Asks Breitbart, who promises "explosive new information" at noon today.
UPDATE: Here:
We were encouraged to bring the same sense of enthusiasm to these “focus areas” as we had brought to Obama’s presidential campaign, and we were encouraged to create art and art initiatives that brought awareness to these issues. Throughout the conversation, we were reminded of our ability as artists and art professionals to “shape the lives” of those around us. The now famous Obama “Hope” poster, created by artist Shepard Fairey and promoted by many of those on the phone call, and will.i.am’s “Yes We Can” song and music video were presented as shining examples of our group’s clear role in the election....
It is not within the National Endowment for the Arts’ original charter to initiate, organize, and tap into the art community to help bring awareness to health care, or energy & environmental issues for that matter; and especially not at a time when it is being vehemently debated. Artists shouldn’t be used as tools of the state to help create a climate amenable to their positions, which is what appears to be happening in this instance. If the art community wants to tackle those issues on its own then fine. But tackling them shouldn’t come as an encouragement from the NEA to those they potentially fund at this coincidental time.
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Frank Marshall Davis, a communist organizer and poet who was also Obama's mentor in Hawaii, is behind such a call for the arts to join politics in the socially surrealistic call for universal health care. Davis lived in Chicago for decades, and among his chief backers and friends were the Ayers family (the father had an immense fortune -- the son was the weatherman).
It's so odd watching all this play out, and how layer after layer is becoming visible.
Yeah, it's pretty clear they were trying to enlist artists in their Paint the World Obama effort.
The sad thing is, though the request may have had the taint of coercion, I doubt it occurred to any of the artists to even care. Doing Obama Art makes you Cool and Important.
Maybe the artists got tired of being unacknowledged legislators.
And thus the arts became socialized.
The NYTimes Arts section needs to tighten their criticism of paintings and books that stray from the official line.
Art to support the state!
Like this?
And this?
From "Yes, Minister," where Minister James Hacker is talking to his Civil Service Secretary Sir Humphrey Appleby:
APPLEBY: Plays attacking the government constitute the second most boring evenings in the theater.
HACKER: And the first?
APPLEBY: Plays praising the government.
I'll bet that ABC, NBC, CBS and the New York Times, absolutely hates Breitbart's guts.
ABC, NBC, CBS and the NYT are not playing to the same audience as Breitbart.
I expect the result will be that everybody agrees that Nixon got a raw deal.
The meeting was completely innocent, just extolling the virtues of socialist realism.
I hope Breitbart has something fun, if you are going to do hint hint, it has to be something good or people stop paying attention.
Chris Muir got it right.
Workers! Artists!! Together!!!
Roll up your sleeves; show your brawny muscles; advance to the front!!!!
Comrades All!!!!!
Unsolicited NYT browser tab title
Ron Hardin
0 Followers.
I suggest that's leadership at its finest.
Artists of the world, unite!
You have nothing to lose but your chairs.
If only artists read history, they might know what happened to artists who failed, disagreed, were victims of false witness, or were chosen at random to be made an example of under the Soviets, Chicoms, Castro, or North Koreans.
But succeed or fail, socialist artists are generally ground to dust and forgotten. And their art is pretty bad, mostly kitsch.
Oh Jesus.
Artists making works to promote Obama's health care plan?
I propose this one.
Hygiene is progressive!
Sometimes it works:
http://www.artlies.org/_issues/41/features/larsen.fig3.jpg
Sometimes it doesn't:
http://www.artlies.org/_issues/41/features/larsen.fig1.jpg
There is nothing Althouse can post that won't get garage into a tizzy.
First off, with the kind of deficit this country is running, it seems like funding for art programs should be put on hold. And then, to think that federal monies (our tax dollars)are going for partisan propaganda purposes is infuriating. Seems like so much about the Obama administration is being revealed as creepy over reach.
First off, with the kind of deficit this country is running, it seems like funding for art programs should be put on hold.
But it's ONLY a few million, certainly nothing to get in a tizzy about. Let's cut the military instead!
Yes, please. Military spending should be cut.
Who pays the piper calls the tune.
Yes, please. Military spending should be cut.
Sure let's cut welfare while we're at it - we can't afford either right now.
(the other kev)
There is nothing Althouse can post that won't get garage into a tizzy.
It is a pretty good demonstration of Pavlovian behavior, isn't it?
Asks Breitbart, who promises "explosive new information" at noon today.
I have a hard time believing it's going to match up to videos of ACORN employees providing human trafficking and tax evasion advice. I mean, it's a bunch of artists, and we already know the NEA was trying to enlist them in a propaganda campaign. How much worse can it get?
I guess we'll know shortly, but my expectations are not particularly high.
The US needs its own Wagner.
C'mon, musicians, let's hear some state-sponsored tunes!
Where are you, Will i am?
When I read that Breitbart had something on the NEA, I was stunned and a bit hopeful. Then I read further that he was talking about the National Endowment for the Arts, and not the teachers' union (National Educators Association?). Now that's an organization that's ripe for a take-down.
I was appalled when I read about that propaganda-soliciting conference call, but I'm having a hard time imagining anything having to do with arts funding being as "blockbusting" as the ACORN videos have been.
Why are we paying for advocacy groups, like Arts for America? They appear to be shills for the Democratic Party.
This is the fundamental reason why government (taxpayers) should not fund every cause that comes along. When you play with other people's money, you get corruption.
Several bills have been introduced in Congress to aid the newspaper industry, including a Senate measure that would allow newspaper companies to restructure as nonprofit organizations with a variety of tax breaks.
Mr. Obama was noncommittal about that legislation, but said: "I haven't seen detailed proposals yet, but I'll be happy to look at them."
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09263/999253-482.stm#ixzz0RktQiiU8
Government arts, government newspapers. All hail, the glorious leader.
Why are we paying for advocacy groups, like Arts for America? They appear to be shills for the Democratic Party.
Sentence 2 answers sentence 1.
Oh, you'd be surprised by all they've been up to, so don't act all surprised when there's more,...there's always more. It just takes a certain kind of person to dig it all out - someone who ain't "non-judgmental" usually.
The Macho Response
I would encourage you to pick something, whether it’s health care, education, the environment, you know, there’s four key areas that the corporation has identified as the areas of service Yosi Sergant.
Ha ha ha ha ha
I love artists. They're such a bunch of nuts.
We need separation of Arts and State, and separation of News Media and State.
Instead we hurry on toward the sovietization of media.
In Hawaii, I hear they have "Slap A Jap" Day to commemorate the Pearl Harbor attack.
Maybe we need "Slap A Journalist" Day so the MSM could remember WTF they are supposed to be doing.
[p.s. I am kidding sorta kinda!]
Paul Zrimsek:
Nice allusion to Shelley's "In Defence of Poetry."
"Welcome to your government."
Well, Brietbart's up, and the first thing I notice is it's moderated by the political director for Russell Simmons, who's become a western Buddhist-type NewAge self-help book selling weasel. Listen to this review:
"His 12 laws are of a spirtual nature. He believes in a connection with a higher self that gives each individual their motavation and if you can tap into this higher connection success will come but you have to believe in it. I would say this book takes over where The Secret left off."
Great. Meanwhile, his ex-wife has become a Scientologist pushing that shit on black kids (David Lynch is also after black kids.)
I'm telling you: Discover some dirt in Democratic politics and there's always a NewAge angle. Destroy NewAge and you destroy liberalism. Destroy liberalism and we'll continually be right back here again.
the most chilling thing is this picture of stinky hipster sleazeball yosi sergant whispering in Dear Leaders ear...
http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/files/2009/09/yosi-obama-kzo.jpg
is that the new dress code in washington??
"Aarfy was a lead navigator who had never been able to find himself since leaving college."
"Man was matter, that was Snowden's secret. Drop him out the window and he'll fall. Set fire to him and he'll burn. Bury him and he'll rot like other kinds of garbage. The spirit gone, man is garbage. That was Snowden's secret. Ripeness was all."
"We have thrown overboard all conventions, our sole guiding principle is that of consequent logic; we are sailing without ethical ballast."
[vf: remirre]
“Since then it’s been decreed that the sun is highest at one o’clock.”
"Thus, too, they came to know the incorrigible sorrow of all prisoners and exiles, which is to live in company with a memory that serves no purpose... Hostile to the past, impatient of the present, and cheated of the future, we were much like those whom men's justice, or hatred, forces to live behind prison bars."
[wv: flarsole]
"The US needs its own Wagner."
Actually, Obama needs his own Lully.
C'mon, NEA artistes, your model shouldn't be Soviet. It should be Louis XIV. Now THERE was a leader who knew how to support the Arts Community. Throw them a few livres, and any and all of them will tell Truth to Power, as you them see doing in this clip. Link.
But then again, even Apollo stumbles occasionally.
will i am and shepherd fairy are a far freakin cry from JB Lully!
Please read nothing into this report. We are only trying to coordinate certain private sector activities with relevant government departments. This is only coordination and nothing more.
"We are only trying to coordinate THE REMAINING private sector activities with relevant government departments"
I fixed that for you.
Lully? I think Louis XV's Francois Boucher would better fit our era. But I'm afraid what the Obama administration wants is Jacques David after the revolution.
Ann keeps fluffing up the manufactured outrage of the day.
Oh, yeah. She's even handed.
Bull.shit.
@AlphaLiberal
So it's your contention that the NEA should be the propaganda arm for the Obama's White House? You're ok with that?
@AlphaLiberal
So it's your contention that the NEA should be the propaganda arm for the Obama's White House? You're ok with that?
Meh. If I thought the NEA had any practical effect on the Body Politic, I'd be more upset. As is, the government is just asking the circle-jerk to keep to try to keep the beat, as it were.
Unless this is some tip-of-an-iceberg thing, this story isn't in the same league as the ACORN expose. (Pre-emptive snark defense: no, I don't think ACORN is effective in their stated purpose, but they sure were good at keeping a ghetto a ghetto, and thereby keeping that grant money flowing. Nothing does more to improve a neighborhood than making sure it's well served by whorehouses and underage illegal-alien hookers.)
Mark, it's another example of the Democrat-sponsored graft and corruption.
So it's your contention that the NEA should be the propaganda arm for the Obama's White House? You're ok with that?
Well, sure it's reprehensible, people should be fired, artists involved should be mocked hereafter any time they try to claim they speak "truth to power," etc. etc. etc.
But not only is this not terribly shocking, it's also an old story, isn't it? The only thing new is some audio and actual transcripts. I'm pretty sure we already knew that Obama's NEA had been recruiting artists for propaganda and popular enlightenment.
of course alpha is OK with that--otherwise he (or she) would have condemned it--the lack of condemnation speaks for itself.
Another liberal idiot.
WV: mouret: as in the composer who wrote the theme used by master piece theatre--jean joseph mouret
I wouldn't call it explosive, but in addition to releasing the tapes/transcripts, we learn that the call included someone from the White House Office of Public Engagement. So if laws were broken by the call, they were broken with the knowledge of a junior flunkie in the White House, not just someone at the NEA.
Breitbart, please please please .... get NPR next. Please go after NPR.
Of course Aloha Liberal is okay with the government approving art in America: tell 'em what to do, comrades.
Meanwhile, he will continue with his comrades to decry the calls against Stalinism and the Cultural Revolution.
"Welcome our leaders!" AlphaLiberal and fellow travelers are preparing to proclaim!
Enjoy the talents of artists put to use to serve the Homeland and Obama!
AlphaLiberal, I can recommend several knee ointments for you. The incessant bowing can make them really sore.
It's GOOD to know that my tax dollars go to the NEA for propaganda use by the Obama administration.
Hey! - isn't that laundering?
Why don't they just give it direct?
Having an actual discussion on the merits of an issue with liberals here is like trying to put lipstick on a pig.
Even a ton of lipstick won't make the pig focus, and all the time you're trying, they're always going to be more interested in shitting and pissing everywhere.
I guess it's hard to top tax-payer funded child prostitution for shock value.
Putting that aside: These are the folks who were going to indoctrinate kids, until they were forced to admit their "inartful" mistake and back down. This is a President who calls a joint session of Congress to spread propaganda and impugn his critics. This is a President whose face is so ubiquitous that toddlers probably confuse him with Santa Claus.
An attempt to co-opt a tax-payer funded group in order to disseminate more love for our dear leader? No big whoop.
So it's good that the story is being covered. Someone has to keep the hubris of this administration in check. The dinosaur media sure isn't up to the task.
Pogo, I'm not saying it's a bad thing for Breitbart to cover this story, just that it's a letdown. (As Just Lurking says, government funded aiding-and-abetting of the worst kind of whorehouses is hard to top.)
But there are better stories out there waiting for real reporting. Tops for me would be why/how the Inspector Generals are being fired/neutered. The Washington Examiner has been on the case, but that's about it. What is needed is real investigation instead of simply saying "this is bad juju";
I'm hoping that's the kind of thing BigGovernment.com will do.
I believe there is a mother lode of malfeasance and waste in the billions and billions the govt bestows on many, many non-profit "social justice" groups.
Acorn is the tip of the iceberg.
Agreed Mark; the corruption is so widespread and grotesque, it's difficult to know which rock to turn over first.
Yosi Sergant and Buffy Wicks should be indicted for violation of the Hatch act, among other federal laws against use of goverment money for political acts.
It's not enough just to subsidize your friends. You've also got to silence your enemies.
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