NPR Hit Piece on the Tea Party
Posted on 05. Jan, 2010 by James Devere in Political Commentary, Political News
The irony of taxpayer money being used to disparage a group whose platform includes a call for the government to stop wasting public funds is something that surely gave our propaganda czars a chuckle.
The left continues to try to alienate and isolate the Tea Party movement using all quarters to attack. We have seen news outlets from CNN to MSNBC jump on the “teabag” bandwagon to ridicule Americans for their fiscal beliefs, elected officials have made outrageous and unsubstantiated claims, the administration has directed the NEA to support politically motivated art, and BarackObama.com has held a contest to foster propaganda. Now, NPR, an organization which would fail but for the support of tax payer dollars, has joined in the campaign to discredit hard working people concerned with the squandering of their economic futures.
Political satire is a cornerstone of our society and our media. It is a tool that has been used by the free press for centuries to illustrate the short comings leaders and, in some cases, the electorate. Now satire is being directed by the government rather than being directed toward the government. It is important for the targets of satire to have a thick skin and accept the opinion art for what it is: a comment on society. The difference with the piece above is that it does not use humor to explain a truth, nor is it a spontaneous quip to illustrate some larger ideal. It is simply public money directed toward a political agenda. It is another cog in the wheel of an all encompassing campaign that the White House has encouraged at every step. It is, as liberals would say, misinformation.
It is in fact members of the liberal block in the Congress and the Administration who have used the terms Nazis, knuckle draggers, Mafia, etc. to characterize an American patriotic movement. And unless their own words were somehow been misinterpreted, it is Obama’s inner circle that has described themselves as Socialists and as adhering to Communist philosophy.
There was a time when NPR would rightly produce political satire and commentary that was dripping with sarcasm and humor, not hate and fear. Maybe they should stick to stalwarts like Car Talk and All Things Considered.
Political cartoons, as with others in the mainstream media, are increasingly turning to ridicule of the masses and funded by private enterprise; this has to be accepted. It is one thing for a satirist in his or her own course of business to express an opinion as in the first two cartoons below, but another for the Government to fund such a negative portrayal of its people.
US political cartoons during Obama’s first year have been light on satire and strong on hero worship. However, the departure to from commentary on those that choose a public career to those who make up the electorate is a recent advent of a tingly legged media with too much of their own phsyche tied up in one man.
Satire is alive, however, outside the US. Here are some foreign cartoons that do poke some fun at our President.
