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Wednesday Morning Rant

Goring Oxen

Nobody likes it when his ox is gored. When the ox in question is a "public service" or something "in the public interest" or "in the name of the people" or that "is for the greater good," the response to potential goring becomes absolutely hilarious. You see, someone who is ostensibly all about "public service" (gag) or "the greater good" (double gag) can't get all upset over his ox getting gored, because he has to pretend that it's not about him, about his empire, his power, his wealth or his influence. He has to pretend it's about "The People" or, even better, about "The Children."

With the current administration trying to shove a tiny rescission through a deeply corrupt Congress, everyone with an ox is making tremendous amounts of noise. Cuts to "Global AIDS funding" have already been stripped from the bill and the pigs are lining up at the trough to save the rest. When the bill finally passes, it will probably be a barely-cut. One thing that might - will hopefully - be in the final barely-cut is an organization running full tilt to avoid the goring. The rescission includes an effective defunding of a particularly pernicious agency: PBS. PBS' head hencho is, of course, warning of dire consequences if her ox gets gored.

WaPo decided to interview the head of PBS, Paula Kerger. Unsurprisingly, she talks her book and warns of dire consequences - though not for herself. Oh my, no. The risk to her sinecure is the last thing on her mind, you see. She is just worried about poor rural folks and children!

Most of the money goes to local stations. I was just talking to someone about our station in Kansas, in Smokey Hills; 54 percent of their money comes from the federal government. It is obviously an existential circumstance for them. They do a call-in medical show because they're serving a very large rural area. A lot of what they do -- as all of our stations do -- is try to understand what the local market needs and then they step up to it. A lot of people don't understand that big parts of the country are still without broadband.

An existential threat. Sounds bad. Apparently it will be oh-so-bad for rural Americans if their taxpayer-financed propaganda is cut off! We can't have that. But it will, of course, be even worse for "the children." Even while doing the normal ironic dance of how PBS is invincible even as it faces an "existential" threat, it is as usual all about "the children:"

Ironically, I think PBS would exist in some form, but it would be different. And if the goal is to take PBS out, this actually doesn’t accomplish that.

What it does do is it removes stations from a lot of communities. It's just heartbreaking to think about it again because for me it's all personal. When I think about all the different visits that I've had, not just with the people that work at the station, but the community and how much they treasure their local stations. I especially feel for kids because kids are getting hit on so many different fronts -- from the nutrition programs, from Medicaid, and then this is just yet another thing on top of it.

Those poor, benighted children. They will never recover from reductions in state-owned propaganda networks! Yet the messaging about "The Chidren" (tm) in this interview is particularly contradictory. In the prior excerpt, Kerger went on how vital PBS is to areas without broadband - yet in the same interview, she also talks about the mind-rot kids get on the internet:

A lot of kids are ending up on YouTube. "MrBeast" is one of the most popular programs for young kids. It is not a show for young kids.

Man, PBS is way more important than I imagined! It's vital for people without broadband, and the only thing holding the pernicious effects of broadband at bay!

It's all so tiresome. Kerger doesn't mention the absurd and transparent left-wing bent in PBS programming. She doesn't talk about the Party-controlled progressive propaganda her network produces. She doesn't talk about the nakedly political operation she runs. She provides no consideration that maybe her brand of social and political obscenity might be bad for people, or whether the argument could even be legitimate. She discusses none of the reasons why Trump and some Republican politicians have finally, apparently, run out of tolerance for America's state-owned propaganda organs. It's just kids and poor rural folks all the way down, with not one word about the real reasons.

Is rescission an existential threat to PBS? I seriously doubt it - but a man can dream. Some oxen get gored because they need goring, and PBS desperately needs a good goring.