The Voice Falls Silent

The Voice of America was one of those things that rose from the height of America's greatness as a nation.

Most Americans are unaware of it, by design.  Unlike the BBC or Deutsche Welle, America's publicly funded news service was never permitted to broadcast here in the United States.  To prevent state-funded media from becoming a tool of a would-be despot, it couldn't operate here.  Overseas, though, it served a significant function.  That function was not propaganda or boosterism, but reliable information.  The idea, from the height of American power, was that being a trustworthy source was the best way to spread the message of American values.

Established by an Act of Congress in the era of shortwave radio, it was always meant to stand apart from the aspirations of any given Administration or party.  

I know this, personally and deeply, from dinner table conversations growing up.  

Mom and Dad met at the Voice.  Like pretty much every DC resident, they weren't from here.  Mom was a Georgia girl, raised in Athens.  Dad was a preacher's kid from Queens.   He noticed her, invited her to a party, and, well.  Without the Voice of America, I wouldn't exist. 

After serving at the Africa desk as an editor, Dad got an assignment to East Africa, which is why my very first memories are of Nairobi.  After that, it was back stateside for a few years, then to London, where he was bureau chief.  From that, back to the US, where he eventually became the head of the Africa division.

Dad fiercely internalized the core mission of the Voice, as a patriotic Kennedy-era Republican.   Not that he voted for Kennedy, of course.  Dad was a Nixon man, and Lord help me, would he tell you about it.

Republican though he was, Dad literally put his life on the line for that mission.  He disappeared for a long while into a Ugandan prison, seized by the regime of dictator Idi Amin.  He spent time on the streets of Belfast during the Troubles.  During the Iranian Revolution, he was called in to replace a correspondent who had been injured fleeing a mob.  While there, he lay flat on his belly in the International hotel in Tehran, filing a report while Khomeni's Revolutionary Guards sprayed it with small arms fire.

This is a little more dramatic than my small church pastoring.

There were always pressures from the executive, particularly when coverage wasn't Pollyannaish about the actions of any given president.  There was strong pressure during the Reagan years to "be more positive" about America, which meant constant pushback against efforts to water down journalistic neutrality.  Those efforts soured Dad on the Republican party.   Dad would dish at the dinner table about United States Information Agency director Gene Pell, or about efforts to get his successor Dick Carlson on board with the mission.  

The Voice, like all state-funded news services, had to adapt to the realities of the internet age.  Shortwave radio wasn't the future, eh?  But it rolled with the times, and stuck with the mission, showing the world the face of America...which looked a whole bunch like the face of the world.  Its journalistic ranks were often filled by those who had come to this country drawn by the promise that things here were different.

But the mission of the Voice is not the mission of Trumpism.  

For the Trumpist, media exists to praise Dear Leader and to attack those who oppose him.  Any media that does not do this will be attacked and slandered.  Because the Voice was publicly funded, Trump has ordered it closed.  Even though it's funded by Congress, and its closure isn't constitutional, that means nothing now.  Trump installed a sycophant as head of the agency, and she's obedient to him above all else.  Why close it?  It's "corrupt."  It's a "hubris-filled rogue operation filled with leftist bias."  

"Leftist?"  Oh, c'mon.  Actual leftists were always attacking the VOA as capitalist propaganda.  These were and are lies, of course, but the folks who are in thrall to Trump wouldn't know this, if they even noticed.  They live within the false and fawning information ecosystem of Fox News, which is precisely the sort of party-line support-the-regime media that the Voice was created to oppose.  They believe what they read on their X and Facebook feeds, even if much of that comes from Russian and Chinese troll farms.

And so, today, the broadcasts are silenced.  The beacon goes dark.  The America that the world once knew no longer speaks.

In its place, something else has arisen.  Something ignoble and self-serving.  Something crass and brutal and cynical.

The Voice that spoke out against the world's despots and authoritarians is no longer ours.

The Angels of Fascism

In 1933, as America struggled to pull itself from the ruins of the Great Depression, the world was coming to terms with a rising movement.

The collapse of the economies of the West created a time of social foment, and into that mess stepped fascism.  Fascism's clarity of purpose was unquestionable.  A single autocrat, empowered by the newly mechanized military and industrial systems of modernity, was able to project power with remarkable effectiveness.  Coupled with print and the new broadcast media, the domination of the physical world was coupled with the ability to similarly dominate the information space.  

In the economically struggling United States of the early 1930s, many looked across the ocean to Mussolini's Italy with admiration.  Look at what he's accomplishing!  Look at the trains, running on time!  It was bold and strong, and there was an appeal to that.

The yearning for a single strongman to tower like a colossus over America found a focus, for some, in Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  Roosevelt's corporate supporters, like the media magnate William Randolph Hearst, were eager for him to seize the reins.  Roosevelt had popular support, and having survived an assassination attempt by an anarchist, had been lionized as a hero.   What if, Hearst pressed Roosevelt, you were to simply take over?  Suspend the Congress.  Rule by fiat, by diktat, and get done what needs to be done!

Hearst was so into this idea that he produced a movie as part of his effort to persuade Roosevelt, a propaganda piece about a president who casts aside the restraints of the Constitutional order and saves America.  

"Gabriel Over the White House," it was called.   In it, a lazily corrupt president has a near death experience.  He survives, but is...er...possessed...um...by the Archangel Gabriel.  And possibly also the spirit of Abraham Lincoln.

I know, I know, but this was a film for the masses.  It's not any dumber than The Fast and the Furious, eh?

Angelically animated by Gabriel, the president starts agitating for real change.  When Congress tries to impeach and remove him, he forces them to adjourn, and takes over to rule as America's first dictator.  A "Jeffersonian dictator," or so the film tries to convince its viewer, and that makes perfect sense if you know nothing about Jefferson but his name.

Then he fixes everything, at which point he dies a hero and the savior of America.

Again, the film was American fascist propaganda.  This is not me being the Little Leftist Boy Who Cried Fascist.  

It's unabashedly, intentionally, and explicitly fascist, in the same way that Birth of a Nation is unabashedly, intentionally, and explicitly racist.  Calling it fascist isn't invective.  It's just true, like saying the sky is blue, or grass is green.  Gabriel Over the White House was inspired directly by 1930s fascism, and was made in an attempt to encourage the rise of fascism in the United States.

So.

If someone were to remake this movie today, how many Americans would uncritically embrace it?

Ronald Reagan Was My Favorite Founding Father

The news out of the great state of Texas lately has been all about history. Or, rather, the version of history that the conservative Texas school board wants to present. After deep concern was raised with some of the perceived liberal spin on the curriculum, politicians in the Lone Star State have decided to mandate the teaching of certain elements of history in their textbooks.

Now, I'm not opposed to absolutely everything they're doing. I think rejecting a proposal to teach the importance of hip hop in the early 21st century was probably for the best. Yeah, I know, progressives are supposed to get all melty at the profound cultural ramifications of Lil' Wayne. Lord knows there are plenty of dissertations out there about the Sociopolitical Subtexts of "She's a Ryder." But ultimately, it seems as historically significant as the Lindy. Meaning, it's a footnote, or a little pull-out box.

But much of the rest of their proposals are just a Lil Crazy. There is, of course, the requisite Reagan hagiography, as American conservatism continues to celebrate the 20th centuries' least sentient president. There is also a new mandated defense of McCarthyism, coupled with a requirement to present the inaugural address of Jefferson Davis alongside that of Lincoln's. Thomas Jefferson has been deemed inadequately Christian, so out he goes. Similarly, there's to be a de-emphasis on the Enlightenment's role in American revolutionary thought. The word "democracy" has also been booted, in favor of "republic." I'm sure this has nothing to do with the fact that the board is Republican.

This is deeply annoying, sure. But it's a profoundly human habit. It is, in fact, quite Biblical. Take, for instance, the significant thematic differences between the Deuteronomic books of Samuel/Kings and the Chronicles. In 1 and 2 Samuel, which is an older record, King David is presented as gifted, passionate, musical, and charismatic. He is also presented as being deeply complex, filled with Clintonian desires of the flesh, tormented by loss and betrayal, and strongarmed by his Machiavellian majordomo Joab. At the end of his life, the Deuteronomist's historical account shows him as feeble and helpless, an impotent shell of himself, manipulated by Bathesheba and Nathan into giving power to Solomon.

But the Chronicler, who was writing at the time of the building of the Second Temple, well, they've got a totally different picture of David. As the archetypal King over Israel in a time when Israel was looking for heroes, David needed to be perfect. So all of the imperfections kinda sorta got edited away. David became the King of Kings, the noblest and wisest and most perfect King that ever has been. Those awkward stories about sex and betrayal and loss? Never heard 'em. David was for the Chronicler what Reagan is for today's conservatives: A Perfect Head of Hair On The Dear Leader of the Shining City on a Hill.

Problem is, when we wander away from the real, and start turning the complexities of the human story into perfect airbrushed fantasy...well...it's not a good thing. In the absence of the real, and in the absence of at least striving for objectivity, societies have a tendency to fail to self-correct. And folks who uncritically consume their own propaganda invariably end up in Very Bad Places.