Hundreds
of puppets (and puppeteers) took the streets of Washington D.C. in
support of public broadcasting stations.
The
Million Puppet March — a political rally against Mitt Romney’s
debate
remarks about Big Bird and cutting funding to public television —
draw hundreds of PBS supporters to the State Capitol.
Protesters
met at Lincoln Park and marched to the Capitol Reflecting Pool.
There
were Big Birds, Kermits, Elmos, and Miss Piggies in attendance, along
with some humans holding signs like “Puppets for Peace” and “Keep
Your Mitts Off Big Bird.” As the crowd ran in the streets they chanted:
“Power
to the puppets! We can save the Muppets!”
“Whose street? Sesame
Street!”
“What do we want? Cookies!
When do we want them? Now!”
“EL-MO!
We won’t go!”
“We’re
just making it clear that public media matters, and it’s something
that we want to see supported and we still want to see federal
funding of,” said co-organizer Michael Bellavia.
According
to CNN, PBS is partially funded through the Corporation for Public
Broadcasting, which receives about $450 million a year -- a fraction
of this year's $3.5 trillion federal government spending. "Sesame
Street" is produced by Sesame Workshop, which says 93% of its
costs are funded by corporate sponsors and licensing.
"I'm sorry, Jim, I'm going
to stop the subsidy to PBS," Romney said to Jim Lehrer, who
moderated the first debate and anchors "PBS Newshour."
"I'm going to stop other
things. I like PBS, I love Big Bird," he said. "Actually
like you, too. But I'm not going to -- I'm not going to keep on
spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for."
*Image source: 83b Photostream and Bobby Technology via Flickr
