Conservative Values One Penny at a Time

Great Seal of the State of Minnesota

In Minnesota the GOP is trying to impose its conservative values on the state by hiding behind the screen of the budget crisis, a budget crisis that their deliberate underfunding of government helped cause.  Rather than confront the state’s budget situation straight on and responsibly, they take it as an opportunity to reduce government further, dismantle public services and public goods, and give more to the free-market. 

This is not going to help in either the short term or the long term.  But that is of no concern to the GOP.  They want to help themselves and private profits before they serve the interests of the state.  Prove otherwise.

In the first place, Republicans simply must not understand what a public good is.  Most importantly they don’t understand the economics behind them, why they exist and the important positive impact of public goods. 

(Joseph Stiglitz has a good essay about education and knowledge as a crucially valuable public good.  Sadly the GOP is not contributing much here, either.  But I digress.)

Take a look at two GOP ideas to help solve Minnesota’s budget problem.  In one they propose charging prisoners a $5 co-pay for medical visits.  In another they propose logging black walnut trees in two of Minnesota’s state parks.  

What is wrong with stuff like this?  It depends on your point of view if there is anything wrong at all.  You might not like prisoners and want to charge them for doctor visits.  You might care more about profits than parks. 

That’s all fine…maybe…but I think we should all be able to agree that proposals which will generate a million here and a million there really are not serious efforts at restructuring a systemic multi-billion dollar budget problem.  The people proposing these “solutions” have other goals in mind.

Republicans hypocritically whine about earmarks, but this is in essence a pork barrel of another sort.  In the case of the prison medical co-pay, it is a way to make a tough disciplinary stand on criminals.  It is like stealing candy from a baby — which I wouldn’t quite presume your local GOP representative does, by the way, at least not since he or she has grown up — but who is going to come to the defense of prisoners?  For the most part, no one.  It is like shooting fish in a barrel…a pork barrel.  Thus potentially an easy political “victory.” 

And…oh yeah…that budget.  They did something net positive for the budget, about a penny’s worth.

And the trees…here is a true political earmark.  What do the Republicans screech about incessantly?  The sneaky tricks played on them and the American people when irrelevant legislation is snuck into larger bills, right?  While this isn’t necessarily being snuck into the budget proposal, it has the same result.

The money made from trees that would otherwise “rot” and be wasted will amount to a drop in the overall budget bucket.  In essence it is irrelevant.  Our state funding problems are much broader and systematic than anything that sacrificing some park trees can help solve (or privatizing some state forestry resources, another short-term, short-sighted solution proposed by the GOP here). 

What they really have to gain, under the cover of a budget crisis, is a chance to take profits from public resources.  Haven’t we had enough of this?

America’s public resources are a sense of pride for many of us.  Patriotic Americans supported our shared public investments.  Minnesota often lead the way with some of the best public resources in the nation.  Now?  Now we are chiseling away at it all in the phony interest of resolving a budget mess. 

What matters first is ideology.  You can see this at the national level with attempts to cut funding the public broadcasting at NPR and PBS.  Those are not cuts that will make a difference.  Funding programs like that are not causing the problem.  In the United States we have a funding problem first, then look at the spending problem.  (Unnecessary wars?  Unsustainable tax cuts?)

Where conservatives failed to divide us on social issues, they are succeeding on economic ones.  By creating an economic crisis, they have the opportunity to “earmark” their social agenda into public legislation.  It is more than the privatization of public services and resources (cf., Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine.), it is at a level of personal conservative values that include religion, sexuality, gender and race. 

Conservatives don’t want less government.  They want more of it.  They want more that reflects their personal values, not good public policy and investment.  It is high time we call them out on it.  In Minnesota people like Representative Kurt Zellers and senators Koch and Michele talk a lot, but they don’t answer questions.  They preach and squirm.  And we let them get away with it. 

Ask a very simple question:  How, exactly, will they close a $6 billion dollar budget gap with cuts alone.  (Still waiting for an answer.)  How can they — a party that pretends to support families and the middle class — support an unbalanced tax system that benefits the wealthiest with lower real tax rates?

Ask questions.  Demand answers.  Above all else, don’t let Republicans earmark their morality, which should be private and personal, into legislation that should serve the common good. 

Related Articles

• From NPR To Abortion Funding: Fiscal Conservatives Are Fighting Meaningless Battles (outsidethebeltway.com)
• Minnesota: Michele Bachmann’s Loony State (thedailybeast.com)
• Tiny Tim’s First Little Step (alittletourinyellow.wordpress.com)
• Prioities and Values (alittletourinyellow.wordpress.com)

NPR, Public Discourse, and Common Sense

Today NPR Chief Executive Vivian Schiller resignedafter an NPR fundraising executive, Ronald Schiller, — coincidence, no relation – was caught in one of Republican “journalist” James O’Keefe’s traps…and there is a lot about this that should make people angry. 

The problem of deception and entrapment leading to conclusions of fact and intention should be obvious.  However issues surrounding the response to this entrapment, both from NPR defenders and critics, say a lot about double-standards.  It also reveals how pathetically weak any answer to conservative messaging is in this country.  The rhetorical right controls public discourse.  It is that simple. 

First, why do the opinions of one person — Ron Schiller — represent all that is NPR and what it stands for, but  the almost ubiquitous crazy right wingers and Tea Partiers we see everywhere can be dismissed as existing on the fringe and not indicative of mainstream conservative politics? 

If we applied the same standard used to judge Ron Schiller to judge American conservativism, you could argue that Ron Schiller was absolutely correct about the disparaging opinions he expressed about conservatives. 

Don’t we see racist, jingoistic, and utterly stupid signs at Tea Party rallies, for example?  Or take the self-fashioned  Tea Party Caucus leader in Washington, Michele Bachmann.  She has said plenty of outrageous things.  Should we conclude, therefore, that all GOP Congressmen and Congresswomen are equally nuts? 

We don’t draw this conclusion.  The right would never admit it and the left is too damn careful to be truly fair and balanced.  Need an example?  Listen to NPR Ombudsman Alicia Shepard being interviewed on Minnesota Public Radio Midmorning with Kerri Miller today.

Alicia Shepard falls all over herself to concede everything.  She all but throws in the towel, lamenting that the battle for public funding is all but lost now.  She vilifies Ron Schiller repeatedly, presumably trying to put distance between Schiller and NPR.  Ok, fine…the outcome of that staged trap is embarrassing and makes defending NPR more difficult, but at least try to defend NPR!

It might even pay to come to Schiller’s defense by explaining that in the course of trying to measure up a potentially major donor he went too far in trying to earn the donor’s confidence and expressed opinions that are not shared by NPR nor by its programming. 

Shepard did a horrible job re-framing the NPR message.  Running away from Schiller and throwing barbs at him as you run only seems to reinforce and magnify the negative message that the event created.  That is the wrong way to answer a crisis like this. 

But that’s more or less the liberal way.  Maybe we should capitalize it and take ownership:  The Liberal Way.  Roll over and concede.  Apologize.  Back track.  Don’t counter attack.  Maybe the attackers will get bored and go away…

Strong and positive counter attack is the responsible action.  Pushing back is not necessarily a bad thing.

I would have acknowledged Ron Schiller’s mistake, but put it into a context that lets you defend NPR and even defend the work he was trying to do.  You might change the narrative, for example; explain that raising money from private donors is a necessary and high-pressure reality, requiring many individual judgement calls, which in this case went wrong.

Sesame Street

Embrace the mistake then move on to the NPR message. 

How about:  “Without our combination of public funding and private fundraising many small NPR stations could go off the air, impacting millions of people who depend on NPR for news and information…”  And rebuild your positive NPR message.  Constructively go back on the offensive.  Yes?  No?  Why not?

Once again common sense has been hijacked by conservative rhetoric and hysteria, and the liberal left is complicit. 

Where is the talk about the value of NPR to the people of the United States?  How about PBS?  Television stands to lose even more in this race to de-fund America.  Why are we answering the critics…and agreeing with them in crisis in a misguided attempt (once again) to win their favor and compromise? 

We are watching the American way of life that made this country great and strong eviscerated before our eyes and no one is getting into the fight to defend it.  The NPR fiasco — a program that costs taxpayers about $1 per person annually — is a very public example of how pathetic our nation’s  impending losses appear to be.

The course of public discourse must change and constantly placating the angry right in debate is not going to get it done.

Related Articles

• NPR: Sources say CEO ‘forced out’ after O’Keefe video (dailykos.com)

Does NPR Have a Liberal Bias or…

Corporation for Public Broadcasting

…could it be the free market working to make NPR appear to have this liberal bias?

As Republicans attempt to defund public radio and television, there is a lot of talk on the periphery critical of taxpayer dollars supporting liberal political views. 

This is one of those times when I think a thirteen-year-old might be able to answer this complaint best:  Whatever.

Republicans are attempting to defund everything, after all, in their blind effort to gut government.  That’s another story, another issue…and a very hypocritical and sad one at that.  So it should surprise no one that they would take a shot at public broadcasting in their bombastic and insincere attempt to control spending one short-changed penny at a time. 

Conservatives — you know the people who are self-made free-market successes regardless of whatever advantages good fortune and progressive taxpayers preceding them might have contributed — make a big issue about dollars flowing where demand justifies the investment.  So maybe it is the free market that is to blame for NPR’s soi disant liberal bias.

I will argue that the NPR audience makes it appear liberal and not the other way around; it needs not have anything to do with any specific NPR agenda, but everything to do with smart, objective broadcasting.   One just fits well with the other.

Let’s say, for example, that NPR’s broadcasting therefore attracts an intelligent and sophisticated audience that might tire of people like Beck or Limbaugh.  (I find that conclusion very refreshing and highly believable, by the way.)   And let’s say it is that sophisticated and inquistive audience, as much as it is the quality of the NPR, that is attractive to the sponsors who underwrite the programming.  Much of NPRs funding comes from this sponsorship, so something is working here.

Sponsorship and corporate underwriting accounts for the biggest source of NPR funding right after fees paid to NPR for programming by local stations.  (The Federal Government contributes no funding directly to NPR.)  Corporations and foundations support NPR to enhance their brand by associating with the positive qualities of NPR.  They also know they are reaching a critically engaged and active part of the US population, one that generally is more educated and informed.  More positive qualities, more reason to associate with the NPR brand and its audience.  There is no bias here but delivering the solid good programming that has built the NPR brand. 

Therefore, could it simply be that intelligence and information have a liberal bias?  Can NPR  be blamed or branded as biased if it merely provides the objective facts that an intelligent public seeks?  Should we all be required to be paranoid half-wits for the sake of political parity?

If you follow the money, private corporations and endowments appreciate the value NPR delivers.  What frightens the GOP so much?

NPR Revenue

Today I listened to a radio show caller complain that all the money supporting public broadcasting came from progressive think-tanks and left-leaning businesses.  The caller might be surprised to know that Fox Broadcasting contributes to NPR and Fox is not commonly regarded as a company with a liberal slant. 

Citibank and Bank of America also contribute as do a long list of insurance and finance companies.  They are there because there is value being associated with NPR.  It is valuable to their brand.

Of  course I don’t want to make the sweeping generalization that all finance and insurance giants are morally corrupt anti-progressive corporate behemoths — I wouldn’t dream of it! — but the argument that Kashi and REI represent inherently progressive industries is just as much of a careless generalization.   

So if all of this money is coming to NPR from private sources anyway, what’s the harm in cutting funding?  The real issue here is control and it goes through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) which does receive Federal funding and does give grants to stations to purchase broadcasting from NPR.  The proposed cut would affect CPB, not NPR and PBS directly. 

The cuts that Congress is considering amount to about $400 million in aan era when trillions spent on tax cuts and unfunded wars is routine.  That’s where your budget mess is, people!  This attack on CPB funding is a sideshow typical of the conservative right. 

Who doesn’t think this is an ideological battle?  It is all about politics, not money.  If conservatives were serious about the budget, they would not be wasting time and effort on little issues like these.   Moreover, they would not be aligning with people complaining about bias as a means of supporting their budget-cutting plans.  You don’t hear any remorse from the right about the “unfortunate” but “unavoidable” loss of a great American success story.  They don’t even try to be diplomatic about their conservative bias.  Why is the left so damn apologetic about its agenda? 

As I understand it, defunding CPB would not spell the end to all public broadcast stations (it could mean the demise of smaller stations in more remote areas, however), but it would add a layer of burden on an already difficult budget.  Nevertheless, any compromise to what has become a valued American resource will be a great setback.

In recent years, NPR was rated as the most trusted news source in a national poll.  People respect the quality of the news and information NPR provides.  The stations also play an important public service, providing news and information as well as educational broadcasting in an industry that is increasingly dominated by commercial interests. 

I’ve written exclusively about NPR, but who would like to see Big Bird donning a Kids-R-Us t-shirt or Oscar living in a garbage can sponsored by Waste Management?  Think it is absurd?  Really?  Talked to a GOPer recently?

Republicans mostly failed to divide this country on social issues, but they are succeeding now through the financial crises that is the outcome of policies they promote.  Perhaps I am a hopeless cynic, but it is hard to see how entrusting the common good to Republican ideas and leadership is going to turn things around in this country.  Attempts to defund CPB is only one more example the GOP’s petty politics.  We deserve better.

Related Articles

• Republicans Put NPR, PBS on Chopping Block (abcnews.go.com)
• DeMint, Coburn Introduce Bill to Defund NPR and PBS (bigjournalism.com)