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LongN4

LongN4

Meteorite
Joined
Feb 28, 2011
Personally I'm PISSED that congress is even considering eliminating federal funding for PBS. Yeah sure itd save a couple million bucks here or there but damn man. I don't want my kids, or my friends' kids, or hell anybody's kids to grow up in a world without Sesame Street.

http://www.leftaction.com/action/i-stand-muppet-lobby

For the sake of fairness, here's the gist of the anti-PBS funding argument:
"PBS has an unacceptable bias in its programming towards the left."

"Tax dollars shouldn't fund something that isn't unanimously sought after by the nation"

"PBS can still cover its operating costs through private donations, and merchandising."
http://demint.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=JimsBlog&ContentRecord_id=9f33a591-8891-4ad4-a856-e387dcade83a

Please, Please, PLEASE keep comments in this thread civil.
 
OMG WTF?! Well I don't care for Sesame Street with their Rap mimicking music videos. say what you want but you cant tel me that won't lead to the degradation of our children but Mister Rogers, Arthur, kids need those shows! and Zoom!
 
The Right is always claiming media bias to the Left. Numerous analyses have shown this to be a false claim. PBS itself puts on an enormous amount of news and media with conservative appeal. Most of their stuff isn't political, it's, like, music, local events, stuff the community itself has pledged money to get. Old Doctor Who eps, Monty Python, etc. Problem is, to the hard-righters, ANY admission of the validity of the Left, even if only in balance (and PBS strives for balance, when it gets political at all) is unacceptable. So OMG, admit that the Democrats have a point of view that might be valid from a certain perspective, and you're hopelessly Leftist! Kill it!

These are also the people who, when they controlled the Executive and both houses of the Legislative, had a clear and decisive majority in the Judicial, and owned the majority of State Governorships as well, portrayed themselves as some sort of plucky Rebellion, fighting the the evil Leftists. When your party has overwhelming control, kids, you're no longer the beleagured minority, you're the Empire.

They've been after PBS for decades, and the only reason I can think of is because it doesn't foster their particular viewpoint. You don't see me clamoring to shut down Fox News because it doesn't foster my viewpoint. Or NBC. Or CBS. ABC. Most newspapers. CNN. ... OMG, it's EXACTLY like the above example.
 
actually, yeah now that I look at things this would be better suited to the academy
 
I just wish they were after only Sesame Street and not the whole network. I loathe that brainless show that brainwashes children into begging for expensive merchandise and into memorizing (NOT LEARNING) whatever the agenda is behind the owners of Sesame Street.

An AIDS muppet? Come the hell on. That's NOT something a muppet needed to be created for, even in the countries suffering from high AIDS rates. That's a topic that requires a fantastic amount of seriousness as it could mean the end of their life prematurely.

More on topic, I love the cooking shows they've had as well as watching Carl Sagan's Cosmos a few dozen times. I also grew up with Mr. Rodgers, but the antiquity in the show wouldn't do well on a generation of kids who're currently growing up to be self-entitled, proud-to-be-stupid, attention-seeking, always-texting-even-while-driving beatnik-wannabes. That's the generation who grew up on the last few seasons of Sesame Street. I think I'll pass. PBS be damned if they wish to keep that filth on air.
 
I'm not going to argue the value of specific shows; PBS stations are local and play locally-desired programming, and if you don't like something, take it up with your local station.

My point is, the reasons behind the effort to end PBS are bullshit, the motivation is bullshit, and the politicians backing it are entirely full of bullshit.

Oh, and I'm tired of just letting their lies go by passively. There, I said it.
 
MM has made most of my points for me. I'll add this, though:

LongN4 said:
"Tax dollars shouldn't fund something that isn't unanimously sought after by the nation"
Click to expand...

What IS unanimously sought after? We've never functioned on unanimous voting. Part of being an adult is realizing that you can disagree with something, dislike something, not appreciate something, want no part of something, yet still understand the value of what it brings to the table. The suggestion of anything different is juvenile.

Fucking arrogant, ignorant, hypocritical, smoke-and-mirror right-wing crybabies.

Mr Master said:
There, I said it.
Click to expand...
 
I missed that the first read-through. "Unanimously sought after?" You know what, nothing has ever been unanimous in this nation, not really. That's the point of democracy and voting, but you're not willing to abide by majority rule, either, are you, you anti-American power-hungry fucks? If that were the case, if you really listened to the majority of your constituents, instead of major campaign contributors, we'd have Medicare for Everyone instead of More Money to the Insurance Companies this very minute.

Er, that's not anybody here on the boards I'm talking about; if you had the wealth or influence to try and affect the nation, you wouldn't be hanging around here, you'd be snorting coke off a call girl's tanned, taut ass, like old Dubya used to do back in the day.

I'd be highly suspicious of any resolution that was unanimous. In fact, I have been the few times it has come up.
 
Ok first point for all the right bashing on this, this is almost turning into what i consider a pvp thread.

Moving on to the actual argument at hand. As a GoP Conservative, I do support PBS stations, the bulk of which to my understanding at least get their funding from donations in their local areas. Now moving on from this, What i'm acutally seeing the major issue as is not the funding of public broadcasting, but rather the use of childhood figures such as Elmo, Cookie Monster, Arthur, etc., as tools for pushing agendas. I don't think this should be happening, for either side.

As far as cutting the funding fro Public broadcasting, as i stated earlier I believe the bulk of the funding from this does come from private donations, and telethons. If we can keep public broadcasting going while not using the tax dollars for it, it could be a major boon as it would mean either tax cuts, or more funds available for use in paying off our increasing national debt.

On the point of it being a unanimous decision. I will admit I'm not entirely sure on this, but i believe congress is currently a democratic majority. If it's not, The republicans don't have that much of a lead. Either way a unanimous decision, if that's what happened, means that a large number of democrats voted for this as well.
 
It's the Republicans saying tax dollars ought to be only spent on things people are unanimous in supporting, and that doesn't ever happen in life, so it's basically just their excuse to start slashing.

And I don't think there's any agenda being pushed, other than tolerance and literacy and other such positive childhood things. It could be argued that tolerance for others of different viewpoints and skin colors and such is a "liberal" agenda, but a) how does that paint the other side? and b) then the revered Founding Fathers, who wrote tolerance and unity despite differences and such, were pretty much flaming-ass liberals.

If someone can find a link to PBS budgeting proportions, perhaps a convenient pie chart or something, it would be nice to see how much of their operating budget comes from public grants. Donations are great, but public funding is crucial if we're going to keep at least once channel of non-corporate-influenced media in any given community.

And sorry if you take offense. I'm not against fellow citizens, but I'm sorry, your political leadership is basically radicalizing whether you agree with them or not.
 
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