Pat Buchanan on NPR - Tom Ashbrooks show On Point.

[bluerum]

Damn.

I kept the radio off all week.

I turn it on this morning and hear that this buffoonery will be given a national platform.

I turn it off vowing NEVER to pledge to NPR again.

[TreasonousBastard]

1. And how will that help, when...

it forces them to dig deeper into the Archer-Daniels-Midland trough?

I'm happy with well over half, maybe 75%, of my local NPR programming, so why would I starve them because the parts I don't like?

If we keep up this sort of thing, there will be nothing left for us at all.

[Tesha]

2. There *IS* nothing left for you.

NPR is already a full convert to the Republican Propaganda
Program, and your contribution has no effect on their pro-
gramming at all; you're just helping take a little of the
load off the giant corporations to whom they're already
in full-toady mode.

Tesha

[TreasonousBastard]

3. Sorry, but that's just bullshit.

[Tesha]

4. Thanks for your insightful (inciteful?) analysis.

Wow! You must have worked really hard on that reply!

'Hope you didn't strain something!

Tesha

[TreasonousBastard]

5. Every bit as insightful as your analysis of NPR...

but possibly a bit more accurate.

[Tesha]

6. No, I at least made a claim. I'll restate it for you.

NPR used to be pretty balanced.

They had commentators from the right and they had commentators
from the left, at least one of whom claimed to be an actual
(gasp!) "Socialist".

About ten years or so ago, all the lefty voices started
disappearing, one by one. Soon, everyone who offered
commentary seemed to come from the Heritage Foundation,
or the Cato Institute, or the Hoover Institute, or was
David From and his book "What's Right" (all puns intended).

During this time, I continued to send NPR money, along with
suggestions that they were losing me. For my trouble, I was
never even sent a personal reply.

I enevtually gave up, and started speaking in the one voice
that they would hear: I withheld my contributions.

And I still do it. Everytime I hear Steve Inskepe (sp?)
sneer his snide questions to a lefty guest. Everytime I
hear Croakie Roberts spew her spin. Everytime I hear
Juan Williams kissing off his heritage (who could believe
that this asshole was the narrator of "Eyes on the Prize"?)
Every time they pull their usual shit, I promise myself
that another n months will go by before I will even
*CONSIDER* sending any money to NPR.

They did the same thing so many other did: In the face
of constant criticism from the Right, they drifted (and
drift) ever farther right in the hopes that the Right
will finally stop kicking them, and maybe even like them.

It ain't gonna happen.

But like an abused person, they can't be disabused of
that notion.

So I've given up. The faster they are dead and their
propaganda is removed from the air waves, the better
off things will be for the left.

Don't support NPR.

Don't help ADM and the RNC spew propaganda. Not only
are you wasting your money, *YOU'RE ACTIVELY HELPING
OUR ENEMIES* because whatthey broadcast today is

Nothing but Propaganda for Republicans.

Tesha

[TreasonousBastard]

7. NPR and local stations are dependant...

upon corporate funding largely because of the reduction in federal and local funding.

But, I don't buy into the propaganda argument. Not a bit.

Today I listened to verified voting activists, a college professor explaining what fascism really was in the 30s, a legal anaysis of the Hamdan case and Shrub's attempts bypass the decision, and several analyses of just what's going wrong in Iraq and Afghanistan. For every Roberts you come up with, I can come up with a Maria Hinojosa, Diane Riehm, Leonard Lopate, Ray Suarez... Many of the "breaking" stories I've seen here I already heard a day or two before on an NPR show. In depth interviews with scientists on global warming, food additives, anti death penalty advocates, peacmakers... Even Terry Gross' entertainment interviews can occasionally be atartlingly revealing, and however much some people here hate her for "softballing" political interviews, I doubt many have really listened to how she sets up the rightwingers to hang themselves. I guess if you don't scream, you don't get listened to-- skill and subtlety lose every time with ideologues of the right and left.

And almost of the PRI programming I hear is pretty much left leaning, except for Car Talk, which stays as far from politics as it can.

Baby, bathwater... So go off and leave them because the glass is half empty. I'm happy with the half full part.

[Tesha]

9. Car Talk is NPR, and that's actually a blatantly liberal show. (NT)

[bluerum]

12. I don't think so. They have many corporate sponsors. My $50 a

year now goes to democratic organizations and the ACLU.

Why should I give money to NPR to pay blowhard conservative guests? It's like paying a cable bill - you know that money goes to FOX, CNN and MSNBC.

[bluerum]

11. 75% is stretch - unless you include local music programs.

NPR has made a hard right and I do not see them coming back - except for the "appeasement" pieces aired during fund drives.

They have run their course and are a far far cry from the NPR I used to admire and respect.

No - I will not fund them anymore.

[Annces]

8. Tom Ashbrook - not exactly hard hitting

He is fun to listen to, but I think he plays it safe.

[bluerum]

10. Ashbrook is ok - Buchanan I cannot stomach no matter what the

venue. I am sick of NPR putting jerks like Buchanan on the air.

FOX and blatantly RW radio stations doing nothing but air RW partisan crap. I do not pay them and I will not pay NPR to do the same.