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Corporation for Public Broadcasting Statement Regarding Executive Order

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Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting Statement Regarding Executive Order

#381

Post by throwanem »

bhouston wrote: post #3

The US is so weird right now. You have a President who is ordering the defunding of tons of groups (universities, media, aid, institutes) while not clearly having that authority and often doing so for what he views as ideological crimes. Also arresting and trying to deport people for things that are not clearly crimes (newspaper op-eds, etc) and without due process. Very strange times. Right now I have some faith the…

The term is "checks and balances." They never function in ideal fashion, but they have failed us badly enough in the past to spill a million gallons of our own blood. I am nowhere near prepared to say they have finally failed us now; for any American so to assume is defeatism, and so to behave is culpable cowardice.

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting Statement Regarding Executive Order

#382

Post by eitally »

arcbyte wrote: post #30
bhouston wrote: post #3

The US is so weird right now. You have a President who is ordering the defunding of tons of groups (universities, media, aid, institutes) while not clearly having that authority and often doing so for what he views as ideological crimes. Also arresting and trying to deport people for things that are not clearly crimes (newspaper op-eds, etc) and without due process. Very strange times. Right now I have some faith the…

I say this as a firm conservative. The courts have so far been outstanding, despite all the inappropriate pressure. I have no doubt they will continue to be. I'm also quite impressed with conservative voters who are speaking out to their conservative representatives. Ultimately though, despite many many calls not to do so, Congress has goven the executive branch unheard of powers. Executive power needs to be reigned…

I would argue that Trump only exists as President because Congress has abdicated its lawmaking powers for the past twenty years (give or take). With a functional legislative branch it's not nearly as problematic to have an extremely liberal or conservative president, or textualist Supreme Court justices. We need a refresh of rules governing congress (age & term limits, better pay, disallowing equity trading, elimination of gerrymandering at the state level, and perhaps nationwide adoption of ranked choice voting, which would open the door to viable third parties & ruling by coalition).

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting Statement Regarding Executive Order

#383

Post by tzs »

ujkhsjkdhf234 wrote: post #90

If he actually cared about unbiased media, he would reinstate the Fairness Doctrine which he won't do because that would kill Fox, Newsmax, and the rest of the Republican propaganda outlets.

They are trying to reinstate it or create something sort of equivalent...but only for media they consider to be liberal.

The FCC for example has been threatening to revoke broadcast licenses of media it says are biased. No conservative media have received these threats.

They consider bias any reporting, no matter how factual, that contradicts anything the administration has said, now matter how objectively wrong it is.

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting Statement Regarding Executive Order

#384

Post by orwin »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #173
santoshalper wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should disabuse yourself of the notion that concepts like personal discipline, contentiousness, and integrity are somehow "conservative" values. They are not in either sense of the word conservative. Certainly from a political standpoint, republicans (or their equivalent in other nations) have often used these concepts against women, minorities, and the mentally ill as a means of shirking their obligation to help…

> My reading of history leads me to believe quite the opposite. Hey, if we wanted to go back to real old-fashioned (pre-columbian) American values, then we could have human sacrifice, multi-god-animistic-religion, slavery (the Europeans weren't the only ones to do that), etc.

Just a point, Europeans were the only ones to do _chaptel slavery_, i.e treating fellow humans (even if they are currently slave) as object they own and have every right over them.

Other form of slavery were either topologically or chronologically limited. This wasn't the case for European chaptel slavery: your sons and daughter were also property, and changing localtion did not indure you to another lord, but gave him right to pursue you across the world (also, chains were mostly used during triomphs, but chained slave were in practice extremely rare, even in mines)

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting Statement Regarding Executive Order

#385

Post by HarHarVeryFunny »

diego_moita wrote: post #86

From the perspective of outside democracies it is almost laughable (or "cryable") to call the U.S. a democracy. Some of the most fundamental traits of an healthy democracy that the U.S. doesn't have: * the US doesn't have real alternation in power: only 3 other democratic countries in the world have the same duopoly of political parties the US has: Japan, Mexico and South Korea. These 2 parties have an absolute contr…

The electoral college system and it's winner-takes-all implementation in most states means that the vast majority of US citizens are disenfranchized - they are given the illusion of voting with that vote in fact being used against them -majority wins all of state's electoral college votes.

So, yes, the US is not a real democracy in any meaningful definition of the word. It's not far from Russia or other countries where you can also put a vote in the box, but that won't affect the outcome of the election.

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting Statement Regarding Executive Order

#386

Post by transcriptase »

triceratops wrote: post #360
transcriptase wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue in Canada is that the CBC, despite having excellent journalists, investigative, local, and otherwise, and being an invaluable resource to many small communities, is overwhelmingly (but not entirely) biased in favour of one political party and whatever identity politics are currently the mainstay of their image. And it’s the party that nearly always campaigns on increasing their funding. I love(d) the CBC. I…

> And it’s the party that nearly always campaigns on increasing their funding Sounds like there's an obvious way for any party to get good press from the CBC /s The fact that you think "climate change" is an evidence of bias betrays your own bias.

Inserting it into every conversation is an example of them playing to certain audiences, particularly when it’s being mentioned in a way that appears to be checking a box versus being relevant or substantial.

I refrained from including in my original reply that another issue is that those they’ve increasingly tailored their personas/programming to legitimately can’t see any issue with how CBC has changed in the last 10 years. Whether that’s because they’re not old enough to remember the CBC when it was far more dry and neutral I’m not sure.

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting Statement Regarding Executive Order

#387

Post by nataliste »

kaishiro wrote: post #281
nataliste wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny, I was told "if a Nazi sits down at a table of ten people, there are eleven Nazis at that table" for years (and in particular by NPR listeners), but suddenly there's now a use/mention distinction for platforming extremist views when it's your side that does it? Color me shocked at the hypocrisy.

Sorry, but exactly what point are you trying to make here? Are you suggesting that NPR has never interviewed - say - Christian fundamentalists (they have)? Are you suggesting that they should interview more of them? What, precisely, would make you happy here?

As I've been told for the last decade, "everything is political" therefore NPR can't provide unbiased or neutral coverage of anything, therefore there should be no federal funding of NPR or PBS. Ideologues and corpirations donate more than enough money to sustain both without the pretense of impartiality provided by federal funding.

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting Statement Regarding Executive Order

#388

Post by HarHarVeryFunny »

Eextra953 wrote: post #262
HamsterDan wrote: post #195

I guess you can applaud Trump for taking the high ground here, but what he should have done is fired NPR and PBS's leadership and replaced them with rightwing equivalents. Maybe then Democrats would finally understand why it's so offensive to use taxpayer money to fund political propaganda.

He doesn't have the power to fire NPR or PBS leadership. Just because he's president doesn't mean he can make decisions for independent organizations.

I think you mean he shouldn't have the power. What we are seeing is that he is ignoring the law, and the supposed system of checks and balances, of the three branches of government, and ultimately the US constitution, is ill-prepared to deal with the combination of a rogue president who is supported by his own party.

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting Statement Regarding Executive Order

#389

Post by bhouston »

yubblegum wrote: post #147
bhouston wrote: post #3

The US is so weird right now. You have a President who is ordering the defunding of tons of groups (universities, media, aid, institutes) while not clearly having that authority and often doing so for what he views as ideological crimes. Also arresting and trying to deport people for things that are not clearly crimes (newspaper op-eds, etc) and without due process. Very strange times. Right now I have some faith the…

> The US is so weird right now. The weirdness started in 90s. First it was cultural (TV in 90s, Jerry Springer et al). Then it was electoral (hanging Chads anyone?). Then it was constitutional (Patriot Act). Then it was psychological (all those spooks running various "alt" Q etc.). And now it is lobotomy time. Took almost 3 decades but here we are.

> The weirdness started in 90s.

I think this is mostly just an artifact of when you starting paying attention in your life, discounting what happened before, you are likely around 50 years old.

Remember there was the Vietnam war casus belli that was faked, the student protests and shootings, and Nixon spying on his opponents and before that there was the red scare, the Hollywood black list and segregation in the South.

I think weaving together complex set of events like this is too much like the mistake people make in a lot of "evolutionary just so" stories. The degrees of freedom are too large and it is hard to establish true causality in a realm of potentially infinite causal links just by conjecture.

I think it is easier and more productive frankly to see what levers and pressures one had right now on the government and then try to influence those.

I think government is always in tension between opposing forces and you'll align with some and against others depending on your background, disposition, position in society and your particular perspective of kinship.

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting Statement Regarding Executive Order

#390

Post by ujkhsjkdhf234 »

tzs wrote: post #383
ujkhsjkdhf234 wrote: post #90

If he actually cared about unbiased media, he would reinstate the Fairness Doctrine which he won't do because that would kill Fox, Newsmax, and the rest of the Republican propaganda outlets.

They are trying to reinstate it or create something sort of equivalent...but only for media they consider to be liberal. The FCC for example has been threatening to revoke broadcast licenses of media it says are biased. No conservative media have received these threats. They consider bias any reporting, no matter how factual, that contradicts anything the administration has said, now matter how objectively wrong it i…

That is my point. They do not care about bias in media just like they don't care about government inefficiency or illegal immigration. There are easy wins you could make towards fixing all of these things if you wanted to but they choose not to because they don't care. They want fear, authority, and control.
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