Saturday, February 19, 2011

Good Bye, Voice of America

Hello, Voice of China. In its ongoing mission to weaken the message of freedom throughout the world while encouraging our enemies, the Obama administration is terminating the broadcasts of the Voice of America into China. Needless to say, that same administration is doing nothing to interfere with propaganda broadcasts coming into the United States from China. In fact, Beijing is planning a major increase in its funding of Chinese broadcasts into the U.S.

Voice of America was first founded in 1942, using short-wave radio to get information into Nazi-dominated Europe. It gave hope to the enslaved peoples and passed on information to resistance movements using codes and diversions. After the defeat of the Nazis, the Soviet Union emerged as the greatest world threat to freedom, later joined by Maoist China, and VOA continued to broadcast hope and liberty to the captive nations and oppressed peoples of the two evil empires. In 1953, VOA became an arm of the United States Information Agency.

Although USIA developed an inability to distinguish friend from foe, important friends of VOA such as Ronald Reagan continued to push for unequivocal broadcasts contrasting tyrannical regimes with free nations. Barack Obama is not such a friend. He apparently thinks that broadcasting stories of freedom in the West and repression in China would be biting the hand that lends us money. Like Gerald Ford speaking of Poland before the fall of the Soviet Union, Obama thinks that Tibet is not a captive nation. While touting the "democratic revolution" in Egypt that will likely end up being the Muslim Brotherhood Republic of Egypt, Obama doesn't want a discouraging word being broadcast to our good friend, China.

China objected to VOA broadcasts which encouraged Tibetan freedom, and wanted no more broadcasts being used to encourage the growing pro-democracy movement in Xinjiang Province. Said Dana Rohrbacher (R-CA), member of the House Foreign Affair Committee: "This is another alarming sign that America is cowering before China's gangster regime. The Chinese people [not their government] are our greatest allies, and the free flow of information is our greatest weapon." Though I think Rohrbacher was a bit overly-optimistic about the Chinese people, I also think he got it basically right.

Radio Free Asia, VOA's much smaller sister, will continue to broadcast, but has already been told its budget will be cut dramatically. Funny the budget cuts Obama is willing to make, isn't it? This President is unwilling to stifle Chinese propaganda, and even more unwilling to reduce the budget of the Department of Education (aka The Ministry of Childhood Indoctrination), but he has no problem defunding the voice of truth that helped cripple the Nazis and played a major role in causing the collapse of the Soviet Union. Is there a Voice of America for the Middle East? If so, I'm sure it's a goner as well.

10 comments:

Tennessee Jed said...

well, on the one hand, they did purchase us out right, so they do get the final say on what we can or cannot broadcast. Still, after reading this article (as well as others) it does cause me to renew and question exactly why I have tended to scoff at suggestions by some that our current leader is actively and aggressively trying to cause the downfall of our country.

Joel Farnham said...

LawHawk and Jed,

I never thought any different about Obama. He may say he is for the United States. In reality, he is against it.

T_Rav said...

Look, LawHawk, if you were Obama, and you were getting teleprompter funding under the table from the Chinese, what would you do? But don't worry, I'm sure once the brutal autocrats in Madison have been forced to bow to the will of the people, he'll send those union protestors off to Beijing to spread democracy there too.

AndrewPrice said...

Yes, but can you dance to it? I think not.

Anonymous said...

Tennessee: Yeah, its the golden rule. He who has the gold makes the rules.

I'm still wavering between whether Obama is just a weak-spined numbskull asking the Rodney King philosophical question "can't we all just get along" or an active saboteur. I'm starting to lean toward the latter.

Anonymous said...

Joel: In a twisted sort of way I don't think he's against the United States. I think he's against everything that makes us America, but he has some crazy vision that makes him think he's doing it for us when he's actually doing it to us.

Anonymous said...

T_Rav: But first he'll have to borrow the money to send the union thugs because the taxpayers won't fund it anymore. And guess who he'll borrow it from. LOL

Anonymous said...

Andrew: Music hath charms to sooth the savage breast. Perhaps that's where they went wrong. Maybe they can save themselves by playing old clips of Saturday Night Live bad Chinese opera.

wahsatchmo said...

Wait, I thought Tibet was already free since hippies have had those "Free Tibet" stickers on their cars for years, and then elected Obama. Didn't that solve everything?

And don't the Chinese already get free propaganda service via Thomas Friedman? They shouldn't have to do anything to spread disinformation about their regime, considering Friedman already does that so well.

Anonymous said...

wahsatchmo: The day Obama was elected, Tibet was freed, and as a bonus, there are no more homeless people. In case you haven't noticed, New York City isn't under water and the polar bears aren't dying in droves. And you thought Obama hadn't accomplished anything.

Thank you for reminding me that I have to add Friedman to my hate list. Have you ever watched that weasel during an interview? He has all the classic body language of a sneak, including never looking anyone directly in the eye. As someone once said of someone else, "every word he says is a lie, including 'and' and 'the.'"

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