I've long heard people refer to NPR as National People's Radio instead of the official name of National Public Radio, but apart from the strong Leftist slant of the network's broadcast content, I haven't been truly offended by NPR until recently.
On both occasions when NPR caused me to be offended it was due to statements made by American correspondents in China, and in both cases, it was due to approximately the same statement.
Since memory isn't 100% perfect, and I heard the statements on the way home some paraphrasing will be required, but this is it in a nutshell:
China's authoritarian system is better in managing the economy since it is a command economy. This makes it a better system in terms of Progressive goals since it doesn't suffer from the weakness of vulnerability to filibusters and Congressional in-fighting.The obvious implication of these statements, at least to me, is that NPR is somehow trying to persuade listeners that a Command Economy, led by an Authoritarian government is better than a free market, and can bettter meet the needs of a greater number of people more quickly. The obvious implications, by extension, are that China's single party system of Communism is somehow better than a Representative Republic.
But let's allow history to be our guide concerning authoritarian governments.
In the last century, in a central European country, a man was freely elected who would take control of the economy, controlling wages, instituting price controls, instituting public welfare, and instituting a whole host of programs "for the good of the people." This man was Adolf Hitler and make no mistake that Nazism was an authoritarian system.
Also in the last century, several men, in succession, were elected through a so-called Representative system in which society's elite were expected to choose from amongst themselves the best man to lead the nation. One of the men appointed in this system killed 40 million of his own population, instituted a prison system once reviled in the West for its cruelty, and is arguably responsible for more suffering than any peacetime leader in history. His name was Josef Stalin.
Countless other Leftist leaders can be identified within the last 100 years who were guilty of inhuman treatment of their populations, either through food shortages caused by government incompetence, or through Pogroms against those who couldn't be molded into the shape of the authoritarian social engineering programs.
- Pol Pot
- Ho Chi Minh
- Fidel Castro
- Mao Tse Tung
NPR's progressive admiration of China apparently comes with the network's myopic world view of China. Apparently NPR has forgotten Tiananmen Square, the taking of and continued occupation of Tibet, and other human and civil rights abuses.
China has taken complete control over the reproductive rights of all citizens.
There is no Freedom of Speech in China. There is no Freedom of Religion in China. There is no Right to Assemble in China.
China may have a successful economic model at the moment, but that success is brought about through the creation of various economic bubbles. We've all seen in the US with the "DotCom" bubble, the Housing bubble, and other bubbles that eventually bubbles burst, and the people, and economy suffer.
The US Federal government has gotten so far into debt with the Chinese banks that we are now witnessing the US government subsidized National Public Radio talking about the greatness of the Chinese system while criticizing the ungainliness of our system.
I believe that NPR is no longer committed, even remotely, to even the so-called traditional Leftist values of Human Rights. Then again, perhaps Liberals aren't committed to those values anymore either.
