Since the very earliest times governments have sponsored the arts. I am greatly in favor of this, the small amount of money that the government spends to support the arts is more than made up for by what the arts inspire out of the people. So with that attitude you would think that I'd be all in favor for funding of the National Public Radio, but I'm not.
Don't get me wrong I love NPR, they report on a lot of things the corporate owned media can't. But they are severely limited because they receive 1.5% of their budget from the government (Not even directly but through “The Corporation for Public Broadcasting). In any other company a 1.5% stake means shut up, you have no say in how we run things.
With NPR it means that they have 535 people thinking that they are the boss of NPR.
If a Republican wants to appeal to their base they just mention how they are shock at how NPR appeals to the “Reality Based Community” as Bush used to call the liberals.
If NPR lost the government funding it would would barely hit their bottom line and I would put my money where my mouth is and donate a couple bucks to make up the difference. I'm sure a lot of others in the reality based community would do the same, freeing NPR from the people who want to kill it.
The result would be that NPR would change its name to Non-Profit Radio and they could do whatever the hell their listeners want. This would make them a better radio station and they would get more listeners that are sick of the corporate media.
So to all the fans of NPR that want congress to continue funding the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's 1.5% share in NPR, I say, “Shut-up Stupid, the federal government is the anchor around NPR's neck. Getting rid of it would make the NPR stronger."
By Darrell B. Nelson author of Alien Thoughts
