this post was submitted on 10 Feb 2025
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Slop.

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[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 8 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

yeah i think the silver lining with fascism this time around is that they are so goddam dumb

[–] REgon@hexbear.net 28 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

People like Trump and Musk don't understand what USAID actually does, they just see it as giving money to "shithole countries", brown people and do-nothing wokesters. They truly believe the free market maintains itself and US hegemony is a result of merit. They are not ideological warriors like Allan Dulles, but instead rubes who landed on the top of the pyramid.
They are like a crow (being generous here) stuck inside a T-34, able to knock whichever lever they wish about, able to understand it makes the machine move, maybe even somewhat comprehending the destruction it brings, but never realising why it does what it does or which lever does what or that the engine needs oil, the gears grease, the tower shells.

[–] CommCat@hexbear.net 37 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

Trump and Musk aren't against the US Empire, but they don't like how US Imperialism is sugarcoated with "bringing Democracy", "human rights", "freedom of speech" and the "plight of Women/Uyghurs/LGBT etc"... This is "leftism" to them. Their version of US Imperialism is, we'll take your oil and minerals.

Trump has always been straight forward US Imperialism.

[–] boiledfrog@hexbear.net 36 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (1 children)

Shouldn't we need to make plenty of twitter accounts to egg him on? "Good job sire, that'll teach dem wokes. Now the woke military!"

I'm just imagining some country creating mass bot accounts to do precisely that lmaooo

[–] buckykat@hexbear.net 8 points 16 hours ago

Maybe some brer rabbit type ones too? "Oh please Mr Musk, I, a radical leftist, love Voice of America and Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia please don't shut them down!"

[–] TraschcanOfIdeology@hexbear.net 75 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

The latest Trashfuture touched on this through the lens of how most people (I.e. Not leftists, or anyone who pays attention) sees this: they see all of this as the government spending money on the undeserving, that is, anyone who's not white in the US, and anyone who's not American for the rest of the world.

They don't care about the reality of these programs, or their contribution to their comfortable imperial core lives, because all that matters is what feels right, and it feels that telling people to overthrow their government is the weak way of exerting control, when they can just drop in with their military and invade, the macho-way of geopolitics.

They won't learn from history because there's no history in their mind, only vibes and chsuvinism.

[–] CarbonScored@hexbear.net 66 points 19 hours ago

Radio Free Asia too, hopefully.

The capitalist class becoming too stupid to sustain its own existence may be an even more lethal contradiction than class contradictions.

[–] PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml 57 points 19 hours ago

Europe is free now

"But still didn't forgive us for it"

[–] GrouchyGrouse@hexbear.net 85 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

The right wing mindset is extremely hostile to soft power or even just preventative methods in general. A general sort of example of the phenomenon: them refusing vaccines but saying you should nuke your body with horse paste if you get sick. Or refusing to pay for infrastructure until a bridge collapses. You apply that mindset to the boring work of maintaining an empire and this is what you get.

[–] refurbishedrefurbisher 11 points 16 hours ago

See: everything, but especially climate change

[–] ShimmeringKoi@hexbear.net 69 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (1 children)

Never interrupt your enemy while he is making a dipshit of himself in full view of the world

[–] WhatDoYouMeanPodcast@hexbear.net 38 points 19 hours ago

heartbreaking

I agree with Musk, unfortunately. I would be super owned if I stopped receiving my Sorosbucks. If he defunds RFE then it's joever for communism.

[–] daniyeg@hexbear.net 11 points 14 hours ago

as long as we lose Radio Farda and VoA Persia im happy.

[–] Hohsia@hexbear.net 35 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Chat, who is your favorite radical leftist? Mine is definitely J Edgar Hoover

[–] boiledfrog@hexbear.net 25 points 17 hours ago

I really like Ronald Raegan, the color of his party was red so he was def an extreme leftist anarchist-maoist

[–] nothx@hexbear.net 45 points 19 hours ago (3 children)

Weren’t these started as propaganda against the USSR during/after the Cold War?

Is this one of those situations where the “worst person you know does something good?”

Not trying to be snarky, honestly curious.

[–] FunkyStuff@hexbear.net 42 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

No yes that's exactly what happened here, he's dismantling the soft power the US has in Europe because he thinks they don't need it anymore. And TBH, maybe fascists in Europe are strong enough now that it won't immediately backfire, but it's probably true that eventually this is going to look very, very bad for them when communists have enough popular support and no one is around to spread right wing propaganda.

[–] pinguinu@lemmygrad.ml 22 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

I think you are underestimating the grip the right has on the media here and will continue to have. RFE is superfluous when there are other, better media outlets to spread their shit, and not just traditional press. In any case the absence of US influence will just leave a niche for the local bourgeois media.

[–] FunkyStuff@hexbear.net 18 points 17 hours ago

Yes of course, fascists will continue to have their cultural hegemony that they inherited from US efforts to suppress the left. What I'm suggesting is that this can only be a permanent condition as a result of external force, and the steady state condition is a tendency toward class consciousness as material conditions worsen. It's like there was a magnet that was holding a pendulum all the way to the right, but now the magnet has released and the pendulum will swing to the left (over several years, of course, not immediately). It'll swing back, dialectics, but having a weaker local enemy is always preferable to having an untouchable international enemy.

[–] tocopherol@hexbear.net 21 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago) (1 children)

Yeah this is probably objectively good for hindering the US' propaganda efforts. It's absurd that anyone would call these outlets radical or leftist haha. Voice of America though was actually started in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda, allegedly, but I wouldn't be surprised if they intended it to also help steer people away from the Soviet messaging at the time. It's funding was increased throughout the Cold War.

[–] FunkyStuff@hexbear.net 9 points 15 hours ago

Yet another case that feels weird but can be explained easily when you go back to this phrase: The 20th century makes a lot more sense when you realize the Western Allies came to regret the side of the war they fought on. VoA has only ever been used to spread anticommunist right wing propaganda since the 50s, it was an important part of Gladio.

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[–] thelastaxolotl@hexbear.net 65 points 20 hours ago

Decades of US soft power being undone by a billionaire for likes on twitter catgirl-happy

[–] SovietBeerTruckOperator@hexbear.net 53 points 20 hours ago (3 children)

Honestly does the US really need to actively fund propaganda outlets anymore? I feel like Amerikkkans are so propagandized now they'll just spawn this kind of content on their own, for free.

[–] FunkyStuff@hexbear.net 63 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

RFE isn't for Americans, it's meant to suppress leftists in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. It's one of the tools in the Gladio/Color Revolutions playbook meant to give the imperialists an edge in the region. The other tools are fascist goons, police violence, and NATO military actions.

Edit: I guess I missed the biggest and most obvious tool: financial control and IMF structural adjustment programs.

[–] thelastaxolotl@hexbear.net 39 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

I think they would rather directly support fascist/neolib orgs intead of using a 3rd party like USAID, like how elon went to that Adf event

[–] TraschcanOfIdeology@hexbear.net 35 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

Which is very stupid because tight wingers are flighty and unreliable. AfD is friends with musk now, but who knows if it's going to last. The benefits of VoA or RFA is that you have direct editorial control, it helps you coordinate with other intelligence operations in the region.

[–] Wakmrow@hexbear.net 12 points 17 hours ago

Yes they really do need to fund these things. The average person is not politically active nor do they care. Propaganda is incredibly important to fostering an environment where radicalization is difficult.

We shall see how it turns out. But my personal opinion is destroying the propaganda arm of the fascist US is the most important precursor to actually dismantling US hegemony.

[–] frankfurt_schoolgirl@hexbear.net 67 points 21 hours ago (2 children)

Please please please have Doge audit the Pentagon. Please, president Trump.

[–] anarchrist@lemmy.dbzer0.com 49 points 20 hours ago

Nah they're only dismantling soft power making the inevitable chaos only solvable by bombs. It's the "when you only have a hammer" thing but because you've intentionally thrown the rest of your tools in the lake.

[–] Hohsia@hexbear.net 26 points 18 hours ago

Radio free Asia next please! Such a woke DEI infested hive mind of anti-Americans

[–] dkr567@hexbear.net 9 points 15 hours ago

I'm pretty sure this is just a consolidation/restructuring of these departments. As much as I hate to be a doomer, all the heinous shit(ie. 99% of their function) that they do will still be there, but getting rid of the 1% of things that are good as a disguise. It's just them going helmet off full mafia style.

[–] bennieandthez@lemmygrad.ml 32 points 19 hours ago

zoidberg saluting 1

excellent comrade musk, destroy these woke DEI postneomarxist media!

[–] ButtBidet@hexbear.net 42 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Honestly they're only used by Wikipedia editors to argue that the DPRK killed 8 gazillion babies last year. That and fed left groups on Twitter that argue that China isn't socialist (see all off Xinjiang is in prison!).

[–] SoyViking@hexbear.net 24 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

No normal people listens to US state media but the journalists making the news reporting normal people actually consume often do and will quote US state media, thereby laundering their views to a much wider audience.

If you're a lib journalist with a tight deadline you're not going to do your own research on Korea when you can just copy-paste some sensationalist bullshit from RFA that already aligns with your worldview.

[–] JoeByeThen@hexbear.net 16 points 17 hours ago

this

The vast majority of bullshit DPRK news articles source back to Radio Free Asia. The Radio Liberty/VoA orgs are a cornerstone of the Consent manufacturing machine.

[–] Sulv@hexbear.net 30 points 20 hours ago
[–] CrawlMarks@hexbear.net 15 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (2 children)

Yes, but but there is a plan. He isn't accidentally dismantling empire. He has to be doing it for a reason. It is it to turn the tools of empire inward? I don't think we have a clear idea. Is it to give up europe as lost and to refocus onto softer targets in the global south? Maybe try try to create a stable fascist block in the new world and to just let china have the old?

[–] JoeByeThen@hexbear.net 22 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Look what he did to Twitter. I don't think he has the slightest clue of what he's doing and is likely a pawn of someone else playing him. Maybe a bit of XI, maybe a bit of Theil. His companies constantly manage him by playing to his ego. Dude's a billionaire puppet.

[–] CrawlMarks@hexbear.net 12 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (1 children)

He destroyed one of the most effective tools for dissenting against government propaganda? He may have wanted it for a PR coup but his actions do serve his purposes quite well no?

[–] JoeByeThen@hexbear.net 14 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Respectfully, since when has it ever been that? Color revolutions? CIA shit. In the US, it regularly suppressed Bernie supporters while amplifying DNC talking points. DAPL and indigenous struggles were regularly silenced. If you're implying he is 4d cheesing this shit. No, I'm not buying it in the slightest. That doesn't match any of his history. Matter of fact, and I have nothing to back it up, but I'm still of the opinion that he was likely convinced to buy Twitter by Theil, knowing he would crash and burn it.

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[–] glimmer_twin@hexbear.net 17 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

He’s just a drugged up narcissistic moron who has never had a good idea in his life. All his so-called achievements were just him weaseling his way into people’s companies and stealing them and taking the credit. I don’t think he has a secret plan. I think he just believes his own hype.

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[–] Dirt_Owl@hexbear.net 36 points 20 hours ago

Lmao too stupid to live America is cooked

[–] FunkyStuff@hexbear.net 36 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Lol @ VOA being described as radical left when it's only listened to by chud psychos.

[–] SoyViking@hexbear.net 22 points 18 hours ago

Communism is when the government does stuff.

VOA is something that is done 100% by the government.

Therefore VOA is radical far left woke communism.

[–] FloridaBoi@hexbear.net 33 points 20 hours ago (7 children)

Reverse Dullesification has been bouncing around in my head since I first encountered it

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[–] mathemachristian@hexbear.net 12 points 17 hours ago

thats the question isnt it? Either he is stupid or the US doesn't need it anymore to tie europe to themselves because they got something more cost-efficient planned.

[–] Llituro@hexbear.net 15 points 18 hours ago

i think the tech billionaires have genuinely convinced themselves they'll be more powerful if they dismantle the western states. which... xi-shining good luck with that lol...

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