Comments on: A Thanksgiving Present and Reality Check — Ted Kaufman’s Appointment to the U.S. Senate Seat from Delaware http://freemediaonline.org/freemediaonlineblog/2008/11/26/a-thanksgiving-present-and-reality-check-ted-kaufmans-appointment-to-the-us-senate-seat-from-delaware/ Supporting free media worldwide Tue, 04 May 2010 13:19:40 -0400 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Mark K Parker http://freemediaonline.org/freemediaonlineblog/2008/11/26/a-thanksgiving-present-and-reality-check-ted-kaufmans-appointment-to-the-us-senate-seat-from-delaware/comment-page-1/#comment-1172 Mark K Parker Fri, 28 Nov 2008 03:23:14 +0000 http://freemediaonline.org/freemediaonlineblog/?p=409#comment-1172 It's a shame that, regardless of who is in power, the American government can rarely foresee the effects of international events or the results of its own actions for the world. Burdened by this myopia, the United States has become a reactive rather than a pro-active force in international affairs. Gone is what I'd call the "frontier spirit" that made America famous and a power to contend with. Instead of being a leader, the U.S. has become a follower - and a follower not of some worthy cause or modern thinking but of its own outdated notions. It was visible in its support for foreign rightist dictators until such policies created a breeding ground for the most outlandish political movements that would bring about a downfall of those puppets and a hatred of America. At one time - just to give an example - it was the support of the Batista and the Shah regimes in Cuba and Iran, respectively, that made it possible for their opponents to gain a firm foothold and triumph - to the detriment of American interests. After all, the populations of those countries saw no other allies in their struggle to shed the shackles of oppression forced upon them with the American military and economic aid. At the same time as this has been happening, the American internal political dialogue was being dominated by a faction that remained blind to this phenomenon. Thus the old philosophy prevailed, resulting in George W. Bush's election and the placement of Cold War specialists in key government positions. Even though the old dream of imposing the Pax Americana on the world fell in shambles as more and more countries turned away from the U.S., Washington insisted on conducting business as usual. The answer that it got was the election of a buffoon petty dictator Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. Convinced of being exploited by the American companies, Venezuelans, plagued by poverty despite their oil revenues, turned to the option they considered to be the only one closely aligned with their resentments and demands - the option taking root in what I'd call national socialism. The results have been disastrous for Venezuela and for American interests in South America. A similar shift to national socialism occurred in Russia - with Russian media forced to follow the Putin line or risk severe repercussions from being closed to having their journalists murdered. While assassination and military aggression has been legitimized by the Putin regime, the U.S. was deciding to end the Voice of America's Russian-language broadcasts, abandoning a nation in transition and in need. Earlier Americans abandoned East European countries in the same fashion well before democracy has solidified there and ignoring such increase in outbreaks of xenophobia as anti-intellectual and anti-Semitic attacks - both verbal and physical - that began to plague those countries once again. What is even more disturbing, In Poland the xenophobic tendencies have been subsidized by its government, as clearly illustrated by the Polish anti-fascist foundation Nigdy Więcej (Never Again) on its website (http://tinyurl.com/63veb6): "The latest issue of Nigdy Więcej (Never Again) – Searchlight’s sister publication in Poland – has revealed how the Polish Ministry of Culture financed a fascist publication. The publication Templum Novum is a pseudo-intellectual magazine, published by a shadowy ‘advertising agency’ under the name ‘Arte’ and registered in the provincial town of Biala Podlaska. Nigdy Wiecej has uncovered the fact this is little more than a front for the so-called Narodowa Scena Rockowa (National Rock Scene –NSR), a political and business operation responsible for the production and distribution of fascist material like the CDs of leading [N]azi skinhead music acts, including the notorious [N]azi band Konkwista 88. Apart from the CDs, the NSR bosses have published books such as the Polish edition of Joe Pierce’s Screwdriver: The First Ten Years about the British band that laid the foundations of the international white power rock scene. Templum Novum poses as a historical and political review. For example, in issue 4/2007 it presents a very thinly disguised version of fascist ideology including, among other things, many pages of antisemitic ranting by none other than the late Leon Degrelle, the infamous Waffen SS general, based on a speech eulogizing Hitler in 1981. The magazine also carries sympathetic articles about other Nazi icons like Julius Evola, the Italian fascist ideologue, and presents the ideas of the Polish nationalist neo-pagan writer Jan Stachniuk (the founder of the 1930s extremist group Zadruga). The most shocking detail in that issue of Templum Novum is its small-print acknowledgment of sponsorship received from the Polish Ministry of Culture. The same information can be found in the next issue, which includes a lengthy interview with Alain De Benoist, the French New Right theorist. It seems the decision to sponsor the fascist magazine was taken under the previous administration of Jaroslaw Kaczynski who included the extreme right in his government coalition. Nevertheless, the second issue of Templum Novum supported financially by the Ministry actually appeared some two months after the change of the government that took place as a result of the parliamentary election on 21 October 2007. The editors of Nigdy Wiecej have called on the Ministry to check its procedures to prevent such scandals in the future." So much for Never Again AND "never again" as the battle call for democracy in the post-Nazi Era. So much for the support of the United States for democracy around the world. What a sad testimony to American dangerous capitulation and impotence in the face of clear threats to democracy, no less dangerous than international terrorism which often relies on the Nazi-period propaganda. I saw the closing of VOA's East European services with my own two eyes as scores of excellent journalists were being fired under false pretenses. We were told that the services were being closed because of the changes in Eastern Europe - a statement clearly belied by the article quoted above. The true reason we were being fired was the fiscal ineptitude of the VOA that wasted millions on training some so-called "video journalists" - radio journalists that were expected to carry video recorders rather than a microphone to supply VOA's nascent TV service with images. They were being "trained" for a reported $100,000.00 a pop. Now, for $100,000.00 one could train a truly outstanding TV journalist at one of the leading institutions of higher learning. Yet as if by the touch of a magic wand, radio broadcasters were expected to turn into TV journalists nearly overnight. Don't get me wrong - I have nothing but the greatest respect and admiration for my former colleagues at the VOA central newsroom, but let me tell you - I've seen the products of the video-journalists' make-overt and they ain't pretty. They give credence to the saying so aptly revived during the last U.S. Presidential campaign: you can put lipstick on a pig but what you get in the end is still a pig. Suddenly, people who so vividly painted the picture of the world to their listeners were expected to do the same with a foreign medium and many a time they failed to live up to the expectations. It wasn't, I believe, for the lack of talent but because it takes more than throwing some money at a problem to get a solution. There is a reason why some journalists join the printed press, others - radio and still others - TV. VOA has tons of experience in RADIO broadcasting and had done a wonderful job placing those broadcasts with local and national radio stations and networks in target countries. As a VOA/Polish Service correspondent in Warsaw I got lots of recognition from the short-wave and placement-broadcasts - something that VOA should be proud of. Why waste that same kind of capital in Russia and other regions by crippling VOA programs - I will never understand. When I joined VOA in 1985, its days of meeting the requirements of unadulterated propaganda war with the Soviet Block were long over and VOA placed great emphasis on balance - in and of itself one of the greatest tools of strengthening the idea of media democracy in countries run by totalitarian regimes. VOA thus became one of the greatest building blocks of American Public Diplomacy which in the end, along with some other, more conventional pressures, triumphed over communism. Yet, having won the Cold War, can we win the peace? That's one of the fundamental questions facing us since the fall of the Berlin Wall - a question, I believe, that will receive the wrong answer from a U.S. government bent on dismantling its own victory through foolish decisions regarding its Public Diplomacy. VOA deserves much more in the face of international threats to American democracy and prosperity. I hope my voice will add to a wake up call that will be heard at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and on the Capitol Hill. It’s a shame that, regardless of who is in power, the American government can rarely foresee the effects of international events or the results of its own actions for the world. Burdened by this myopia, the United States has become a reactive rather than a pro-active force in international affairs. Gone is what I’d call the “frontier spirit” that made America famous and a power to contend with. Instead of being a leader, the U.S. has become a follower – and a follower not of some worthy cause or modern thinking but of its own outdated notions. It was visible in its support for foreign rightist dictators until such policies created a breeding ground for the most outlandish political movements that would bring about a downfall of those puppets and a hatred of America. At one time – just to give an example – it was the support of the Batista and the Shah regimes in Cuba and Iran, respectively, that made it possible for their opponents to gain a firm foothold and triumph – to the detriment of American interests. After all, the populations of those countries saw no other allies in their struggle to shed the shackles of oppression forced upon them with the American military and economic aid. At the same time as this has been happening, the American internal political dialogue was being dominated by a faction that remained blind to this phenomenon. Thus the old philosophy prevailed, resulting in George W. Bush’s election and the placement of Cold War specialists in key government positions. Even though the old dream of imposing the Pax Americana on the world fell in shambles as more and more countries turned away from the U.S., Washington insisted on conducting business as usual. The answer that it got was the election of a buffoon petty dictator Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. Convinced of being exploited by the American companies, Venezuelans, plagued by poverty despite their oil revenues, turned to the option they considered to be the only one closely aligned with their resentments and demands – the option taking root in what I’d call national socialism. The results have been disastrous for Venezuela and for American interests in South America. A similar shift to national socialism occurred in Russia – with Russian media forced to follow the Putin line or risk severe repercussions from being closed to having their journalists murdered. While assassination and military aggression has been legitimized by the Putin regime, the U.S. was deciding to end the Voice of America’s Russian-language broadcasts, abandoning a nation in transition and in need. Earlier Americans abandoned East European countries in the same fashion well before democracy has solidified there and ignoring such increase in outbreaks of xenophobia as anti-intellectual and anti-Semitic attacks – both verbal and physical – that began to plague those countries once again. What is even more disturbing, In Poland the xenophobic tendencies have been subsidized by its government, as clearly illustrated by the Polish anti-fascist foundation Nigdy Więcej (Never Again) on its website (http://tinyurl.com/63veb6):
“The latest issue of Nigdy Więcej (Never Again) – Searchlight’s sister publication in Poland – has revealed how the Polish Ministry of Culture financed a fascist publication.

The publication Templum Novum is a pseudo-intellectual magazine, published by a shadowy ‘advertising agency’ under the name ‘Arte’ and registered in the provincial town of Biala Podlaska.

Nigdy Wiecej has uncovered the fact this is little more than a front for the so-called Narodowa Scena Rockowa (National Rock Scene –NSR), a political and business operation responsible for the production and distribution of fascist material like the CDs of leading [N]azi skinhead music acts, including the notorious [N]azi band Konkwista 88.

Apart from the CDs, the NSR bosses have published books such as the Polish edition of Joe Pierce’s Screwdriver: The First Ten Years about the British band that laid the foundations of the international white power rock scene.

Templum Novum poses as a historical and political review. For example, in issue 4/2007 it presents a very thinly disguised version of fascist ideology including, among other things, many pages of antisemitic ranting by none other than the late Leon Degrelle, the infamous Waffen SS general, based on a speech eulogizing Hitler in 1981. The magazine also carries sympathetic articles about other Nazi icons like Julius Evola, the Italian fascist ideologue, and presents the ideas of the Polish nationalist neo-pagan writer Jan Stachniuk (the founder of the 1930s extremist group Zadruga).

The most shocking detail in that issue of Templum Novum is its small-print acknowledgment of sponsorship received from the Polish Ministry of Culture. The same information can be found in the next issue, which includes a lengthy interview with Alain De Benoist, the French New Right theorist.

It seems the decision to sponsor the fascist magazine was taken under the previous administration of Jaroslaw Kaczynski who included the extreme right in his government coalition. Nevertheless, the second issue of Templum Novum supported financially by the Ministry actually appeared some two months after the change of the government that took place as a result of the parliamentary election on 21 October 2007. The editors of Nigdy Wiecej have called on the Ministry to check its procedures to prevent such scandals in the future.”

So much for Never Again AND “never again” as the battle call for democracy in the post-Nazi Era. So much for the support of the United States for democracy around the world. What a sad testimony to American dangerous capitulation and impotence in the face of clear threats to democracy, no less dangerous than international terrorism which often relies on the Nazi-period propaganda.
I saw the closing of VOA’s East European services with my own two eyes as scores of excellent journalists were being fired under false pretenses. We were told that the services were being closed because of the changes in Eastern Europe – a statement clearly belied by the article quoted above. The true reason we were being fired was the fiscal ineptitude of the VOA that wasted millions on training some so-called “video journalists” – radio journalists that were expected to carry video recorders rather than a microphone to supply VOA’s nascent TV service with images. They were being “trained” for a reported $100,000.00 a pop. Now, for $100,000.00 one could train a truly outstanding TV journalist at one of the leading institutions of higher learning. Yet as if by the touch of a magic wand, radio broadcasters were expected to turn into TV journalists nearly overnight. Don’t get me wrong – I have nothing but the greatest respect and admiration for my former colleagues at the VOA central newsroom, but let me tell you – I’ve seen the products of the video-journalists’ make-overt and they ain’t pretty. They give credence to the saying so aptly revived during the last U.S. Presidential campaign: you can put lipstick on a pig but what you get in the end is still a pig. Suddenly, people who so vividly painted the picture of the world to their listeners were expected to do the same with a foreign medium and many a time they failed to live up to the expectations. It wasn’t, I believe, for the lack of talent but because it takes more than throwing some money at a problem to get a solution. There is a reason why some journalists join the printed press, others – radio and still others – TV. VOA has tons of experience in RADIO broadcasting and had done a wonderful job placing those broadcasts with local and national radio stations and networks in target countries. As a VOA/Polish Service correspondent in Warsaw I got lots of recognition from the short-wave and placement-broadcasts – something that VOA should be proud of. Why waste that same kind of capital in Russia and other regions by crippling VOA programs – I will never understand.
When I joined VOA in 1985, its days of meeting the requirements of unadulterated propaganda war with the Soviet Block were long over and VOA placed great emphasis on balance – in and of itself one of the greatest tools of strengthening the idea of media democracy in countries run by totalitarian regimes. VOA thus became one of the greatest building blocks of American Public Diplomacy which in the end, along with some other, more conventional pressures, triumphed over communism. Yet, having won the Cold War, can we win the peace? That’s one of the fundamental questions facing us since the fall of the Berlin Wall – a question, I believe, that will receive the wrong answer from a U.S. government bent on dismantling its own victory through foolish decisions regarding its Public Diplomacy. VOA deserves much more in the face of international threats to American democracy and prosperity. I hope my voice will add to a wake up call that will be heard at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and on the Capitol Hill.

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