On Forum Now! - The Role of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting

I listened and was rather disappointed.

The first caller in made some good points-- which the expert-textperts were able to leap past.

Erstwhile host, Cynthia Gorney, did a pretty good job though, especially when she read aloud the Walmart underwriting spot. (Pretty unsettling to hear in the context of this program.)

A friend called me after the program and we commiserated. He talked about why he liked David Sedaris (Forum had him as a guest in the program before this one). "I like Sedaris," he told me, "because he is able to mirror our own lives-- describing what life is like for us today. He describes life today in a way that the media, including NPR or PBS does not: our REAL lives."

We both agreed that the experts can always retort that they present all sides, and report on all topics... Do they? Maybe NPR has reported many stories on WalMart. But do they report how WalMart works everyday to make Americans believe that it is a good place with good jobs?

I had not seen it, but my friend says that WalMart has a commercial on TV where a African American man (my friend called him an "Uncle Tom") describes how he was able to work his way up in WalMart and enjoy a good life. But we both know that walMart guts workers rights and is destroying America. Sigh.

I wished this Forum program had more callers. The experts seemed to monopolize the time. I feel they are good at doing that. There was, of course, the call from the naive Move-On fella (has he ever read the Avocado Declaration? http://www.gp.org/articles/camejo_01_05_04.html)

There was the call from the fella who chewed up a couple of minutes saying that PBS had a liberal bias. I guess we are to assume now that the program was "fair"?

Thanks Roger, whoever you are-- but didn't they sort of cut you off too?

I won't belabor my feelings about the program. I was glad that for whatever reason, this program was aired.

Thanks to independent media like Indybay-- and all you bloggers out there-- and Bill Moyers (http://www.freepress.net/conference/=moyers)-- people all want to know why our real lives don't appear in the media anymore.

We are at war. 80 more Americans died needlessly in Iraq in the last month. Why are we there? Why has it been over a month before even USA Today comes to report the Blair Memo that shows that the Bush Administration was prepared for a pretext for war?

We all pay our taxes, but as David Cay Johnston reports (http://www.perfectlylegalthebook.com/index.htm) a few do not, and those few enriched themselves inordinately in the past thirty years while our own real wages are stagnant.

Once upon a time (my friend reminded me), we had decent jobs where we might have even had a company nurse at work to whom we could go to rest or get advice, or simple help. Now we have complicated health plans (we lucky few) that are costly, ineffective, and so tied up with red tape and loopholes that our wages do not allow us to leave work, or get help, or even know if we will survive.

I could go on.

I suspect you, the reader, "gets it".

In the media world, though, which includes NPR, PBS, and CPB (which IS a confusing mish-mash)-- and our donor-class controlled government which is flaying funding with the motive of eventually GUTTING public broadcasting--

none of our concerns matter a wit.

Democrats assist the Republicans in sending billions more for an illegal War that spawn more unrest and terrorism. The Patriot Act 2 is being foisted upon us now. Locally, our government's coddle corporate interests at the expense of citizens. Our libraries and schools are decaying. Our roads are shot with potholes and are plied by Hummers and SUVs which skirt emission regulations because they are classified as "trucks". NAFTA, CAFTA, WTO, IMF work to trash local laws and safeguards which were fought for by workers and citizens, veterans, and civic-minded individuals for decades.

The Public simply wants to be represented-- to have a government that tells the truth, that reflects their REAL lives.

Those that hold the keys to power-- including the airwaves-- are today much too clever. They can claim that they are not culpable because they own the statistics and the megaphone.

We, the People, know better. We are not fooled. Converse with just about anyone and they will agree. The majority is against the war. The majority wants universal health care. The majority want decent jobs with a decent future. The majority wants good schools. The majority wants the US to be a role model of decency and democracy-- and not to be a practitioner of torture and an exporter of war and weapons.

We all want to see ourselves... (as we are really) -- the American Good-Guys... and Good Women... making the world a better, saner, healthier, and kindlier place-- to be reflected in the media.

Instead of this smoothe propaganda, and schmooze, and trite sophist cant.

By the way... where the hell has been Michael Krasny this week? Forum never told us.