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"You really are clueless, an embarrassment to the name. Hope you're adopted." -- June Dever
"this guy is right about conserving a clue. he hasn't one and that leaves more for the rest of us." -- Jim Lovell
"Your e-mail addy... should be 'dever@getalife.net.'" -- Sponge
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| Same Shit Different Name |
| Posted by: dever on Monday, June 19, 2006 - 10:02 PM |
FAIR and the Center for Independent Public Broadcasting are pushing for to take oversight of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting away from congress and turn it over to an "independent" (read: uber-liberal) oversight committee that would be more immune to political pressures.
In other words - us idiotic common folk would still have the privilege of funding CPB but with even less input that we have today. (As if congressional oversight really gives you or I that much input in to the activities of CPB.) I'm sure this sounds like a great idea to progressives who can't figure out why the majority of Americans don't agree with their position and continue to send Republicans to Disneyland on the Potomac. Like most of the ideas of our "progressive" brothers and sisters, this is truly terrible idea.
Let's get this out of the way right up front: Anyone who has read this site in the past knows that I'm no fan of public broadcasting in general and more specifically public television. With the advent of cable channels covering just about every interest under the sun, there's really nothing PBS is doing that isn't already being done better by the private sector. Between A&E, Bravo, the History Channel, the Learning Channel, Discovery, and the various children and family programming channels that are all parts of most basic cable channels, what does PBS really bring to the table that isn't already being handled by the public marketplace? Frontline? Simon and Garfunkle singing in Central Park 20 years ago? Just zero the funding already and move on - there's something of a budget deficit if you haven't noticed (even though tax revenues are at an all time high).
On a more personal level, I've grown weary of watching the staff of PBS stations hijack the programming for their fund-raising jihad - holding Big Bird and the Cookie Monster hostage to guilt people like my grandparents in to sending them $200 for a WVIZ-TV 25 ("You make the difference!") coffee mug and a Yanni CD. It seems like you can't turn on a PBS station anymore without someone interrupting the program with a styrofoam cup in their hand asking, "Spare some change?" It's embarrassing.
But let's get back to the real issue here:
Any entity that receives federal funding should be subject to federal oversight. The government isn't creating any wealth of its own, it's simply taking money from you and I then distributing it as it sees fit. In essence, we are all shareholders of CPB therefore we all have a certain degree of input in deciding how the corporation is run. Our input comes through the decisions of those we elect to represent us in Congress. Removing control of CPB from congress eliminates the voice of the people paying for the product and that's not acceptable.
Even shifting the funding to a "usage fee" levied on commercial broadcasters is still a tax in disguise. It's a governmental mandate to take money from one organization and redistribute it to another. Ultimately these fees are considered in to advertising costs, which then trickle back in to higher prices for consumer products that you and I pay. It's still a tax, albeit one that goes to great lengths to disguise the fact.
Or put another way, the output of the wastewater treatment plant certainly smells nicer than the input - but it's still being driven by the same old shit.
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