The War(s) Wage(s) On

For a party that is now claiming to be against war, the so-called Grand Old Party sure does seem to have a history of being a party full of war-mongers. They chastised Americans who refused to fight in the Vietnam War and/or protested said war as being traitors to our country; they saw war as the only way to respond to the September 11th terrorist attacks; they complain that M*A*S*H is a, "situation commie hour" for being an anti-war show; and they ripped former President Barack Obama to shreds when he attempted to withdraw American troops from the ongoing conflict in the Middle East and bring them home (and yet, sang praises to the Lord above when Dictator Trump claimed he would do the exact same thing). And if it's not some sort of an actual fighting war raging somewhere in the world, they sure do seem to love to fabricate their own little geopolitical war that only they are engaged in - while also pointing fingers and blaming those they are attacking for instigating such fabricated wars, such as their War on Christmas that they claim the left started by saying, "Happy Holidays," instead of, "Merry Christmas" (even though there are other holidays aside from just Christmas that are celebrated during the season), or their War of Christianity that they claim the left started by trying to remove God from everyday life (even though the United States of America have a Separation of Church and State for a reason). But one conflict that the GOP has been waging for decades has been their war on the Public Broadcasting System, or PBS.

You probably have seen the news recently, about Elon Musk (an African immigrant who, somehow, has been given total authority to run our country, despite the big stink that Trump previous raised about Obama needing to prove he wasn't born in Africa, otherwise he legally couldn't be President) and Majorie Taylor Greene (a bleach blonde with a badly built butch body) calling for the dismantling of PBS, as well the cancelation of SESAME STREET (which is now in its 56th season) on the grounds that the show is Communistic propaganda that is indoctrinating our children into an anti-American idealogy. As ludicrous and far-out as their claims may seem, this actually is nothing new from the GOP concerning SESAME STREET in general, or even PBS as a whole; this has been going on for a long, long time, and their tune has not changed in the slightest . . . the only thing that has changed in that, in this day and age of social media and digital connection, they now can spread this sort of poison farther and faster than they could before, not to mention the United States is now also under the iron-fisted ruling of a Demagogue and Dictator who is emboldening the ones who are pushing these absurd agendas.

But why does the GOP hate PBS so much? One of the main reasons seems to be is that PBS, for all intents and purposes, is a non-profit organization, and we all know how much the GOP thrives on profits over people (the fact that just about every other developed nation in the world has some sort of universal healthcare system, while the U.S. still has a for-profit healthcare system that the GOP doesn't want to get rid of certainly tells you something); PBS is sustained by donations from viewers, as well as other government grants and funding provided by taxpayers' dollars - taxpayers' dollars the GOP would rather go elsewhere, like our already well-covered military and police force, both of which are already overly funded from wasteful government spending. This dates all the way back to PBS's inception in 1969, when beloved public television fixture, Mister Fred Rogers, appeared before Congress to defend the funding for programming on public television to cater to the early mental, emotional, psychological development of young children.

It is this funding that the GOP has long been against, and a subject that has been brought up in the political landscape as recently as the 2012 Presidential Election, when then-Democratic President Barack Obama's opponent was Republican Mitt Romney, and one of his campaign promises was to cut government and taxpayer funding for PBS, and turn it into a commercial television network that would be financed through ad revenue, much like other television networks such as ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, etc. While that in and of itself left a bad taste in the mouths of people who support PBS, I think what ended up contributing to Romney's downfall in that election was the attitude he had, as well as the way he worded this campaign promise of his, in that he made it seem as though he not only was going to go after PBS altogether, but he also dragged Big Bird specifically into this talking point of his. Needless to say, it provided a lot of the late-night comedians with plenty of fodder to poke fun at the way Romney made it seem as though he intended to order a hit on Big Bird.

(Indeed, I really hope no children saw this)
Going back to what Musk and Marjorie are proposing, as well as their unsubstantiated claims that PBS programming such as SESAME STREET is indoctrinating children into anti-American idealogy isn't anything new either; this is an agenda that they have been pushing for the better part of twenty years, and their tune has barely changed at all during this time. I know, because I have witnessed this firsthand, even on a local level.

Steve D'Monster supports PBS

As a lot of you may know, my first job was working for my viewing area's local PBS member station, now ETPBS, then known as ETP-TV from 2004 to 2007. At the time, I was a teenager and couldn't legally work in even a part-time position, so my years at PBS were as an unpaid intern, though I did gain quite a bit of experience in television production, ranging from camera operating to stage managing, and it was even here that I managed to get my feet wet as a semi-professional puppeteer when Steve D'Monster made his debut during the on-air pledge drives we used to have specifically for children's television on PBS, known as The Friends of Sesame Street Club. What some of you may not be aware of is that during all but four weeks of my high school years, I was also homeschooled . . . and yes, homeschool curriculum is far more faith-based than public school curriculum, though contrary to the stigma that is now prevalent thanks to all of these mass shooters who lived in rightwing echo chambers, being homeschool never once inspired me to pick up a gun and open fire in other establishments where I felt the people of said establishments were a threat to my very existence and privilege. Because I was in the homeschool system, I had some insight into what certain morality groups were up to in terms of certain agendas they were pushing, and in 2005, exactly twenty years ago, when it was coming up on time for another one of our PBS pledge drives, these groups were organizing a boycott of PBS children's programming, such as SESAME STREET, BARNEY & FRIENDS, ARTHUR, CLIFFORD THE BIG RED DOG, and many others, on the grounds that these programs were, "pushing the gay agenda," and otherwise indoctrinating and brainwashing our children into the LGBTQ+ community. Now, keep in mind, this was the mid-2000s, during the conversative G.W. Bush Presidency, a time in which even international networks that specifically catered kid-friendly programming such as Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, and Cartoon Network were prohibited from depicting openly queer characters and/or same-sex relationships; groundbreaking shows like THE LOUD HOUSE or THE OWL HOUSE, with their positive LGBTQ+ representations, among other depictions of diversity and inclusion, would never have made it to the air during this time for that very reason. Even primetime programming aimed specifically at adults had to include, "Viewer discretion is advised" disclaimers for "hyper-sexual content" at the beginning of shows that even so much as included a single gay character in its cast (something the GOP now wants the aforementioned shows such as THE LOUD HOUSE and THE OWL HOUSE to include). 

A gay Muppet?!

So, where in the world did these religious right groups even get such a wild idea that shows like SESAME STREET were, "pushing the gay agenda"? Sadly, it was born out of something that was blown way, way, way out of proportion just years earlier, when it was announced that an HIV-positive Muppet character was going to be added to South Africa's co-production, TAKALANI SESAME. You see, many other countries in the world have their own localized co-production of SESAME STREET developed specifically to cater to that country's national culture, whether it's Mexico's PLAZA SESAMO, the Netherlands' SESAMSTRAAT, Russia's ULITSA SEZAM, Israel's RECHOV SUMSUM, Palestine's SHARA'A SIMSIM, or even Canada's SESAME PARK. Because of the HIV epidemic that has plagued South Africa for quite some time, TAKALANI SESAME was going to introduce a new Muppet character, a little monster girl named Kami, who, sadly, was born with the virus, as many children in South Africa are. Unfortunately, given how critical thinking skills are in short supply among America's rightwing, the outdated mentality that HIV/AIDS was a virus exclusively spread through sexual relations among homosexuals still persisted among these folks, so when they saw the news about the introduction of a new HIV-positive Sesame Muppet, these simpletons misinterpreted the news altogether as the original American SESAME STREET adding a gay Muppet to the show, which of course just outraged them to no end. Since PBS Kids shows were all about inclusion, acceptance, and tolerance, their way of thinking also drove them to the conclusion that all of these other shows were indoctrinating children into what they dismissed as an evil cult (oh, the irony), and as such, called for a boycott of these shows, as well as any fundraising PBS did for these shows. Of course, this was all hysteria and hyperbole, but another unfortunate thing is that these misguided people have incredibly loud voices that resonate among those who align with their way of thinking, so this boycott quickly gained traction, even before we began our pledge drive for that year. Having seen the writing on the wall for myself, I did attempt to warn my fellow PBS teamsters about this boycott, but given the ridiculous nature of said boycott, not to mention how the right has targeted PBS as a whole for years, they merely shrugged it off as more empty threats from a group of crazies who couldn't actually hurt us . . . except they did actually hurt us. Our pledges took a direct hit, and the station fell quite short of its goal for that year. They attempted to fix the problem the following year's pledge drive by raising the minimum pledge amount from $20 to $25, but even so, the damage had been done, and pledges continued to dwindle. Because of this, that was the last we ever did any on-air pledge drives specifically for children's programming, and they turned to private fundraisers instead.

Musk and Marjorie's assault on SESAME STREET and PBS is nothing new whatsoever, and it's not even these properties or outlets that those on the right side of the aisle have been going after for what they perceive to be indoctrination of our youth. You may have seen how the GOP has been actively banning and burning books all across the nation, particularly those that touch on subjects and topics relating to sexuality and gender identity . . . again, this is nothing new either. Going back to the previously-mentioned conservative Bush era, in 2007, these same people began banning and burning HARRY POTTER books after author J.K. Rowling revealed that Hogwarts headmaster Dumbledore was gay; again, the accusation was that our children were being exposed to, and groomed and indoctrinated into an, "evil cult." Funny, it seems to me that those who are actively trying to censor certain media and shield children from seeing depictions of diversity and inclusion are the ones who are doing the indoctrination.

Major Ferret Face

As you can see, the Grand Old Party is without question a war-mongering party; if it's not wars involving combat soldiers shedding blood and losing lives while fighting with other countries, it's class and culture wars being incited and fought amongst American people of differing races, sexualities, genders, or religions. They have instigated and dragged the rest of us into such wars for ages. If all of this proves one thing, it's that the GOP and the religious right are among the most regressive people on the face of this planet; they never change their tune, and they continue to steep their closed-minded worldviews in the tea kettles of hatred and bigotry. Want another example? Let's take a look at Major Frank Burns: here is a character on a TV show from the 1970s that was set in the 1950s, yet when you watch him, you realize that he is absolutely no different than any MAGA minion of today: he possesses the exact same backward thinking rooted in bigotry that you see permeate throughout the entire MAGA crowd - it has actually made him an even more frightening character to watch, but again, it goes to show you just how deeply stuck in their ways these people are. So while these assaults on SESAME STREET, PBS, children's education and entertainment are nothing new, they unfortunately are becoming far more aggressive as the likes of Trump and Musk embolden their base and stoke the fires that are spreading across the country (and even the world) that threaten our very democracy, and the people living within our society who don't conform to their idealogies in any way, shape, or form. 

These are certainly dangerous times we're living in. Will we ever see an end to these wars? It's hard to say.