The Iron Curtain was the symbol of the Cold War. It represented the Soviet Union’s attempts to keep the people of Eastern Europe isolated from the free thought and prosperity that capitalism brought to their neighbors.
An outgrowth of this battle of ideologies was Radio Free Europe, which broadcast news over the wall into the eager ears of listeners enslaved in their own homes in places like Czechoslovakia, Hungary, East Germany, and Poland.
Stanford University’s Hoover Institute, which houses the Radio Free Europe archives, synopsizes the organization’s mission this way:
Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty fought communism by broadcasting news and features from Munich to countries behind the Iron Curtain. Despite jamming, acts of terrorism, and even opposition by some members of Congress, Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty have remained on the air, broadcasting uncensored news since the early 1950s.
While Radio Free Europe was once covertly supported with taxpayer dollars, it is now openly funded by congressional appropriations to the U.S. Information Agency within the State Department.
Given the organization’s traditional mission of supporting the U.S. free market system over oppressive communist regimes, it was somewhat disconcerting to read the latest missives by this Obama administration-directed propaganda vehicle related to the Occupy Wall Street movement.
In the latest Radio Free Europe article distributed throughout the world, the former freedom-fighting information arm of the United States government blatantly parrots Obama campaign rhetoric bemoaning economic disparities in the United States and legitimizing a small Astroturf movement largely driven by failed leftists from ACORN, the SEIU, and the AFL-CIO.
In a section of the anti-capitalism hit piece entitled “Widening Gap,” the formerly pro-free market Radio Free Europe repeated the socialist canard of income disparity, writing, “The numbers paint a stark picture: Today the richest 1 percent of Americans owns nearly one-quarter of U.S. wealth, while the bottom 40 percent owns just 0.3 percent.”
Of course, the article fails to mention that contrary to the street ravings, Americans who are in the top 1 percent of income earners actually pay 40 percent of the income taxes. Instead, it just provides the world with a view of America through the eyes of entitled malcontents whose only identifiable trait is an ability to find taxpayer programs to subsidize their whining.
It’s hard to ignore the irony of a government agency that was founded to promote the wonders of the American capitalist system to people living under the tyranny of communism now effectively promoting the very system that it was created to defeat.
But even if this government propaganda bureau were focused on promoting American ideals around the world, it would still be an obsolete remnant of another time.
Just as the National Corporation for Public Broadcasting no longer serves any viable purpose beyond providing wealthy Americans with a place to watch opera on their 100-inch projection screen televisions, Radio Free Europe has served its purpose and needs to be defunded.
After all, one of the chants of the early 1990s was that America should receive a peace dividend and programs should be cut in the aftermath of our winning the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Now, more than 20 years later, it is time to realize that dividend by closing Radio Free Europe and officially closing the book on this once-effective tool for combating the spread of communism.
Rick Manning is the communications director of Americans for Limited Government. Follow him on Twitter @rmanning957