So after decades of broadcasting throughout the world since WW2 the wonderful Voice of America has been shut down by the idiot orange face buffoon and his ugly car maker consigliere on the claim of cost.

They know the price of everything (but still get it wrong as they still beg sacked nuclear safety workers to return on full pay) and the value of nothing.

I've listened to the VoA in the past..US style broadcasting at it's very best as it reached millions throughout Europe mainly.

This so reminds me of Australia's government funded network the ABC which ran a similar radio network through the South Pacific for decades, catering programs to 100s of small islands like Vanuatu and Fiji and the locals loved it.

And then bang, gone by a nasty right wing government as they cut it.

The result, just like how the same government had lorded it over the South Pacific nations as they belittled and made them beg for aid..in steamed China to replace us with $Billions in aid for ports and every manner of assistance (and a new radio network with English etc speaking Chinese broadcasters).

The islanders basically told Australia to just fuck right off and don't come back after decades of humiliation (they turned to New Zealand as a better friend who shows them respect)

Chinese run ports surrounding Oz that may come in handy should a war happen.

Very handy for China's approx 65 nuclear subs.

hedda wrote:
So after decades of broadcasting throughout the world since WW2 the wonderful Voice of America has been shut down by the idiot orange face buffoon and his ugly car maker consigliere on the claim of cost.

They know the price of everything (but still get it wrong as they still beg sacked nuclear safety workers to return on full pay) and the value of nothing.

I've listened to the VoA in the past..US style broadcasting at it's very best as it reached millions throughout Europe mainly.

This so reminds me of Australia's government funded network the ABC which ran a similar radio network through the South Pacific for decades, catering programs to 100s of small islands like Vanuatu and Fiji and the locals loved it.

And then bang, gone by a nasty right wing government as they cut it.

The result, just like how the same government had lorded it over the South Pacific nations as they belittled and made them beg for aid..in steamed China to replace us with $Billions in aid for ports and every manner of assistance (and a new radio network with English etc speaking Chinese broadcasters).

The islanders basically told Australia to just fuck right off and don't come back after decades of humiliation (they turned to New Zealand as a better friend who shows them respect)

Chinese run ports surrounding Oz that may come in handy should a war happen.

Very handy for China's approx 65 nuclear subs. Awful. And aint it quite remarkable how these Right Wing zealots thrive on implementing Cancel Culture every day. Freedom of speech eradicated under Trumpism and Social media will be next on their agenda. Ugly and soul destroying.

I think Trump is playing their game.

I am shocked that VOA is funded by the federal government of the United States. No broadcaster should be funded or supported by the public purse, this includes the BBC.

Green Man wrote:
I think Trump is playing their game.

I am shocked that VOA is funded by the federal government of the United States. No broadcaster should be funded or supported by the public purse, this includes the BBC.

There is no logical reason why a government cannot fund a media network like Australia's ABC (modeled on the BBC) which has operated for decades and has a management board that is at arm's length from any current government.

The ABC in Oz is still the most trusted & popular broadcaster and is up against the right wing partisan network of TV stations and newspapers operated by Rupert Murdoch.

That's the alternative in Oz especially..Murdoch's right wing claptrap rammed down people's throats.

Jesus H. Christ , did you not take note of the post? For crying out loud I specifically pointed out how China has steamed in the fill the breach.

Do you think this is playtime and not deadly serious?

Just as The Voice of America spent decades influencing other nations throughout the world.

Has the entire world gone Maga Mad insisting there must be a price on every conceivable entity?

Even while the America's greatest ever Welfare Queen who imitates a drug addict with his crazy movements hoovers up multi $Billions to blow up useless rockets and pontificate like a lunatic that he'll put a million people on Mars..why?.

Why are these batshit crazy boondoggles of a borderline Nazi acceptable but a radio network that every US government has valued as it spread US influence throughout the world (particular in the old Soviet Union and now Russia) not valued?

You may hate the BBC but you'd miss it if it went.

And it does of course have the wonderfulWorld Service which I can listen to in Oz and often do via local FM partners.

And I watch and listen to the superb USA PBS- Public Broadcasting Service (broadcast in Australia on, Heaven help us, a second government funded TV radio network SBS that specializes in immigrant programs (30% of the population).

Sometimes it helps to listen to sane educated Americans on PBS to realize there are still tens of millions of Yanks who are not Maga Muppets chortling away in their bizarre belief the left are drowning in "librul tears"

And what's the alternative? Fox News

www.vice.com/en/article/every-insult-the...-liberals-explained/

Vice is George Soros funded, do you work for George Soros without knowing in your journo days?

The government take out hundreds of thousands of pounds of ad space in the daily papers every year. Yet, it's used by public money, the legacy media is pretty much dead but it seems to cling on due public money.

We don't have a say on how our taxes are used. I don't consent to pay tax but I have no choice. So basically I am getting robbed in broad daylight.

hedda wrote:
Green Man wrote:
I think Trump is playing their game.

I am shocked that VOA is funded by the federal government of the United States. No broadcaster should be funded or supported by the public purse, this includes the BBC.

There is no logical reason why a government cannot fund a media network like Australia's ABC (modeled on the BBC) which has operated for decades and has a management board that is at arm's length from any current government.

The ABC in Oz is still the most trusted & popular broadcaster and is up against the right wing partisan network of TV stations and newspapers operated by Rupert Murdoch.

That's the alternative in Oz especially..Murdoch's right wing claptrap rammed down people's throats.

Jesus H. Christ , did you not take note of the post? For crying out loud I specifically pointed out how China has steamed in the fill the breach.

Do you think this is playtime and not deadly serious?

Just as The Voice of America spent decades influencing other nations throughout the world.

Has the entire world gone Maga Mad insisting there must be a price on every conceivable entity?

Even while the America's greatest ever Welfare Queen who imitates a drug addict with his crazy movements hoovers up multi $Billions to blow up useless rockets and pontificate like a lunatic that he'll put a million people on Mars..why?.

Why are these batshit crazy boondoggles of a borderline Nazi acceptable but a radio network that every US government has valued as it spread US influence throughout the world (particular in the old Soviet Union and now Russia) not valued?

You may hate the BBC but you'd miss it if it went.

And it does of course have the wonderfulWorld Service which I can listen to in Oz and often do via local FM partners.

And I watch and listen to the superb USA PBS- Public Broadcasting Service (broadcast in Australia on, Heaven help us, a second government funded TV radio network SBS that specializes in immigrant programs (30% of the population).

Sometimes it helps to listen to sane educated Americans on PBS to realize there are still tens of millions of Yanks who are not Maga Muppets chortling away in their bizarre belief the left are drowning in "librul tears"

And what's the alternative? Fox News

www.vice.com/en/article/every-insult-the...-liberals-explained/ Magnificent response Hedda. Just seen an interview with a MAGA couple whose child has died of measles. They are still devout Trumpeteers and stand by their view that the vaccine is poison. There is no sanctuary for some poor souls.

hedda wrote:
[quote]Green Man wrote:


Why are these batshit crazy boondoggles of a borderline Nazi acceptable but a radio network that every US government has valued as it spread US influence throughout the world (particular in the old Soviet Union and now Russia) not valued?

You may hate the BBC but you'd miss it if it went.


This is the problem. So many people just want to pull down the "establishment" and replace it with what? Bat shit crazy conspiracy podcasts, and, politically, Donald Trump.

I think you are correct to mention values. So many have lost all sense of values; and believe everything is as equal as everything else. Not true.

And the irony is that VoA or the BBC have not been the bloody "establishment" for years. If you look at Joe Rogan's viewing figures compared to the BBCs, to take one example, it is easy to see where the "establishment" is now to be found...

Even Joe Rogan gets the viewers he just follows the money and orders from Spotify.

Joe Rogan has pulled down a good hundred or so, he said he "doesn't care" when asked.

I do think he is paid opposition and good at flip-flopping.

What do you call a "conspiracy theorist" Wyot?

5 years ago, you would have been called on your stances on Covid and lockdown, it's on the KOH archives.

Green Man wrote:


What do you call a "conspiracy theorist" Wyot?

5 years ago, you would have been called on your stances on Covid and lockdown, it's on the KOH archives.

Someone who defaults as a matter of course to the assumption that there is a conspiracy behind everything; nothing can ever be just what it seems. It is a mental state.

Me and Covid 5 years ago...

Only a careless reader would have called me out for being a conspiracy theorist on it. I am happy for anyone to dig up anything I wrote on the archive - if they can be bothered - and challenge me on this.

I was/am pro vaccine.

My argument was not that Covid did not exist, or was launched on us by sinister agencies, or used by Bill Gates to depopulate. Or whatever...

It was simply that Governments panicked in the media storm, and did no cost benefit analysis of the harm and deaths that lockdowns would so obviously cause. That lockdowns would harm more people than they saved in the end.

This is now self-evidently what has happened.

Governments panicking couldn't be further from them conspiring.

conspiracy behind everything; nothing can ever be just what it seems. It is a mental state.


Sounds like a conspiracy to me!

And Penelope Keith shot JFK.Allegedly. According to Jo Brand.

Excellent posts, hedda.

The Trump administration is apparently also set on dismantling Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia.

Inside the scramble to save America's pro-democracy media outlets

It's hard not to wonder if this is all just about saving money or part of an effort to go easy on hostile foreign powers that Trump wants to do "deals" with.

Are you for free speech Jo even if you are against the narrative?

In other words a free speech absolutist.

Green Man wrote:
Vice is George Soros funded, do you work for George Soros without knowing in your journo days?

The government take out hundreds of thousands of pounds of ad space in the daily papers every year. Yet, it's used by public money, the legacy media is pretty much dead but it seems to cling on due public money.

We don't have a say on how our taxes are used. I don't consent to pay tax but I have no choice. So basically I am getting robbed in broad daylight.

Alas Green Man, I am a great fan of George Soros.

Did not know he funded Vice which I don't always read but I see no problem.

If Rupert Murdoch can dominate with entities like Fox "News' in the US (and roughly 65% of Oz news outlets) why can't leftie Soros fund outlets?

** Indeed I did work for a time for Australia's only leftish main regular newspaper chain (which now also has a rival TV network but leans right..Fairfax Newspapers) and I really quite loathed it and they were terrible payers..once not paying me for 3 months.

I also worked for Murdoch's local right wing DailY Telegraph and the best I can say for Murodch is he pays well and always pays on time. I suppose buying loyalty.

No media outlet should be funded by the public purse. It should be like any business, if you can't find the capital you go bust.

Jo wrote:
Trump says he'd love to yank funding for NPR, PBS, would be 'honored' to see it end

PBS is only part funded (a small part) by government and has always received it's funds by a by-partisan vote in Congress so even the Republicans valued the outlet.

But let's be honest, Trump cannot stand anything he cannot control and he (mistakenly) thinks publicly funded media is somehow against him & should be licking his boots when in fact, both PBS and NPR are scrupulous in their by partisan reporting and don't have yapping heads pontificating.

It's why I like the outlets..a balanced view.

PBS shouldn't get a dime from the public purse. TV and radio are dying out.