del
Diamond Member
- Banned
- #1
is this something we should be okay with? to me, it reeks of 1984, but that's just me. or is it?
Last month, Patrick Courrielche, a Los Angeles-based arts consultant, was invited by the National Endowment for the Arts to join a 75-person conference call to help lay a new foundation for growth, focusing on core areas of the recovery agenda - health care, energy and environment, safety and security, education, community renewal, according to the invitation.
Pardon me? The taxpayer-funded NEA is trying to recruit sympathetic artists to push the Obama agenda? Yes, it sounds wacky, and it sounded wacky to Courrielche, too. Artists shouldnt 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, Courrielche wrote in an Internet post. Speaking on the phone, he explained in greater detail how the organizers - NEA communications director Yosi Sargent, a promoter of Shepard Faireys famous Hope poster; Buffy Wicks, a former Obama field organizer now with the White House Office of Public Engagement, and three others - said we had the ability to shape the people around us.
The NEA was not created to encourage artists to address issues, he said, and hes right. State-sponsored agitprop, or agitational propaganda, is a tool usually associated with totalitarian regimes. According to its website, the NEA sucks down about $150 million a year from Congress, to support excellence in the arts, both new and established; bringing the arts to all Americans; and providing leadership in arts education. This year, for instance, the endowment gave over $1 million to Massachusetts nonprofits threatened by declines in philanthropic and other support during the current economic downturn, among other local grants.
The art of agitprop - The Boston Globe
Last month, Patrick Courrielche, a Los Angeles-based arts consultant, was invited by the National Endowment for the Arts to join a 75-person conference call to help lay a new foundation for growth, focusing on core areas of the recovery agenda - health care, energy and environment, safety and security, education, community renewal, according to the invitation.
Pardon me? The taxpayer-funded NEA is trying to recruit sympathetic artists to push the Obama agenda? Yes, it sounds wacky, and it sounded wacky to Courrielche, too. Artists shouldnt 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, Courrielche wrote in an Internet post. Speaking on the phone, he explained in greater detail how the organizers - NEA communications director Yosi Sargent, a promoter of Shepard Faireys famous Hope poster; Buffy Wicks, a former Obama field organizer now with the White House Office of Public Engagement, and three others - said we had the ability to shape the people around us.
The NEA was not created to encourage artists to address issues, he said, and hes right. State-sponsored agitprop, or agitational propaganda, is a tool usually associated with totalitarian regimes. According to its website, the NEA sucks down about $150 million a year from Congress, to support excellence in the arts, both new and established; bringing the arts to all Americans; and providing leadership in arts education. This year, for instance, the endowment gave over $1 million to Massachusetts nonprofits threatened by declines in philanthropic and other support during the current economic downturn, among other local grants.
The art of agitprop - The Boston Globe
