House Rejects Bush Plan to Eviscerate Public Broadcasting

Part of the Bush plan, I believe, is to wear us down with Chinese water torture (that is not to be confused with US water boarding torture as practiced at Guantanamo Bay and other compassionately conservative strongholds around the world). And part of that plan involves a daily, some times hourly, attack on our sensibilities - at least on the sensibilities of liberals who care more about people than Repugnicans who care more about money.

The latest example is this disgusting story.

In a 357-72 vote this evening, the House “rejected President Bush’s plan to eliminate the $420 million federal subsidy for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.”

I can understand why the Chimp wants to eviscerate portions of PBS because it has real reporters like Bill Moyers who doggedly seeks out and reports the truth about the Chimp.

But why does Bush want to harm Sesame Street? Bill O'Lielly claims that there is a "secular" war on Christmas (or whatever issue he needs to boost his viewership) but why is Bush conducting a war against Big Bird?

The Bushies will claim that they want to "save" $420 million from the budget. However before we run out and make a fuss over a measeley $420 million 'saved' by bludgeoning a large yellow bird, lets put that $420 million in perspective.

Current estimates are that the illegal occupation of Iraq will cost $12 Billion a week by the end of October. For the sake of comparison lets assume that today is October 1 and we are shelling out $12 billion in this endless foolishness of watching Bush chase his tail in the Middle East.

That $12 billion a week is costing you me and everyone else (except rich non-tax-paying Repugnicans) 1,714,285,714 each day.

That $12 billion is costing us $68,571,428 each hour of each day.

That $12 billion is costing us $1,142,857 each minute of each hour of each day.

The $420 million that Bush wanted to axe from PBS is pissed away in 6.125 hours in a single day. Wake up at 6 a.m and by 12:10 pm when you leave for lunch, all of the money for a year of PBS will have been pissed away for no purpose in Iraq.

The reason Bush wants to eviscerate PBS is that unlike the conventional media, PBS tells the news and weaves a story from all the disparate parts. PBS does not make a profit and isn't in the game to make a profit. Its there to tell the news.

Corporate media, on the other hand, operates to make money. We have seen consistently for the last 4 1/2 very long years in Iraqnam that corporate media wont attack Bush and his strategies because it is afraid of 1) upsetting the rich Repugnicans who run the corporations that buy the advertising on their airwaves, and 2) ferreting out the truth about Bush would be viewed as an attack by the "liberal media" and heaven forbid that happens.

So we are stuck with Bush trying to kill Big Bird so he can be sure that his warped take on the news continues to mollify those who fill the coffers of the Republic Party.

Heckuva job, Dubya.