Republicans Attacking Public Television
Here in Minnesota, Minnesota Public Radio, flush with the wealth that accrues from being the producer of The Prairie Home Companion, is probably the richest public radio network in the country, and can probably live without any state or federal funding. But I understand not every state has an iconic nationally broadcast radio show to keep its public radio afloat. And I should be clear…it is not the President who is trying to kill PBS, it's Congress...the President is merely trying to turn PBS into another arm of the Republican party.
For instance, for years PBS has broadcast the McLaughlin Group, which is a fairly conservative (3 conservatives, 2 liberals most weeks…sometimes 4 conservatives to 1, never ever 3 liberals) political commentary show; and Washington Week in Review is a moderate show that's more reportorial than commentary in tone; lately, to "balance" this, they've added an ultraconservative show with the annoying Tucker Carlson, and an interesting but ultra-ultraconservative show of The Wall Street Journal Editorial Report; and those two shows were added just in the past year...who knows how much farther they'll go; though how they can go farther right is hard to imagine; if there is something to the right wing of the Wall Street Journal editorial page, I have yet to see it goose-stepping my way.
But Republicans in Congress are not content with simply taking over PBS and NPR; they want to destroy them. They want to take away the pittance in federal subsidies that NPR and PBS get. That's right, they are attacking Big Bird. Since both are enormously popular, it's obviously a purely ideological thing...like Social Security, many Republicans ideologically resent any public program that actually works and is good for the country. For any government program to be successful goes against everything they believe. There'd be a sales tax on food and clothes, and it would all be spent on the military, and that would be it. They'd be against roads if there was just some way to get elected when people knew you were trying to take away their cars.
Spending a couple of pennies on the dollar to support Austin City Limits and Sesame Street and The Prairie Home Companion and classical music seems like a no-brainer to me. I admit, classical music bores me, but it is an important part of our Western cultural heritage, and if there is a series of commercially viable classical music stations, the word has not come to me. (And can there be a more fundamentally conservative mission than preserving our Western cultural heritage?) This is an area where the government does good, for an absurdly small amount of money. The Representatives against PBS should be left alone in a room with a large group of children who are told these guys want to take away Barney, and Clifford, and Arthur, and Buster; they want to take away Mr. Rogers, the Berenstein Bears, and Bert and Ernie, Elmo, and the Cookie Monster, and Kermit the Frog. If those Congressmen make it out of the room alive, I should be very much surprised.
1:55:17 PM 
|
|
