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GOP Staffers Told Federal Funds Doomed
From: Dave Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>
Date: Tue, 21 Feb 1995 19:02:57 -0500
-------------------------- The Washington Post has generously given us permission to reprint the article quoting Speaker Gingrich saying he will scuttle any legislation that appropriates money for the CPB. Special thanks to Alan Simpson in NPR's Public Information Office for clearing permission from the Washington Post. If you quote from the article in news stories, be sure to credit The Washington Post. The text of the article follows: - ------------------------ GINGRICH VOWS TO ZERO OUT CPB GOP Staffers Told Federal Funds Doomed by: Ellen Edwards Saying that "the CPB still hasn't seen the light," House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) declared yesterday at a Capitol Hill lunch that he would scuttle any legislation that appropriated money for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. "They still don't realize that the appropriation is gone, that the game is over," he told a group of current and former senior Republican Hill staffers known as the Rams, who meet for monthly off-the-record lunches. "The power of the speaker is the power of recognition, and I will not recognize any proposal that will appropriate money for the CPB. What they should be doing is planning for the future." The House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees the CPB is due to mark up rescissions on current funding for the organization next week, and insiders believed the cuts would be in the neighborhood of 15 to 30 percent. CPB funds the Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio. Gingrich's comments were made before an audience of about 100 at the Capitol Hill Club. They were made available to The Washington Post by someone in attendance and confirmed by his spokesman, Tony Blankley. Gingrich has called for the elimination of CPB funding in the past, but yesterday's statements went further than he had gone before. In fact, less than a month ago he said at a press briefing that his position to zero out all funding was not "fixed in concrete." CPB President Richard Carlson had not comment, but CPB board Chairman Henry Cauthen said, "It is not a game with us nor with the 1,000 public broadcasting stations that were built with the help of the government for the public....Why the speaker would go against the strongly held views of the American public when 70 to 80 percent want to see public broadcasting continue is a mystery to me." He said it would be "one of the great tragedies of our time" if public the broadcasting system were dismantled. Gingrich also attacked the CPB board for firing former Republican congressman Vin Weber, a close personal friend of Gingrich whom the board had hired to help develop a contingency business plan for possible privatization. "The members of the board appointed by the Clinton Administration fired him because that's not what they wanted to hear. He wasn't fired because it looked bad to hire a lobbyist," Gingrich said. "He was fired because he strongly advised them to explore their private-sector options." In recent weeks, some on the Hill have suggested that public broadcasting could be sold to the private sector in some way; Bell Atlantic, for one, has expressed interest in buying what might be available. Public Broadcasting executives have expressed concern that the system would be broken up to further the interests of commercial enterprises. Gingrich fueled that concern yesterday when he said: "They're sitting on very valuable assets. Channel 8 in Atlanta is choice spectrum. Sell that slot to a commercial operation, move PBS to Channel 36, and Georgia public broadcasting could live forever on the interest from that trust fund." He told the group: "I don't understand why they call it public broadcasting. As far as I am concerned, there's nothing public about it; it's an elitist enterprise. Rush Limbaugh is public broadcasting." _________________end of article ------------------------------ From: RznDemoPM () aol com Date: Fri, 17 Feb 1995 16:41:16 -0500 Subject: Tuning In to Tom Jefferson's TV The Following Opinion Piece Ran in the Christian Science Monitor, Thursday, February 16. It is reprinted with the permission of the Christian Science Monitor. Copyright Paul Rosenberg, 1995. Followed by the original text, which was written to the older, longer format of opinion pieces in The Monitor. *****-----*****-----*****-----****** Tuning In to Jefferson's TV
'Rugged individualism' versus an Enlightenment view of people as
naturally social beings. << A Common thread runs through the congressional attacks on the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB): a philosophy that sets the government sharply at odds with the individual freedom. It is often called "rugged individualism," but it's really a philosophy of rigid individualism, which sees the individual as at war with "the state" or "collective society." It is also a philosophy of rigged individualism, since its rhetoric of individual autonomy furthers the power of corporate enterprises. This philosophy is deeply ingrained, but it is not the only or even the central philosophy of our culture and national identity. During the 19th century, it was commonplace to read the the individualist rhetoric of "social Darwinism" back into the 18th century political theory of John Locke, and then into our Founding Fathers. But this myth was set aside by Garry Wills in his remarkable book, "Inventing America: Jefferson's Declaration of Independence." He showed that the dominant philosophy in the thought of Jefferson and his contemporaries was the Scottish Enlightenment "moral sense" philosophy, which held that human nature includes individual appetites for shared pleasure, such as our aesthetic appetite for beauty and our moral appetite for virtue. Rigid individualists regularly fall back into the Hobbesian belief that men are by nature selfish individuals, living lives outside society that are "nasty, brutish and short." Moral sense philosophy argues, however, that we are naturally social, and government arises out of our nature. This does not, in itself, constitute an argument for more government, but it helps us see voluntary associations as central to our cultural and political lives, displacing the false opposition of government vs. private enterprise. The NEA and the NEH are successful because they have done an excellent job of using government money to nurture such social structures in the arts and the humanities. They are model Jeffersonian institutions. The CPB, on the other hand, has largely failed to live up to its potential, presenting us with too much imported drama, Beltway punditry, and corporate-sponsored programming. Contrast what you see today with what the Carnegie Commission called for public television to do in 1967: to "help us see America whole, in all its diversity"; to serve "as a forum for controversy and debate"; and to "provide a voice for groups in the community that may otherwise be unheard." This mandate is Jeffersonian to the core. It says that we all gain if those who have been silenced are allowed to join that exchange of ideas and experience on which a just government (deriving its powers from the consent of the governed) must be based. PBS has never fulfilled that mandate, in large part because another Carnegie recommendation was ignored: funding by direct taxation on commercial broadcasting, which could not exist without the private use of public airwaves. Moreover, targeted corporate underwriting must end. Instead of centralized bureaucratic control overseen by appointed boards, we need shared decisionmaking by elected representatives, who strive to add views to the conversation. This ``liberal'' vision of government activism and inclusion of the powerless is the surest path to the promotion of a ``conservative'' ideal: strong individuals in a strong society, taking personal responsibility for their country as well themselves. Paul Rosenberg is a writer in Los Angeles and founder of Reason and Democracy and ts special project, the Committee to Save Public Media. ***** There is a common thread behind the ongoing Congressional attacks on the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). Whatever the surface arguments are, there is lurking beneath them an attitude, a philos ophy that sets the government sharply at odds with the freedom of the individual. This philosophy is often called "rugged individualism," evoking the myth of frontier independence, but it's really a philosophy of rigid individualism, which sees the individual as necessarily at war with "the state" or "collective society," rather than seeing our individuality and our social nature as mutually reinforcing aspects of our identity. It is also a philosophy of rigged individualism, since its rhetoric of individual autonomy serves to further the power of large corporate enterprises (individuals only in the sense of a legal fiction) and free them of social responsibilities and restraints that protect the property, lives and welfare of real flesh-and-blood individuals. This philosophy is deeply ingrained in our history and culture, but it is not the only, or even the central philosophy of our culture and national identity. It is an appealing myth, but it is very poor history. During the 19th Century, it became commonplace to read the 19th-Century individualist rhetoric of "social Darwinism" back into the 18th-Century political theory of John Locke, and then into our Founding Fathers, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. This myth was masterfully set aside and replaced with careful scholarship and insight by Garry Wills in his remarkable book, Inventing America: Jefferson's Declaration of Independence. Through a rich variety of evidence and arguments, Wills showed that the dominant philosophy in Jefferson's thought (along with his contemporaries), was the Scottish Enlightenment moral sense philosophy (most fully developed by Francis Hutcheson), which held that human nature included individual appetites for shared pleasure, including our aesthetic appetite for beauty and our moral appetite for virtue. The social nature of this individual appetite is easily illustrated by Wills, "One keeps the pleasure by giving it. Thus there are, at a minimum, four people involved in any act of Hutchesonian benevolence--a man (A) sees B being kind to C and prolongs the pleasure caused at that sight be being kind, himself, to D. This act will, of course, stimulate pleasure in other onlookers, E, F, and so on." Rigid individualists regularly fall back into the Hobbesian belief that men are by nature selfish individuals, living lives outside society that are "nasty, brutish and short." This view confuses government and society, and sees them both--however necessary--as demanding a surrender of "natural liberty" in exchange for the blessings they bring. Moral sense philosophy denies the existence of such a pre-social, anti-social, "natural" state: we are naturally social, and government arises out of our nature, rather than being imposed upon it. This does not, in itself, constitute an argument for more government. Jefferson was justly and wisely suspicious of the tendency towards tyranny in any government. Rather, it helps, on one hand, to demythologize our criticisms of government in general and to direct them towards specific problems and solutions. On the other hand, it helps us see the workings of voluntary associations as central to our cultural and political lives, displacing the false opposition of public government vs. private enterprise, both of which are secondary institutions that depend upon our moral sense, and the social structures that evolve from it, in order to survive. The NEA and the NEH are successful organizations largely because they have done an excellent job of using government money to nurture such social structures in the arts and the humanities. They are model Jeffersonian institutions. They have vastly expanded the reach of the arts and humanities, making them far more popular, diverse and participatory, where they were once more elitist, monolithic and exclusive. Before they were established, there were just 37 professional dance companies in America, now there are nearly 300, there were 58 symphony orchestras, now there are more than a thousand, just one million people a year went to the theater, now over 55 million go yearly. The CPB, on the other hand, has largely failed to live up to its Jeffersonian potential, presenting us with vibrant programming for children, but far too much imported drama, Beltway punditry, and corporate-sponsored programming for any Jeffersonian's taste. Contrast what you see on PBS with the Carnegie Commission's 1967 mandate that called for public television: 1) to "help us see America whole, in all its diversity;" 2) to serve "as a forum for controversy and debate;" 3) to "provide a voice for groups in the community that may otherwise be unheard." This mandate is Jeffersonian--and Hutchesonian--to the core. It does not suppose that life is a zero-sum game of isolated and antagonistic individuals, that some must lose if others--specifically, those excluded--are allowed to win. It says that we all shall gain if those who have been silenced are allowed to speak and join the conversation, the exchange of ideas and experience on which a just government (deriving its powers from the consent of the governed) must be based. It says that our nation, individually and collectively, shall be the richer if we commit ourselves, together, to those things that money cannot buy: justice, truth, and virtue. PBS never fulfilled that mandate, in large part because another recommendation was ignored: the call for funding by direct taxation on the commercial broadcast industry, which could not exist without the private use of the public airwaves. Such funding, immune from the tamperings of politicians, would go a long way toward allowing the CPB to emulate the success of the NEH and the NEA. But more is needed to ensure that end. Public broadcasting must be democratic in its form and function. Targeted corporate underwriting, begun under Nixon in 1972, must end; money should never call the shots in programming decisions. In place of centralized control from appointed boards, we need a multi-level system of shared decision-making by elected representatives, who strive to add more views to the conversation, not to censor those they disagree with. Such an outcome is not possible in a vacuum. It can only happen as part of a larger process, a process of rediscovering the real foundations of our democracy, in our history, in ourselves and in our everyday lives. The groundswell of support for public broadcasting is a starting point for this process, but it must become a constructively critical force if the Jeffersonia n promise of public broadcasting is ever to be kept. This "liberal" vision of government activism and inclusion of the powerless is the surest path to the promotion of a "conservative" ideal: strong individuals in a strong society, taking personal responsibility for their country as well themselves.
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