I'm a long time listener, and a recovering fundamentalist from the far religious-right, but even I was disappointed when I heard the reference to the "Cato Institute: a libertarian" think-tank. First, the Cato institute is not Libertarian in their practice of their focus. They have no philosophical basis for that claim. It's just a tag they've chosen to purport to seem ideologically ethereal.
By now we know that the Cato Institute is a puppet org for the interests of the Koch brothers. Created by them to gird their political agendas, the Cato institute is now understood to be a ruse. Remember, they're behind the "climategate" scandal, the instigators of bad press versus the entire climate science community, and the biggest contributors to efforts to roll back environmental initiatives.
That's ancillary to the story I heard this morning in the 9:00 hour, which was about teachers and their reputations in the public sector. Twice the Cato Institute was referenced and given a chance for their rep to comment on perceptions about teachers and their unions. This is outrageous! (sorry, I had to use an exclamation) The Koch brothers have been funding ads in WI and around the country which have done much like what climategate did, skew the public perception against teachers and their unions.
In WI, just after 100,000 plus teachers and supporters of unions were at the Capital, amidst weeks of protests, the Koch brothers, through their second of three puppet orgs, The Americans for Prosperity, began running ads which demonized teachers for missing classes, and their unions as thugs and malcontents. The very same ad played in your NPR story may have been funded by the Koch's, then your reporter cites their research into the perceptions?
I know that the Cato institute is the equivalent of an intra-agency metrics tracking entity to measure the results of their own efforts to sway perception and gain political capital. But NPR, as the last bastion of objective journalism in USA, should not post their quarterly numbers, so to speak. Please make every effort to expunge any notion that the Cato Institute has any credibility or objectivity. They don't . It's time that NOVA dump funding from one ot the Koch brothers and it's time that NPR severs any and all ties to any of the 35 or so orgs which they fund.
I know that the Cato institute is the equivalent of an intra-agency metrics tracking entity to measure the results of their own efforts to sway perception and gain political capital. But NPR, as the last bastion of objective journalism in USA, should not post their quarterly numbers, so to speak. Please make every effort to expunge any notion that the Cato Institute has any credibility or objectivity. They don't . It's time that NOVA dump funding from one ot the Koch brothers and it's time that NPR severs any and all ties to any of the 35 or so orgs which they fund.
That story was not journalism, it was an infomercial.
Thank you for your time. I've certainly come a long, long way from the days when I would have eaten that up.
Peace,
Christian E. Vettrus
Milwaukee, WI USA
No comments:
Post a Comment