First PBS, now Brookings: Has another institution sold its soul?

[unhappycamper]

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-brookings-20140228,0,2981449.story



Mo' money for me, less for public pensions: Energy trader and pension "reformer" John Arnold.

First PBS, now Brookings: Has another institution sold its soul?
By Michael Hiltzik
February 28, 2014, 1:15 p.m.

The assiduous billionaire-tracker David Sirota, who last exposed the connections between billionaire John Arnold and a suspiciously one-sided series on public pension reform that ran on Public Broadcasting Service stations, is at it again.

Now he's uncovered Arnold's backing of a largely pro-"reform" report on public pensions issued by the Brookings Institution.

The paper, titled "Pension Politics," analyzes the political efforts aimed at cutting public employee pensions in four states. Its author is Patrick McGuinn, a political scientist at Drew University in New Jersey, one of the states examined.

The paper discloses that support for its publication "was generously provided by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation" -- on its very last page. It doesn't say how much support, but Sirota guesses that the money came from a $500,000 education grant the foundation made to Brookings in 2012.

[BlueStreak]

1. Money is everywhere

We must not ignore the degree to which the Koch brothers are infiltrating major universities from coast to coast. It is really insidious. They know that their name is utterly discredited, so they become parasites taking over vessels that have good reputations, never minding if they leave a pile of carcasses behind.

[justhanginon]

2. Obviously the colleges and universities are

complicit as they willingly take the money. Nothing in this country seems to matter anymore to some other than wealth and accruing as much as you can without regard to ethics or any moral principles. It seems to affect the monied crowd in ever increasing numbers. The rest of us don't have a prayer since we don't really count. American exceptionalism at it's finest. No thank you!

[dotymed]

3. This is constantly reinforced

to the public by using "reality" teevee like the one where the elites will bail your business out if you conform to their demands and give them usurious "shares" in "your" business. "Apprentice", even the cooking competition shows.
These have certainly taught Americans that winning at all costs (winning=money) IS the American way.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

4. Doesn't surprise me. I know this is about Brookings, but I got very curious about your post

so I looked up PBS, and found these. A while back PBS was more heavily funded with govt funds. Then the Republicans raped it repeatedly, and forced it to finance itself by cutting govt funds, which threw it into the marketplace somewhat like Fox, NBC, ABC, etc. In fact, isn't the PBS CEO a Republican? I love PBS - Bill Moyers, Downton Abbey, etc., but it's always in peril, and yes, it has changed thanks to the Republican infestation in this country. It wasn't always like that. The only solution is to rid ourselves of the right wing cancer somehow.


Third, Republicans want to kill NPR because it presents high quality, unbiased, factually accurate news. These qualities do not sit well with people who want the Rupert Murdoch's and Fox News's of the world to control what the public has the right to hear. They think unbiased news coverage is subversive.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-creamer/why-the-republicans-hate_b_837481.html

Supporters of PBS have accused the GOP of aiming their guns at public broadcasting because of a perceived 'liberal bias.' The CPB’s chair Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, an avowed Republican, initiated the effort to eliminate funding. Rep. David Obey (D-WS), the ranking Democrat on the House subcommittee that voted to cut the funding, said, 'Republican leaders are trying to bring every facet of the federal government under their control.'

Isn’t it amazing how far-right ideology manages to mesh so well with the corporate agenda?

http://www.politicalaffairs.net/pbs-why-the-republicans-hate-elmo/

Public broadcasting is a great success story of modern governance. Not just in America, but the public broadcasters in Canada (CBC), Australia (ABC), Britain (BBC), Ireland (RTE), the Netherlands (NPO) and many other nations are popular, informative and even entertaining. They bring programming that for-profit broadcasters do not.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/05/1140823/-PBS-Must-Be-Killed-Because-It-Shows-Government-Works#

[Fuddnik]

5. Brookings sold their soul a long time ago.

They've been hosting Robert Rubin's neo-liberal Hamilton Project for years.