Teaspoons for Sesame Street!

by Shaker Aphra_Behn

...and all the other great programming that comes from U.S. public media.

Congressman Doug Lamborne (R-Ukiddinme???) has introduced legislation to defund PBS and NPR because slashing their annual $430 million in funding is a totally great way to solve the $14 trillion debt.

I don't think I have to tell anyone in the U.S. how important this is, but just in case, here are some words from Shaker celeloriel:

What's left out of every angry contemptuous speech are the tiny damn stations that serve places like Native American reservations, or very poor areas, or the stations that are literally the only source of arts and music programming in 500 miles, or the stations that broadcast educational programming in multiple languages (eg: Spanish and English educational programming in the Southwest, including bilingual Sesame Street in some areas, and Latino USA, a news program on public radio; the 'We Shall Remain' project on PBS that talks about the history of the Wampanoags and revives their language) -- those stations utterly depend on federal funding (in fact, some smaller stations base as much as 15-20% of their budget on it).

The public media system in the United States serves literally one hundred seventy million people. If it goes dark, the only choices for news and information on radio and TV will be controlled by gatekeepers who have a vested ideological interest in altering information to suit their financial need.

Public media already relies heavily in the U.S. on donations and private monies, but it still needs public funding to survive. To claim that cutting its $430 million is going to make a dent in a national budget that in 2009 spent nearly $30 billion in contracts to Lockheed Martin, Northrup Grumman, and Boeing Co alone is mendacious in the extreme.

It's not surprising to hear this discourse from a party that exhorts the most vulnerable U.S. residents to "tighten belts," while insisting that the wealth of the richest is utterly sacred.

But it is still contemptible that they have sunk low enough to attack Big Bird.

Please, contact your Congresscritter. And participate in the grassroots campaign at 170 Million Americans.

Please feel welcome and encouraged to leave other links to Facebook campaigns, Twitter hashtags, and other grassroots action in comments.