Someone I know owns a radio station, and has given me the text of a public service message that he is proposing to place on-air.
You may not know this, but the Federal Communications Commission requires that broadcast stations--television and radio--air programming in "the public interest," and that this programming relates to issues of interest as determined by the management of the broadcast station.
The gentleman in question had determined that one of the issues of local interest is the lack of good entry level jobs, and the increased sentiment that this lack of purposeful employment can be overcome through the application of social justice; that is, the re-distribution of wealth.
There is, there seems, no interest in criticising either state or federal officials for creating an economic environment where few, if any, are willing to create new jobs.
This gentleman wishes to propose to his youthful listeners, that there is a course of sense, and common sense, available to them. That the emphasis on "social justice" is just as strange, and foreign to us, as it is to them.
Children know when their parents are just filling space. When they are exposed to teachers that are just filling space, they can begin to doubt their purpose in life. How many losers must one have to be beholden to, until one becomes a loser ones self?
Children aren't idiots. They just don't have a lot of allies.
From the PSA:
Life, between the ages of 13
and 18, can be difficult.
You watch your parents. You
listen to your teachers. You want to learn how to take care of yourself.
And then, in learning how to
take care of yourself, you would learn how to take care of the most important
people in your life, your family.
You are learning how to take
responsibility. You need to learn how to pay your bills, learn the skills that
will earn money that puts food on your table. And, if you have children, learn how
to budget so that your daughter, Suzy, and your son, Billy, have new clothes
for back-to-school.
Learning to take
responsibility for paying bills, putting food on the table, juggling the family
budget so that Suzy and Bill have new clothes for back-to school, all of these
are abilities you need to learn, so that you grow up to be an adult, even if
your mother or father couldn’t learn to take care of the bills, and provide you
with the clothes you needed for back-to-school.
A lot of moms and dads can’t
take care of themselves, or their families, and don’t care whether or not there
are jobs. They want to have the things that successful moms and dads have, for
themselves, and for their children, for you, whether, or not, they have jobs.
Whether, or not, they earned them.
You know who these moms and
dads are. And you’re not alone.
Our coastal economy needs
jobs.
Right now, there are too many
people without jobs.
Social justice, and simply
giving people money, doesn’t create jobs.
A message in the public interest, from ...
The question is, is my friend on track, too radical, too conservative?
Let me know what you think. And I'll carry the message forward.
You've got to love the professionalism exhibited by this photo.