Your Tax Dollars At Work
By Mitch Berg
Y’know, I have always done my best to distinguish the parts of public broadcasting that do make a credible effort at being “public” as opposed to “the pet project of a set of well-heeled constituencies”.
But most of the good news is here in Minnesota. National Public Radio is a depressing gulag of smug, preening, upper-middle-class, “I can’t believe anyone isn’t like us” liberalism.
Evidence? From National “Public” Radio, ‘Learn To Speak Tea Bag’.
Nope. No bias here at all.
I’d love to get the point of view of some of my public radio friends on this one.
January 5th, 2010 at 7:58 am
[…] at Shot In The Dark and True […]
January 5th, 2010 at 8:11 am
To be fair, you didn’t point out that the piece is in the commentary section; it’s not a news story. That said, NPR.org has a responsibility to provide commentaries from both sides of the spectrum. Whether they’re doing that or not, I don’t know because I avoid commentary sections of almost every Web site.
The bigger problem — and certainly not limited to NPR.org — is that the “you suck, no YOU suck!” commentary/discussion accomplishes nothing. It certainly doesn’t buttress NPR’s claim that Public Radio is the place for intelligent discussion.
Perhaps the bigger problem is every Web site in America is trying to be Gawker.
January 5th, 2010 at 8:54 am
I’d love to get the point of view of some of my public radio friends on this one.
Sure. You’ll note the political cartoon was in the OPINION section, not the news section, therefore totally appropriate. A subtle distinction, if your definition of subtle is “glaringly obvious.”
January 5th, 2010 at 9:13 am
“It’s just opinion!” must be the erudite version of “I’m just sayin’ is all.” It absolves you from bad art, lousy logic, name-calling you’d expect from 3rd graders, and avoiding any of the issues at hand. Considering newspapers have had their wrists slapped by ombudsmen for poor taste on the opinion page before (specifically when calling whole groups of people stupid, bigots, evil etc), the point still stands. It may be an opinion, but it’s a lazy one.
If NPR wants to use their opinion section for obscene sexual metaphors and juvenile name-calling, fine. Some days I wish they’d keep it up: letting segments of the population think that “TEABAGGERS LOL!!” is an appropriate response to the complaints about wasteful spending will make the November elections a whole lot easier.
January 5th, 2010 at 9:25 am
To be fair, you didn’t point out that the piece is in the commentary section; it’s not a news story.
To be fair, would NPR.org provide space in their commentary section to Fred Phelps or Stormfront or somesuch?
Perhaps the bigger problem is every Web site in America is trying to be Gawker.
Spot-on. The difference is that our tax dollars don’t fund Gawker. I don’t care one bit that some butthead saw fit to produce “How to Speak Tea Bag.” Free speech, all the way. Don’t see why I should pay for the butthead’s podium and microphone, though.
January 5th, 2010 at 10:10 am
Commentary or no, this form of opinion-manipulation on the part of NPR is insidious and unconscionable. This is a great example of why we need the Fairness Doctrine implemented. With the Fairness Doctrine the truth would be spoken side by side with their lies and their subversive agenda would be exposed for what it really is.
Conservatives: Republicans, Libertarians and TEA Party truthers, support to Fairness Doctrine today and enjoy a better tomorrow.
January 5th, 2010 at 10:31 am
No, a-boy. The solution for objectionable talk is more elegant and persuasive talk. That’s the essence of public debate.
The question here is the duty of an entity that gets public money to applying that money fairly to all members of the public. There’s little doubt that NPR doesn’t do that in it’s opinion pieces — or can you show me the counter-balance to MidMorning?
January 5th, 2010 at 10:38 am
NPR is funded by the government to present cultural, high-brow, long-hair music to the masses, the kind of classy stuff you’ll never hear on pay radio because advertisers won’t shell out for it.
Current political opinion has no place there.
If NPR can’t recall its mission, defund it.
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January 5th, 2010 at 10:44 am
“The solution for objectionable talk is more elegant and persuasive talk. That’s the essence of public debate.”
Objectionable talk? The only thing that makes it objectionable is that its making fun of something you agree with. Poking fun at liberals as fine, but once the conservatives take the piss, your skin thins.
I agree that elegant and persuasive talk is the essence of public debate. If the TEA Party was capable of real dialogue I may think differently. But they don’t have a plan or a leader, or even a real platform other than they don’t like paying taxes (which in my opinion is unamerican). Ridiculing the ridiculous is fair game, as far as I’m concerned.
And before accuse me of having a double standard, the Green Party was the same way during the Bush years, and I said so at the time. And I predict the TEA Party will have the same fate.
TEA Party supporters have valid fears and concerns, and I support people vocalizing their opinions, regardless of what they are. It’s hard for liberals to relate to people they disagree with on such a fundamental level, and I think liberals have to work harder to do so if they want a better dialogue.
But as an organization (or whatever you want to call it), if the TEA Party wants to respect of the left, they have to work harder to earn it. Frankly I don’t think they want it. I think they are more comfortable with being demonized than they are being respected because you get more attention from yelling than talking.
January 5th, 2010 at 10:48 am
AB, don’t ya think that maybe, just maybe, that one-sided political commentary ought to be a no-no when you’re getting your funds from the government–especially when one uses sexual slurs to make the point?
Sexual slurs which, by the way, it appears that liberal Democrats understand almost instinctively, but Republicans need to look up in “Urban dictionary” or “Wikipedia.” There is a lesson there somewhere.
January 5th, 2010 at 10:50 am
With the Fairness Doctrine the truth would be spoken
As determined by a big government bureaucrat or a panel resembling the local school board. No thanks. Bad speech is still free speech.
There’s also that pesky First Amenendment that would have to be rescinded.
January 5th, 2010 at 11:12 am
But they don’t have a plan or a leader, or even a real platform
Grass-roots movements often don’t have these things. If your side needs to take orders or get talking points, that’s your deal, AB.
other than they don’t like paying taxes (which in my opinion is unamerican).
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I have no issue paying taxes for police and fire, roads, national defense and whatnot. I’m not certain it’s necessary for me to pay for Bob Collins, even though I’m sure he’s worth every penny.
But as an organization (or whatever you want to call it), if the TEA Party wants to respect of the left, they have to work harder to earn it.
I doubt it’s worth the effort to gain the imprimatur of the Left.
January 5th, 2010 at 11:31 am
Pffft…Leave it to a leftist to suggest the answer to inane political propaganda is a government backed guarantee for more of the same.
We do have a fairness doctrine….the first amendment of the US Constitution suits me just fine.
Mitch doesn’t have the audience of NPR, but he is not shouting in the dark either. I’m guessing that by the end of the day a thousand people will have read this piece….pass it along. Call your state Rep’s and complain about the abuse of your tax dollars. Follow through with your promise to vote against the people that sponsor publicly financed, leftist propaganda.
Do something.
January 5th, 2010 at 12:30 pm
Interestingly, the cartoonist is the same guy who produced this gem back in 2004:
http://www.markfiore.com/animation/depressed.html
January 5th, 2010 at 12:37 pm
ApathyBoy: But they don’t have a plan or a leader, or even a real platform other than they don’t like paying taxes (which in my opinion is unamerican).
If you think it’s that simplistic, you really are an idiot. Worse, you’re a willing idiot.
It’s excessive, unnecessary taxation that’s followed by extremely wasteful, largely-useless and ineffective spending that tea partiers are against. That’s not unamerican, you tool; that’s a celebration of common sense.
Oh, and by the way, no one LIKES paying taxes, and if you DO like paying taxes, that’s a sure sign of mental illness.
January 5th, 2010 at 12:51 pm
Yoss, I found no vulgarity or sexual connotation in that depressed gem.
January 5th, 2010 at 1:11 pm
“If you think it’s that simplistic, you really are an idiot.”
The message is simplistic. If the movement is more complex than that, they need a more complex message.
And don’t call me an idiot. I didn’t go through six years of imbecile school to be called an “idiot.”
“It’s excessive, unnecessary taxation that’s followed by extremely wasteful, largely-useless and ineffective spending…” This is coming from the economical camp that believed that allowing entire idustries, and everyone that works for them, to fail in order to maintain the integrity of the free market. “Necessary” is relative, and if you wanted to discuss what constitutes necessary we’d be towards a real conversation. But if you believe that TARP was unnecessary then our differences in opinion are still too fundamental to merit discussion.
January 5th, 2010 at 1:27 pm
We can quibble about whether TARP was “necessary,” from a “how many leprechauns equal one unicorm,” standpoint.
That TARP has been wasteful, largely-useless and ineffective (especially when measured against what it was magically “supposed” to do), has been pretty much roundly proven over the last several months.
January 5th, 2010 at 1:27 pm
Every entinty should be subjet to failure, Continuing to fund things that do not work is harmful to all. Should we support the local diner that makes bad food and is rude to customers, of course not. Then why is GM, Chrysler or big banks any different. Sure abruptly closing them is bad, but having laws to close them neatly is what the bankruptcy laws are about. How long do you continue to take (at gun point) other peoples money to support a company that has been poorly run for decades. GM just got its third chunk of cash from you and me, they have taken more money from taxpayers than the company has ever worth even at its best back in the 70’s. Let them go, some other entity will replace them that will provide better employment, better products and better service and by extension be better for the nation as a whole. Just as the failed diner is replaced by a better run one or a different business.
January 5th, 2010 at 1:44 pm
Gee, and here I thought the tea party movement was “astroturf” organized by Faux News. Now they don’t have a plan or a leader, or even a real platform?
January 5th, 2010 at 1:54 pm
“Every entinty should be subjet to failure.”
Individuals need to be subject to failure, I agree. Without the possibility of failure there is no risk and therefore no growth (yes, this gets me into arguments with liberals on numerous occasions).
Companies are different from individuals. They need risk of failure as well, and a lot of analogies work, but punitive consequence is one area where the analogy breaks down. If one person screws up, they have only themselves to blame. But if one company screws up, they may have thousands of employees, most of them honest hard-working Americans (or at least fit two out of three of those).
Industries are even further in analogy. Allowing the American banking system to completely crash, no matter how badly we were lied to and cheated by CEOs, is just not ethical. That hurts all Americans regardless of how responsible they were or where they put their money.
Should every entity be subject to failure? Absolutely, but you need to consider all of the possible consequences.
Let the diner down the street fail if you want, but if it turns into a crackhouse instead of another diner your opinion may change in retrospect. [And yes, if I pump money into the same crappy diner for the next ten years I don’t get to complain about the beer being flat.]
January 5th, 2010 at 1:55 pm
The message is simplistic. If the movement is more complex than that, they need a more complex message.
YEAH! Something more complex! Something like. . .
“Hope and Change!”
Or, maybe. . .
“Change We can Believe In!”
You know, something COMPLEX!
January 5th, 2010 at 1:59 pm
“Gee, and here I thought the tea party movement was “astroturf” organized by Faux News.”
I never said that. Liberals that did probably don’t agree with me, but that’s up to them.
January 5th, 2010 at 2:02 pm
YEAH! Something more complex! Something like. . .
“Hope and Change!”
The Democrats are also suffering from the lack of complexity in their message.
January 5th, 2010 at 2:11 pm
“But if you believe that TARP was unnecessary then our differences in opinion are still too fundamental to merit discussion.”
If you believe TARP really had any measurably positive effect, our differences of intelligence are too great to merit wasting our time trying to explain anything to you.
It does explain, though, where the will to defend a bit of sophomoronic sexual innuendo by describing the target as “simplistic” could be mined…imbecile.
January 5th, 2010 at 2:13 pm
Democrats are suffering from a lack of complexity at the business end of their vestigial brain stems.
January 5th, 2010 at 2:25 pm
“This is coming from the economical camp that believed that allowing entire idustries, and everyone that works for them, to fail…”
AB, who wanted to allow entire industries to fail? I know of no one that said that. Failing individual companies is an entirely different story; and that’s what bankruptcy is for…
January 5th, 2010 at 2:33 pm
Mr. D:
“would NPR.org provide space in their commentary section to Fred Phelps or Stormfront or somesuch?”
No, because the number of people who hold such oppinions is tiny. A far larger number of people think teabaggers are silly for calling Obama a Nazi or a Socialist.
January 5th, 2010 at 3:06 pm
//To be fair, would NPR.org provide space in their commentary section to Fred Phelps or Stormfront or somesuch?
To be fair, that’s pretty much what I said when I said “NPR.org has a responsibility to provide commentaries from both sides of the spectrum. “
January 5th, 2010 at 3:07 pm
//With the Fairness Doctrine the truth would be spoken
Sunday morning at 4:30 a.m.
January 5th, 2010 at 3:09 pm
//The difference is that our tax dollars don’t fund Gawker. I don’t care one bit that some butthead saw fit to produce “How to Speak Tea Bag.” Free speech, all the way. Don’t see why I should pay for the butthead’s podium and microphone, though.
And the government doesn’t control Gawker content or restrict its content as it does with broadcasters in general, and public radio in general.
The reason the government “funds” public radio is the charter that created it restricted the means by which it can raise revenue.
It was a quid pro quo. And I’m quite certain some people in public radio would be delighted to get rid of both. But you can’t advocate for one without also advocating for the other. Not logically, anyway.
January 5th, 2010 at 3:11 pm
The pain of failure is prolonged, not avoided, by subsidizing failure.
January 5th, 2010 at 3:16 pm
Is it really “unamerican” to dislike contributing to a huge mass of money that politicians use for pork, bribes, and meddling? Please. You’d have to be both an idiot and an imbecile to believe that, wouldn’t you? 😉
January 5th, 2010 at 3:31 pm
The reason the government “funds” public radio is the charter that created it restricted the means by which it can raise revenue.
It was a quid pro quo. And I’m quite certain some people in public radio would be delighted to get rid of both. But you can’t advocate for one without also advocating for the other. Not logically, anyway.
Yep. And that’s my point exactly. There’s no good reason to do it any more, especially in Minnesota. MPR could sell all the ad revenue they want and stay on the air quite nicely. There’s clearly an audience that would support it; it already does. And it would be happy to support MPR’s efforts at the behest of Midwest LeafGuard or whatever in lieu of selling memberships or tchotchkes or whatnot. In fact, as a commercial station MPR could still sell tchotchkes; all the other stations in town do.
January 5th, 2010 at 5:52 pm
If anything’s “simplistic” it’s the view of the un- or ill-informed on the left who dismiss the Tea Party with sophmoric japes and Beavis and Butt-head type snickers (in a bow-tie). The typical person who shows up at these rallies likely has more than a passing acquaintance with the Constitution and the philosophy of those who wrote it. This includes the understanding that the first 10 amendments to this Constitution were not written to bless the rights of government but to protect the rights of the individual against the government, regardless of who or what was in power.
Granted, it’s hard to sound like William F. Buckley on a 3′ x 3′ piece of cardboard, but most of the signs are pithy and on point; only the singled-out few play down to the level of discourse shown by the group’s harshest critics.
January 5th, 2010 at 5:54 pm
//And that’s my point exactly. There’s no good reason to do it any more, especially in Minnesota. MPR could sell all the ad revenue they want and stay on the air quite nicely.
But MPR has nothing to do with this particular story and Mitch has — generously — gone out of his way to stress that. You can’t apply broadcast licensing policies separately to different broadcast properties.
Personally, I’d like to see First Amendment protections of the Constitution extended to broadcasters — commercial and public.
January 5th, 2010 at 6:33 pm
But MPR has nothing to do with this particular story and Mitch has — generously — gone out of his way to stress that. You can’t apply broadcast licensing policies separately to different broadcast properties.
Same thing applies to MPR, NPR, Wisconsin Public Radio and any other such entity. Turn ’em all loose and let ’em flourish in the marketplace without government assistance. After over 40 years of this, every public broadcasting entity has an excellent notion of its audience, so there’s no need for public subsidy and the inevitable strings that are attached. You guys will do just fine.
Personally, I’d like to see First Amendment protections of the Constitution extended to broadcasters — commercial and public.
I would too. As long as I can turn the dial, I don’t much care what is broadcast.
January 5th, 2010 at 10:47 pm
[…] at Shot In The Dark and True North. […]
January 6th, 2010 at 12:46 pm
Taxpayer subsidized “cultural” programming for the great unwashed masses in fly-over land: end it, don’t mend it.
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