By Bob Boldt

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For some reason known only to my analyst, I love to tip sacred cows. I also love pissing off my Liberal friends. Most Liberals in this country, because they feel so imperiled and marginalized, become easily entrenched in their, often hermetically sealed, mind-sets. I enjoy pissing off Liberals even more than T-Party Repugs who are always pissed off at everything all the time. Pissing off Repugs is no challenge and no fun. 

That is why, when I was recently presented with a request from Daniel Minz of MoveOn to sign a petition to prevent drastic defunding of PBS and NPR, I was irresistibly tempted to respond in a way that would scandalize the Left. Now I don’t regularly watch TV or listen to radio. Actually I am a regular listener to Democracy Now!. DN! is, to my knowledge, publicly supported by donations from listeners and subscribing stations and does not rely on government funding. The Repugs should love DN!. It is truly bootstrap, marketplace, free enterprise, and non-Socialistic. And they feel little need to rigorously employ the Fairness Doctrine because the people, organizations and governments they regularly skewer never show up to defend themselves—in spite of being invited to do so.

As a service to Liberals reading this, here is the link to petition for perpetual funding of Public radio and TV—if you believe you still can have an impact on an insular government devoted solely to moneyed special interest.
 
(The petition says: "Congress must protect NPR and PBS and guarantee them permanent funding, free from political meddling.")

Here then is my response to the petition request

Dear MoveOn Team,

Let me know when the funeral for NPR and PBS will be so I can organize a dancing-on-the-graves party for those two sellout organizations. Good riddance! Harrumph! I do feel sorry for the kids--missing out on all the great children's programming however. Perhaps the Christian Television  Network can fill in the gap with programs on Creationism and Hellfire.That should fulfill the little nippers’ insatiable need for fairy tales and scary programming.

I can't speak with much authority concerning the value (or lack of same) of the public venues, having abandoned both in disgust during the bad old George W. Bush/Ken Tomlinson years. I have found to my delight that non-viewing habits are as hard to break as viewing habits. These days I try to limit my exposure to radio and television (news particularly). I find even good programming (especially on TV) not particularly conducive to a healthy, functioning nervous system—INHO. And definitely not suitable for young children over an extended period! I wish I could wean myself with equal success from the Internet and my computer word processor. 

A much better venue for news and information, I think can be found following the Al Jazeera English channel (which contains just too much truth for even Liberals to stomach and hence is severely limited even on the cable channels in Amerika), Link TV, and Democracy Now!—media that do not require their nourishment to be derived primarily from the teat of Big Brother. I suppose an important point you could make to refute the defunding of "Socialist media" could be, that defunding NPR and PBS is discriminatory against the ever growing numbers of the poor who cannot afford cable. I wish you lots of luck arguing that one with our esteemed representatives of the people. One bipartisan issue that both the Repugs, Obama, and the Dems seem to enthusiastically agree on is: Screw the Poor!

Thanks for sharing.  And good luck with your latest Children’s Crusade.

Peace,