that Trump or Musk have rational motivations. It is more accurate to see this as an expression of the primitive impulses that rule them. There is no rational calculation in what they do, only rage, and a desire to destroy. Fighting against them is honorable, virtuous, and moral.
snovv_crash
Don't attribute to malice that which can be attributed to incompetence.
xnx
It's both
tigerlily
When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
salawat
Unrepentant incompetence, especially in the presence of a counter/restoring force being actively ignored is indistinguishable from malice.
The U.S. is not unanimous in this dismantling effort, great controversy has been and continues to be brewed, which to any competent leader should signal a slower, more cautious approach. We see no such thing.
Hanlon's razor does not apply in such a circumstance. It only serves to ease the process of bloodletting by acting as a thought terminating cliche.
crooked-v
I think there's an easy answer for Elon's motivation in particular: he wants to damage the US as revenge for ending South African apartheid (https://www.flyingpenguin.com/?p=65793).
thescriptkiddie
it's very funny that these guys don't seem to understand anymore that programs like VoA are their thing. they think they're "owning the left" by cutting the budget for right-wing propaganda.
horns4lyfe
They’re cutting the budget for neocon power. Trump et al are not neocons, that’s been the democrats bag since Obama took it over
pessimizer
Awful ancient Cold War propaganda outlets that were once illegal to broadcast into the United States, welcome to the resistance.
This is the willful destruction of independent journalistic outlets that are fully funded by the US government and broadcast primarily to countries whose governments the US has expressed an open desire to overthrow.
regularization
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 slaughtering Palestinians, Yemen, Syrians, Lebanese etc. while talking about peace.
No need for propaganda outfits when you're being honest.
The lies of upper middle class white liberal imperialists have been exposed - how the US treats Palestinians hasn't changed at all.
Plus some minor things - Trump is more anti-China, which is why he's winding down the Russia thing. From a geopolitical realist standpoint it makes more sense - maybe not to neocons.
freeone3000
Biden had the same attitudes towards enemies like Palestine and unaligned powers in the Middle East and Africa, where the main issue is inaction.
Trump is starting trade wars with close economic allies, threatening to annex territory from other NATO members, and closing down century-old institutions overnight.
There is a difference between seeing Israel killing Palestinians and doing nothing, and actually threatening overt action against what were once allies.
krapp
Biden didn't do nothing. He stated firm support for Israel, to the point of declaring himself a Zionist, he sent billions of dollars in arms and aid to Israel, and the US under his leadership vetoed numerous UN resolutions calling for a ceasefire, as well as witheld funding to Palestinian relief organizations.
He got the nickname "Genocide Joe" because of how enthusiastic he almost seemed to be about it. Utter disregard and contempt for Palestinian lives is one area where very little daylight exists between Biden and Trump. Even Kamala Harris didn't deviate from that norm.
freeone3000
Sure, sure, but it’s one thing to genocide your enemies and another thing entirely to turn on your friends.
bagels
Remind me which countries Biden threatened to annex? I'm drawing a blank on that.
brickfaced
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.
mike_d
I don't hold that view point, but if even the critics can see this as something evil, that should tell you something.
You can not like your neighbors partying and playing music until 3 AM, but also have the moral compass to know that setting fire to their house is not the solution.
dlcarrier
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.
Aloisius
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.
01100011
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.
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