DID GOP PRESSURE PBS TO DELAY DUST BOWL DOCUMENTARY?

[JEFF9K]

DID THE GOP PRESSURE PBS TO DELAY THE AIRING OF THE DUST BOWL DOCUMENTARY UNTIL AFTER THE ELECTION?

A Ken Burns documentary on the Dust Bowl is airing this week on PBS. It contains a lot about the importance of Democratic President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and New Deal programs in helping the people in what are now Red States affected by the disaster of the Dust Bowl years, and how big government diagnosed and instituted regulations to fix the problem.

It's like a four-hour true infomercial about how big government and collectivism solved the problems caused by under-regulated capitalism and individualism. The GOP is constantly threatening to cut funding for PBS because it's the only channel not beholden to corporate advertisers and can therefore tell the truth.

It's reasonable to ask if the GOP threatened PBS or if PBS held-off out of fear. Or was it just a coincidence that it aired just after, rather than just before the election?

[elleng]

1. Trouble maker, eh, or troll?

We do NOT need any more 'conspiracies.'

[likesmountains 52]

4. +1

[elleng]

7. Silly, eh?

Were spending MANY hours on Road to the White House, for those who cared to be informed.

[JEFF9K]

9. watch it

Watch it if you can. It's really an amazing commercial for Democratic policies, although it doesn't intend to be.

[elleng]

11. BEEN watching it.

[doc03]

2. Probably held it back from the fear of being called the liberal media n/t

[ToxMarz]

16. Yeah, they don't need to be pressured. They know better.

Still have to give us a tickle once in awhile or they are of no use whatsoever for the GOP to manipulate.

[northoftheborder]

3. This is excellent.

Wonder how many present-day Okies really know how their ancestors lives were saved by Roosevelt's policies. Also, ironically, so many of the Okies that migrated to Orange County Cal. became the most conservative part of California.

[chollybocker]

5. It's also reasonable to ask wtf???

No tote bag for you.

[JEFF9K]

13. tote bag

I am entitled to a tote bag. My post knocks the Republican threat to PBS, not PBS's reaction to the threat.

[SoapBox]

6. Why not wonder!

Remember the Puke stink over Day After Tomorrow?

[Scootaloo]

15. The irony is, that was such a shit movie all on its own, too

Such a terrible, shitty movie. And so scientifically void that you would think the GOP would have -endorsed- the damn thing.

[magical thyme]

36. seriously, it was embarrassingly bad...

I still remember the gawd-awful hyper-sentimental sappy syrupy scene of the dirty-faced, irradiated young woman on a cot stoically tying a dirty yellow ribbon in her remaining 3 strands of hair as she lay dying so she'd look purty for her visiting beau. That move was soooo RIDIKULUSLY BAD

[SouthernDonkey]

44. Seriously? It is bad?

I love most of Ken Burns movies. I was looking forward to watching it.

[magical thyme]

47. The Dust Bowl documentary is good...we got off on a tangent

"The Day After" was a made for teevee soap opera movie about the effects of a nuke strike on our nuke silos in the heartland. Because, as we all know, the best way to knock out a country's offensive capabilities is to send an ICBM an extra 1500 miles or so and target each individual nuke silo before it can launch, as opposed to, say, cutting off the head of the hydra. That and the ever so poignant (read over the top and cringeworthy) scene of the stoic, brave, blond midwestern girlie girl dying from radiation sickness, wan dirty face, lying on a cot in a makeshift medical ward ...and someone tying a dirty yellow ribbon on her few remaining strands of hair so she'll look purdy for her fiancee or whoever it is who is coming to say goodbye to her before she gives up the ghost. Badly written. Badly directed. Badly acted. But other than that, what the hey?!? It made a real nuclear holocaust almost preferable....

[Orangepeel]

8. Probably not, but could be. Republicans like to fuck with PBS

Although I'm wondering what the Venn diagram of people who would watch a documentary about the dust bowl on PBS and people who vote republican would look like. I'm guessing not much of an overlap.

[JEFF9K]

10. even less

Even less of an overlap after watching this!

[Grammy23]

12. At one point in tonight's second half of the documentary....

there was a quote about how the "rich were not happy about the socialistic programs" that Roosevelt was putting in place to help the poor and destitute across the country as a result of the drought and the Great Depression. If I hadn't have known it was a quote from the 1930s, I would have sworn it was the exact same thing the rich and well off people are saying these days about any program that helps the less fortunate.

If you missed this excellent documentary on The Dust Bowl, I encourage you to see it. It is a great lesson for all of us to hear again. Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. That's a fact.

One other thing I realized: I attended two high schools, one in Mississippi and the other in Texas . Both of them were built by the WPA and were in good condition when I was attending in the 1960s. Both had plaques on them and that was the reason I knew they were built by the WPA. One of them is still in use in Ft. Worth, Texas and is a wonderful example of architecture of the period.

[JEFF9K]

14. good points

The documentary clearly demonstrates the importance of Democratic policies. My post is serious, although some don't think so.

[alcibiades_mystery]

17. When people troll, they have to be careful not to use their regular right wing words

Like "collectivism."

It may be news to right wingers, but nobody on the left really talks about anything called "collectivism." It's a pure right wing description of an imagined position. Therefore, when people use it in a sentence as if it is an actual description, they reveal themselves as right wingers.

Here's the interesting part: there are probably hundreds of words like this that are pure right wing vocabulary, but you can't possibly know what those are without extensive involvement in actual left discussions, which you never get to have for very long because you keep getting tripped up on right wing vocabulary!

[JEFF9K]

20. right-wing words

I understand the thing about right-wing words. I am using "collectivism" because I have just finished reading ATLAS SHRUGGED and seven biographies of Ayn Rand, where the word comes up a lot.

[alcibiades_mystery]

21. ROFL

Yeah, whatever, dude.

Stop digging.

[RobinA]

28. WRONG!

Jeez, pick up a book already.

"Collectivism" is a social theory (see Marx, Rousseau, et al.). The term, the theory, and the lengthy discussion of which can be found in social and political theory books everywhere from the high school to the postgraduate levels. The right wing may use the word, but they in no way own it, nor will they ever. Too many far superior thinkers have weighed in on the idea, at length, to ever be co-opted for its ownership by a few morans on Fox.

[frazzled]

18. Did your caps lock key get stuck?

It could be a conspiracy.

[dsc]

19. nope

It was held back for sweeps which while a bit less important for PBS are not unimportant.

[JEFF9K]

39. SWEEPS

Maybe. I thought my point was worth considering, though.

[sadbear]

22. I doubt they had a hand in it, but I'm sure they're relieved it didn't show before the election.

And as I'm not familiar with the geo-political history of the dust bowl region, after watching the documentary, I find myself extremely surprised that that area is today a republican stronghold. WTF is wrong with those people?

[yellowcanine]

24. Many of the dust bowl victims moved to California and they are now Democrats.

Check out "Guthrie, Woody"

[sadbear]

25. The documentary said only about 16,000 of the over 350K migrants to California during the 30's

were dust bowl victims. Perhaps there weren't that many dust bowl victims overall?

[yellowcanine]

27. Rather narrow view of who is a "victim" I would say.

True that the actual number of farm families made up a small percentage of those who migrated - that is the 16,000 number, I suspect. But the people in towns who left were also victimized by the combination of the dust bowl tragedy and the Depression. Businesses failed in the towns and the dust itself hit the towns just as hard as the country side.

[sadbear]

31. That's what the documentary said though.

I assume the 16000 were farmers and non-farmers alike. The vast majority of those who went to California did not come from the dust bowl.

[yellowcanine]

34. 350, 000 went there from OK, TX, AR, and MO.

Those four states were part of the Dust Bowl. The most severe effects were in the Oklahoma panhandle and across the border in Texas. However, the impacted area was much larger and included large parts of not only these four states but Kansas, Nebraska Colorado and New Mexico as well.

Obviously not all went because of the Dust Bowl, many people were migrating for all kinds of reasons in the 1930s, mostly related to the Depression. But one can't really separate the Dust Bowl from the Depression. The triggering events of the Dust Bowl were dry weather, improper farming practices, and the collapse of wheat prices. As wheat prices fell, farmers responded by plowing up more ground and planting more wheat, many of them borrowing even more money against the land in order to do so. When both the crop failed and the prices continued to bottom out, the banks could not be paid and they foreclosed on the farms. This helped to trigger the migration. Many of the banks and other agricultural businesses also failed,



http://faculty.washington.edu/gregoryj/dust%20bowl%20migration.htm

Numbers are elusive but it is safe to say that 300-400,000 Oklahomans, Texans, Arkansans, and Missourians moved to California and settled there during the 1930s.

[RobinA]

29. Same Reason

the professional pilots I know are dedicated Republicans championing smaller government while making very nice money landing planes on public built runways, being guided by public employees, following government enforced safety rules, flying planes outfitted with all kinds of safety equipment invented in the pursuit of government projects... Wait, where was I going with this? Oh, why do people who profit from government hate government? Racism. Bottom line.

[sadbear]

32. It shouldn't be this simple, but perhaps it is.

[JEFF9K]

40. what's wrong

You got that right. There are lots of things that liberals don't take credit for, but should.

[yellowcanine]

23. In the absence of any evidence, why ask such a question?

It is one thing if they had announced that it would air before the election but there is no evidence of that. Don't we have enough actual controversies to get outraged about without making up stuff?

[JEFF9K]

41. harmless

I thought my post was harmless, yet worth thinking about.

[yellowcanine]

43. Reality is interesting enough, I see no need for hypothetical scenarios.

[Sunlei]

26. no, these new republicans just hate the real American history that PBS features.

This is another awesome PBS history story fully documented with American records.

http://www.pbs.org/tpt/slavery-by-another-name/watch/

[LiberalFighter]

30. They made sure the movie lasted at least 4 hours so there wouldn't be anyone

that would watch the whole thing.

[sadbear]

33. I watched the whole thing. (They broke it up into two parts.)

It really is that good, IMO. Ken Burns is a special artist.

[Sunlei]

48. I watched the whole documentary, very good. Love PBS, the best 'free TV' America has left.

have you seen this pbs documentary yet?

http://www.pbs.org/tpt/slavery-by-another-name/watch/

[ErikJ]

35. I recall a year or 2 ago hearing it was supposed to be in Sept or October.

Last edited Tue Nov 20, 2012, 05:09 PM - Edit history (1)

Like a season opener for PBS.

[world wide wally]

37. Yeah... We can't be having facts of history getting out

[ErikJ]

38. Better question: Will the GOP let Burns do "Great Depression" documentary?

THAT"s the one I'm waiting for. I have been very interested in it since 7th grade. It was called the Republican Depression for a long time.

[JEFF9K]

42. Republican Depression.

Thom Hartmann still calls it the Great Republican Depression. For ten years or so, leading up to the Great Depression, Republicans held the Presidency, the Senate, and the House. It's hard to not blame it on Republican policies. It's also a nice talking point!

[SouthernDonkey]

45. Man! You guys are a tough crowd! :)

I always like to make sure I am using a word I don't always use correctly as to it's meaning, and the correct context. So quite frequently I just Google it. I wasn't sure about "collectivism" so I just looked it up. I know in French a word can be masculine or feminine, but I've really never given it much thought as to whether it could be liberal or conservative. Hmmmmm. I'm starting to understand. Sort of like a reverse "secret handshake". ....a Perry Mason moment for sure! That's sort of "conspiracy theory"ish itself isn't it? Just an observation....

[bluedigger]

46. Interesting, yet baseless, conjecture.

I think the simplest explanation is the most likely in this case. Burns consistently delivers the highest rated products for PBS, therefore they premiere them in sweeps weeks for maximum impact.