Stanley McChrystal may be a retired United States Army general, but his service to the US has continued off the field of battle.
His latest mission: stop US President Donald Trump’s latest budget proposal which would gut funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) in favor of increased funding for the military.
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McChrystal wrote an op-ed in the New York Times Wednesday illustrating the societal need for public broadcasting, and imploring the US government to maintain funding.
“Public broadcasting makes our nation smarter, stronger and, yes, safer,” he wrote. “It’s a small public investment that pays huge dividends for Americans. And it shouldn’t be pitted against spending more on improving our military. That’s a false choice.”
McChrystal highlights how families with working parents and children who cannot attend preschool rely on public programming that is forever free and always accessible to help children’s cognitive and social development.
Public broadcasting promotes “persistence and self-control that are fundamental to success in school, not to mention in the military,” McChrystal wrote.
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CPB was established by Congress in 1967 to promote cultural and intellectual development in telecommunications, absent of a profit-motive. This aspect – the freedom to produce content without the looming influence of a bottom line, independent of advertisers – is crucial to the former general:
“[Parents] want to protect their children from over-commercialized content. And they strive to prepare their children for school and lifelong learning. Having thoughtful television, games and other media that is not commercially driven is essential to good parenting.”
CPB received $445 million in federal funding in 2016 – $1.35 per US citizen – which supports more than 1,000 television and radio stations across the country, part of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR). That’s far less than 1% of the current federal budget.
Americans watch more than five hours of TV per day. PBS Kids reached 80% of all children aged 2-8 in the US. The network is among the most trusted in providers of educational programming for young children, according to a national survey.
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The US defense budget, by comparison, was approximately $597 billion in 2016, almost as much as the next 14 countries combined (and just about all of those countries are US allies).
At face value, it may seem like McChrystal is betraying the military, an institution for which he served 34 years – but he’s not. The two institutions are not mutually exclusive. Funding public broadcasting doesn’t make the US armed forces weaker.
Public art is important to the US, just like its military. The man who, at one time, ran the US military says so.