Statists are up in arms over President Trump’s decision to terminate the Voice of America and other U.S. government propaganda outlets that fall under the control of a federal entity called the U.S. Agency for Global Media. USAGM also encompasses Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, and Radio Martí.
Statists are saying that these propaganda outlets have long been great promoters of freedom. Harkening back to World War II, they say that Voice of America was a worthy competitor to propaganda being published by the Nazi regime. They say that ever since World War II, the U.S. governmental propaganda outlets have also been an important voice for freedom in countries under totalitarian or authoritarian rule.
But a fundamental question must be asked: What business does a government in a genuinely free society have owning a propaganda outlet? Sure, I understand that Nazi Germany had a great propaganda program led by Joseph Goebbels. But does that mean that in order to fight Nazism, the U.S. government needed to have its own propaganda program to compete against that of Nazi Germany?
Undoubtedly, Voice of America and the rest of the U.S. propaganda outlets have long praised “capitalism” and criticized “socialism” in their broadcasts. But how do they reconcile that position with U.S. government ownership of a radio station? Isn’t a government owned radio station a socialist project?
Moreover, one can be fairly certain that these U.S. propaganda outlets refrained from condemning discomforting programs and activities of the U.S. government itself. For example, while one could undoubtedly find all sorts of pronouncements condemning Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, my hunch is that one would never find any condemnation of the U.S. government’s invasions and wars of aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq. For that matter, I’m fairly certain that Voice of America has never criticized the role that NATO played in provoking the Russia-Ukraine war.
I’m also willing to bet that there has never been any condemnation of the multiple regime-change operations, both at home and abroad, on the part of the U.S. national-security establishment, including by coups and assassinations. For that matter, I’ll bet that they have also been silent when it came to U.S. practices like torture and indefinite detention during the much-vaunted “war on terrorism.”
While I’m sure there have been plenty of criticisms of communist Cuba, especially through Radio Martí, my hunch is that silence was the approach toward the Pentagon’s and CIA’s torture center, prison camp, and kangaroo judicial system on the U.S. side of Cuba.
In fact, one could easily be forgiven for viewing Radio Martí as part of the U.S. government’s decades-old quest for regime change in Cuba. Has Radio Martí ever condemned the never-ending efforts by the U.S. national-security state to effect regime change in Cuba, including through its decades-old brutal economic embargo, its many assassination plots, and its acts of terrorism inside Cuba? I would venture to say no.
Socialism is bad whether it’s being in engaged in by National Socialist Germany, communist regimes in Cuba, China, North Korea, and Vietnam, the United States, or any other country. Trump is right to dump the U.S. government-owned propaganda outlets into the trash bin of history. They never should have been brought into existence.
