Soon, we'll be able to add the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and all the good they've done this country to the list of progressive measures our country has taken over the last 100 years, a list that already includes Social Security, the Kyoto treaty, and innumerous social and governmental practices, that the Bush administration has attempted to dismantle. In what seems to us like an effort to silence all dissenting press, even if that source of that press happens to be regarded as one of the most balanced and fair in the entire world, the House has just voted to slash funding to the Corporation For Public Broadcasting, the organization that provides funding to PBS and NPR, and thus to things like Sesame Street, All Things Considered, and Austin's own KUT.

This is scary, right?

Scarier still is that the same subcommittee voted to kill all federal funding to the CPB within two years. From $400 million to $0 in 2 years. Raise your hand if you think the CPB will survive that sort of set back. Anyone?

AND EVEN SCARIER STILL... After the jump!

(But in case you don't read further -- Move On's petition to stop this and KUT's call for support.)

What gives this rather surprising and upsetting funding cut a sinister glow is that it is happening so quickly after the Bush appointed chairman of the CPB, Kenneth Tomlinson, started babbling about how he believed that the CPB funded programs with a "liberal bias." With wild disregard for the opinions of most of the world, as well as a healthy distaste for the truth, the person put in charge of sheparding the CPB into the new millenium has essentially started the process which will see nearly 40 years of socially responsible, informative, and educational programming tossed in the bin.

The CPB provides funding for the creation of programming as well as support to the operational budgets of small, public stations like KUT. Without the funding that CPB provides, a lot of these stations, though primarily listener supported, will be on less than even footing. And if these stations disappear from the airwaves, what do we have left? Fox, MSNBC, Clear Channel - private companies who have already proven their loyalty to the right and their willingness to forgo real reporting and programming, instead broadcasting a mixture of propoganda, half truths, and reality television about the ultra wealthy.

It is in the best interest of the citizens of this country to have a strong and well funded selection of public broadcasts and publically funded content, especially in questionable times like these. We find the governments efforts to silence public broadcasting by cutting funding extremely disturbing. Can you suggest any reasonable explanation for this? We certainly hope we haven't simply run out of money!

Please call your congress people, and express your opinion about this subject. Move On has set up a petition and KUT has posted a call for your support. Do not let our wonderful public broadcasting system disappear!