The NEA Flirts with Propaganda
Andrew Klavan writes:
It’s hard out here on us creative types right now. When times are tough, truth and beauty sink pretty low on the national shopping list. The NEA, according to its own website, is “the nation’s largest annual funder of the arts.” It gives tens of millions of dollars a year in grants to artists and art organizations. It does this, according to the legislation that established it, to “help create and sustain not only a climate encouraging freedom of thought, imagination, and inquiry but also the material conditions facilitating the release of this creative talent.” It is there, in other words, to protect artists’ freedom from the corrupting influence of financial deprivation.
The transcript of this phone call proves that the NEA has deeply betrayed that mission. Corrupted by the White House, it has moved to corrupt the artists who look to it for their daily bread. It doesn’t matter that it didn’t actually offer these artists money in exchange for propaganda; its very presence on the line constituted an implied offer of access. It doesn’t matter that the artists on the call were already Obama supporters. Simply by presenting a mission that excluded those who did not support the president’s agenda, the NEA violated the very first principle of its establishing legislation: “The arts and the humanities belong to all the people of the United States.”
This is another item getting most of its play on Andrew Breitbart sites and Fox News — and it is plainly a story that the mainstream media would do well to cover. It also illustrates that actual reporting on specific misdeeds is a far more fruitful tactic for conservative media outlets than hyperbolic, opinionated rants about the supposed nefariousness of all liberals. I’m curious to see what is coming next.
And let’s get rid of the 501c orgs too.
— Tony Comstock · Sep 22, 11:29 AM · #
Conor:
I was with you, right up until there. Care to explain how that is true? No matter what you or I think of “opinionated rants”, you’re making a big leap to say that this illustrates fruitfulness. What universe are you living in? It seems to me that your latest posts would tell you that no one knows about this kind of thing unless they’re told by hyperbolic, opinionated ranters.
In other words, will you be surprised if “nothing” happens next?
— jd · Sep 22, 12:21 PM · #
Oh, give me a break. Why don’t you actually quote what you find to be the offending material that bothers you, please.
— Freddie · Sep 22, 01:04 PM · #
Here’s what bothers me —
“You are the thought leaders,” Skolnik told the artists. “You are the ones that, if you create a piece of art or promote a piece of art or create a campaign for a company, and tell our country and our young people sort of what to do and what to be in to; and what’s cool and what’s not cool. And so I’m hoping that through this group and the goal of all this and the goal of this phone call, is through this group that we can create a stronger community amongst ourselves to get involved in things that we’re passionate about as we did during the campaign but continue to get involved in those things, to support some of the president’s initiatives, but also to do things that we are passionate about and to push the president and push his administration.”
— mike farmer · Sep 22, 01:19 PM · #
jeezus h chreerist inna handcart.
Can’t you read either Conor?
This was about the National Day of Service.
Why was it okfine for President Kennedy to say, ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country?
Is it because Obama is BLACK???
lol.
Your side isn’t just wrong anymore……your side is evil.
— matoko_chan · Sep 22, 01:23 PM · #
Freddie, I’m disappointed that you and your liberal fellow travelers don’t have more empathy towards the victims of this behavior. It’s not so much that your arguments are weak, although they are, it’s that you lack the simple human empathy to appeciate the damage that Obama is causing.
— J Mann · Sep 22, 01:25 PM · #
This is somewhat related to an old pet peeve of mine. Back in the day, when Bush would fly a jet fighter out to an aircraft carrier or whatever, all kinds of lefties would complain about “Bush administration agit-prop.” I would dutifully explain that the Bush adminin was engaging in propoganda, not agit-prop.
This is the other side of the coin. By forgetting the actual definition of agit-prop, many lefties have lost their ability to recognize it.
— J Mann · Sep 22, 01:29 PM · #
It’s not so much that your arguments are weak, although they are, it’s that you lack the simple human empathy to appeciate the damage that Obama is causing.
Yes, the damage of some bureaucrat at the NEA talking about plans to “support the president’s initiatives.” The horror… the horror…. And, truly, the party that insisted disagreeing with the previous president was treasonous and literal support for terrorism, that had people swearing oaths to that president rather than to the constitution, yeah, they have a leg to stand on in this department, right? The party that had members asking for Tom Daschle’s resignation because he said that 9/11 didn’t amount to a blank check for the president? That party?
What a sad display the last several months have been. Once again, you guys rip Democrats, you excoriate liberals, and yet you hold us to vastly higher standards than your fellow travelers. And why? Because you expect dishonest. You expect no integrity. You don’t imagine that suddenly your intellectually and ideologically bereft husk of an ideology could suddenly take up good faith argument and fair disagreement. You know not to expect anything from your own tribe, and that colors everything you say about politics, but it never compels you to question what exactly you’re doing in that tribe in the first place, or to actually express that higher standard (and hence higher respect) for liberals explicitly. Just sad, really.
— Freddie · Sep 22, 01:34 PM · #
This is the other side of the coin. By forgetting the actual definition of agit-prop, many lefties have lost their ability to recognize it.
How many liberals can you find since 9/11 who have literally accused conservatives of treason, and literally accused liberals of giving aid to the enemy? And how many conservatives can you find that have done the opposite? What is the relative prominence of the liberals in question, compared to the relative prominence of the conservatives? Their positions of power in government or media?
Right.
— Freddie · Sep 22, 01:37 PM · #
I think this explains Breitbarts indirect attack on the NEA pretty well.
We are several generations into the progeny of leaders such as James Dobson and his radio show Focus On The Family. These offspring extol the virtues of corporal punishment, patriarchy, applying biblical law to public governance and so forth. Millions of evangelicals have been raised in homes where they’ve been isolated from the wider culture, home schooled and/or sent to “Christian schools” where they have been indoctrinated to believe that the Federal Government is the enemy of all true believers, that the “End” is near, that secular society is their enemy as is art, learning and culture.
They now form a Fifth Column of the deliberately intellectually disenfranchised.
Why do you hate art, learning, and culture, Conor?
— matoko_chan · Sep 22, 01:55 PM · #
How many liberals can you find since 9/11 who have literally accused conservatives of treason,
This is silly — liberals don’t accuse conservatives of being treasonous, they accuse them of being heartless racist greedy bastards. The thought process similar on either side, where disagreement over means is taken as disagreement with the goal.
— kenB · Sep 22, 01:59 PM · #
That’s your argument, Freddie? That conservatives are worse? That’s weak.
Although I do remember a prominent liberal, Al Gore, screaming “HE BETRAYED OUR COUNTRY!”
If both sides participate in irrational attacks, then they are both wrong, but what in the hell does this have to do with the desecration of art for political purposes and propaganda, and using tax payer money to do it?
— mike farmer · Sep 22, 02:05 PM · #
Freddie, your lack of empathy saddens me. What happened to you that caused you to lose touch with your basic humanity. Make your policital points if you must, but how can you not express basic human compassion for the victims?
— J Mann · Sep 22, 02:12 PM · #
I wrote:
Freddie responded:
See, this is my point. Freddie apparently believes that the definition of agit-prop is “treason” and “giving aid to the enemy.” I mean, he must, right, or else his response would be some kind of gibbering non-sequiteur.
— J Mann · Sep 22, 02:15 PM · #
the desecration of art for political purposes and propaganda,
but that is an irrational attack right there, mike farmer…this incident was only for the National Day of Service. Doesn’t the president get to have initiatives?
GW spent 2.2 billion pushing “abstinence” with his faith based initiative and that turned out to be an epic fail.
to funnel $2.2 billion through the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives into programs that specifically support the President’s ideological and policy commitments, like the Abstinence Education Program, designed to “enable states to provide abstinence education and mentoring, counseling, and adult supervision to promote abstinence from sexual activity.”
I think we are coming up on a Garden of Gethsemane moment for conservative intellectuals.
For a lot of us, Sarah Palin was that moment….but now it is time for the holdouts to face reality.
Does your base deserve representation for self-delusion, poisonous racism, and failed strategies?
Can you do the right thing and educate them, or do you just “wait for them to come around” like John Schwenkler told me?
And for people like Conor and Jim Manzi, is there still time to do the right thing?
— matoko_chan · Sep 22, 02:19 PM · #
“…the party that insisted disagreeing with the previous president was treasonous…”
So you’re saying the Republican party INSISTED – not just intimated or hinted at but INSISTED that disagreeing with GWB equals treason? Really?
Perhaps you can provide some specific examples instead of repeating leftist folklore.
— tomaig · Sep 22, 02:24 PM · #
The NEA is going to get artists to produce art to telling elementary school kids to keep reading over the summer! And to tell mothers to make sure they take their kids in for check-ups! And to get people to think about installing CFLs! Socialism on the march!
More seriously, the President has a policy agenda and a political agenda; the two are necessarily intertwined. I mean, if we’re going to be upset about this, I think we have to go back in time and de-fund the entire Office of Faith-Based initatives.
— Nicholas Beaudrot · Sep 22, 02:25 PM · #
Here.
http://www.ordinary-gentlemen.com/2009/09/soft-bigotry-meet-low-expectations-part-ii/
— Freddie · Sep 22, 02:26 PM · #
I think you’ll find that all of your pathetic criticisms are answered in my post. You might want to check the number of your local burn unit before you read it. Incidentally, a lot of you would be better armed for this kind of conversation had you actually, you know, ever read the transcript of the conference call. It’s been around for ages.
— Freddie · Sep 22, 02:29 PM · #
What part of this — “You are the ones that, if you create a piece of art or promote a piece of art or create a campaign for a company, and tell our country and our young people sort of what to do and what to be in to; and what’s cool and what’s not cool. And so I’m hoping that through this group and the goal of all this and the goal of this phone call, is through this group that we can create a stronger community amongst ourselves to get involved in things that we’re passionate about as we did during the campaign but continue to get involved in those things, to support some of the president’s initiatives, but also to do things that we are passionate about and to push the president and push his administration.” — do you not understand?
— mike farmer · Sep 22, 02:31 PM · #
“push the president amd his administration” is pretty clear cut. Propaganda — partisanship.
— mike farmer · Sep 22, 02:33 PM · #
Read the post, Mike.
— Freddie · Sep 22, 02:35 PM · #
“push the president and push his administration.” I think this says it all.
— mike farmer · Sep 22, 02:39 PM · #
mike farmer….so it wasn’t propaganda and partisanship when Bush pushed white xian evangelical ideology through his faith based initiatives?
— matoko_chan · Sep 22, 02:44 PM · #
and mike farmer, that is out of context.
Obama was talking about the National Day of Service if you read the transcript.
— matoko_chan · Sep 22, 02:45 PM · #
Yes, there was a lot of propaganda under Bush — I am against state propaganda and the NEA on principle — I don’t understand why some of you insist that criticism of this administration means support of Bush — you obviously can’t see outside partisanship. Why do you assume I favored Bush policies?
— mike farmer · Sep 22, 02:49 PM · #
It doesn’t matter waht he was talking about — this is a clear message that goes beyond a particular program — “push the president and push his administration.”
— mike farmer · Sep 22, 02:51 PM · #
Yes, there was a lot of propaganda under Bush — I am against state propaganda and the NEA on principle — I don’t understand why some of you insist that criticism of this administration means support of Bush — you obviously can’t see outside partisanship. Why do you assume I favored Bush policies?
As I said in my post, the hypocrisy only angers. What makes this story a trivial nothing is the fact that a) your talking about non-elected officials who are installed to implement the policy apparatus of the elected government and thus couldn’t be expected to not do so, anymore than you can expect the Pentagon to not try and pursue the sitting president’s foreign policy; that b) the conservatives freaking out about this story are simply factually wrong about what exactly is going on in the conference call and what it’s specific aims are, and indeed the role of the NEA in it and c) the supposedly nefarious ends that they are talking about are specifically referencing the National Service Day, which is resolutely nonpartisan and supports things like blood drives, getting kids to do their homework and prenatal health care awareness.
— Freddie · Sep 22, 03:01 PM · #
you are still taking it out of context.
Try reading this.
I’m mortally sick of conservatives manufacturing outrage to demagogue the low information base.
You deserve what is happening to your party.
You are enablers for ignorant uneducated evangelical bigots.
They loathe art, science and academe because they have become completely disenfranchised from 21st century culture.
Like genes, memes are competitive, and memes evolve through fitness selection.
Your babylonian captivity to the “low information” base is simply going to destroy the party of WFB.
— matoko_chan · Sep 22, 03:05 PM · #
the conservatives freaking out about this story are simply factually wrong about what exactly is going on
No, Freddie…. Breitbart and Co. are deliberately misrepresenting the content to demogogue the Teabagger Demographic, who are only semi-literate and incapable of reading anything except Malkin and Levin.
— matoko_chan · Sep 22, 03:10 PM · #
Conor,
I read the transcript, and the quotes that Big Government is trotting out, in context, seem to be nothing more than infelicitous turns of phrase. Examples given of how they suggest that artists can deal with health care include preventative health care and children’s nutrition, and definitely not stuff like single-payer systems. For energy and environment, the call organizers suggest trail restoration (to prevent erosion?) and weatherizing homes (which can also lower your bills!).
What’s the misdeed? I don’t see great sums of money involved here, and I don’t see any kind of support-Obama-or-lose-your-funding ultimatums. I don’t even see the call organizers pushing for specific policies — just broad areas to focus on (health, environment, education, community renewal) for calls to service.
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Whine away, Freddie — the point is that there is a concerted effort to enlist the NEA to help spread propaganda pushing the president and pushing his administration. You ought to be against this use of the NEA, but you are partisan, so you minimize and rationalize. Very unprincipled approach. You lose all credibility by defending the indefensible out of party loyalty. Your actions are similar to conservatives who defend everything the Republican party does or says.
— mike farmer · Sep 22, 03:57 PM · #
While (unlike jd, it appears) I agree with your broader point, Conor, I’ve just read the transcript and I’m not sure I see anything particularly nefarious or worthy of condemnation in it. Yes, it does start out by referring (in an appreciative and encouraging manner) to the role of “independent artists such as Shepard” (not an exact quote — see page 8) in Obama’s campaign, I think a fair reading of the transcript shows that the call is about a much more generic push for community service, not about using the NEA to produce campaign “propaganda”. In as much as the call references the campaign (see items on p. 21-22 which are highlighted in yellow and that horrible red color), it does so to say something like “In our campaign, we learned that art was effective in communicating to a segment of the population that traditional campaign media were not, and we think you (artists) might also be able to communicate these (extremely generic) ideas we have about community service to various segments of the population we aren’t reaching”.
(edit: I see william randolph made the same point)
— rob · Sep 22, 04:00 PM · #
Mann –
What the fuck are you talking about?
— Chet · Sep 22, 04:02 PM · #
Man, Chet doesn’t care either. What’s wrong with you people that you don’t even have basic human compassion?
— J Mann · Sep 22, 04:04 PM · #
Again, this conversation is handicapped by the fact that the people arguing the nefariousness of this conference call have not bothered to read the transcript. Which is pretty amazing, and amazingly sad, when you think about it.
Do your homework kids.
— Freddie · Sep 22, 04:06 PM · #
I guess mike farmer can’t read , Freddie.
sadly, Conor doesn’t seem able to read either…..is ignorance viral?
;)
— matoko_chan · Sep 22, 04:13 PM · #
For who, again? What?
— Chet · Sep 22, 04:24 PM · #
Freddie, I understand how hard it is to keep defending this administration and the Democrat Party. I mean, they are making it difficult for the faithful, because they continue going too far and making all the supporters look like loons. It might be time to grow up and start being honest before they drag you down completely.
— mike farmer · Sep 22, 04:31 PM · #
Freddie, while comparisons to Bush are obviously overdone, your dismissal seems prima facie silly and Friedersdorf is right: this thing should get some publicity. It comes out of a gorssly mistaken premise you give above: that, well, shit, of course they’re pushing the President’s agenda, because they’re “non-elected officials who are installed to implement the policy apparatus of the elected government and thus couldn’t be expected to not do so.” You also seem to think, so what, the NEA is being pressured to promote “good stuff.”
Wrong. The NEA is not a tool of (administration) policy, and that’s the scandal here. I realize that this issue isn’t as crucial to some of you young’uns; I remember when the NEA was criticized heavily for funding to Mapplethorpe and “Piss Christ” and the like. Well, for one thing I think most Americans thought that that was “good” censorship. But for another liberals at that time stood for the idea that the NEA is not a policy tool. We fought the idea that conservatives should be interested in gutting it because of the messages of the art it funded, with the belief that the NEA didn’t exist to “message.” The NEA director isn’t supposed to be interested in the messaging of the art: he’s supposed to want to know to whom it’s accessible, if it’s introducing more and more diverse art into a community, if it’s something that can promote arts education, if it’s keeping a classic American form vibrant…
You would tear that up. Conservatives would then be well advised to kill the NEA and NEH and Smithsonian and intellectuals would be deprived of a good argument as to why that’s a bad idea. Now, some of us don’t share the TAS enthusiasm for crapola hipster bands, and the jazz I live on is pretty dependent on organiztions like the NEA, and not really very good for messaging. So I want this bullshit killed, and somebody from the Obama administration fired.
You want to keep kids in school and encourage service and so on with clever art? Use the fucking Ad council. Immediate thought: Jesus, you really do need to read Europe Central or some of Belinsky’s misguided takedowns of non-programmatic art from the late Romantics/early Realists. Those guys thought like you are. Thinking this isn’t a pretty serious deal is failing to realize how much art actually means — which is why we have an NEA.
Saying that Friedersdorf would have no objection if DoD were to promote a Presidential’s message is just stupid because DoD is a policy tool! That’s what it’s for. Similarly there’s an obvious punishment for people who don’t play: funding is competitive and everyone’s going to suck up or starve. It’s just that the way you’re supposed to suck up is by being innovative and accessible.
Somewhere in between DoD and NEA is, say, the Justice Department: it’s a policy tool inasmuch as it works within a certain administration’s idea of how law works, but it’s not really supposed to be shaped to support a President’s immediate policy objectives: that’s why Holder can defy Obama on torture investigations and why the Bushies were so beyond the pale in trying to pack it with loyalists.
Well, the NEA is supposed to be still less political. And if enough left policymakers are dumb enough to say, this is a non-scandal, then the NEA is going to get gutted. I’d hate that.
— Sanjay · Sep 22, 04:44 PM · #
The NEA is not a tool of (administration) policy, and that’s the scandal here.
Of course, you are dividing the world of government into a binary that simply doesn’t exist. Luckily, there’s still no scandal, because there’s no talk whatsoever of specific partisan ends at all, no coercion of any kind, and no hint of quid pro quos. Unless you take blood drives and getting kids to do their homework as partisan enterprise, there’s nothing to complain about. Which, again, you would know, had you bothered to read the transcripts, which you haven’t.
Check please.
— Freddie · Sep 22, 04:50 PM · #
When did “stay in school” become a political message? Jesus Christ you people are messed up.
— Chet · Sep 22, 04:53 PM · #
When did “stay in school” become a political message? Jesus Christ you people are messed up.
It’s all code, Chet; they’re secretly relaying the message to swoop in with the black helicopters and herd us all into Muslim reeducation camps. And advocating blood donation is a way to implant secret microchips. And telling pregnant mothers to get neonatal testing to protect the health of their fetuses is really a ruse to abort as many as possible. And ….
— Freddie · Sep 22, 04:57 PM · #
Let’s imagine for a moment — first, read the transcript — that a Republican administration had set this meeting up, and it was designed to garner support from the NEA to push the president and push his administration, then later the speaker identied four areas to concentrate, health, energy, education and environment, and began to ask questions of each — “do we privatize education?”, “do we demand drilling for oil off the coast?”, “do fight for the restructuring of Medicare?” — all the while reminding the NEA listeners of the president’s vision, and how their artistic talent can reach young people and lead them to see what’s cool and what’s not.
Would the progressives be understanding? Would they talk about context?
The progressives would blow a damn gasket.
— mike farmer · Sep 22, 05:16 PM · #
I suspect I read the transcipts before you. You have no basis to say I didn’t! I’m not making false claims about the content of the call.
Saying “it’s not binary” is a dumb angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin answer. The NEA isn’t supposed to be a vehicle for Presidential policy. Period. Some leaks in indirectly but this phone call isn’t indirect.
Actually, I don’t care if art says, stay in school. In fact I don’t want the NEA to discriminate against art which says, fuck it, drop out (hell, I did). Because I don’t think the purpose of art is to make us good little citizens.
You appear, on the other hand, to be taking the fascist position.
Yes, there is financial coercion. Because types of art which the NEA is supposed to fund and encourage will dry up and die without its support; that’s, again, why we have an NEA.
Accept what you say about the NEA. Now tell me why goo-goo types and conservatives shouldn’t want to kill it.
Freddie, I realize answering Chet makes one dumb. But think about what you wrote. I am in charge, occasionally, of certain types of medical testing including neonatal testing. I’m also responsible for part of one of the country’s busiest hospital blood donor centers. You know I work in a hospital (usually) and if you have thought processes have an inkling that what I’m saying, is what I do. I’m South Asian and spend an awful lot of time among Muslims. I have volunteered time in schools since age 18. I’ve volunteered on Democratic (and liberal: Grey Davis I had no use for) campaigns since before either of you were born. That means I’m more credible on every specific issue you mentioned then, well, you are.
So that last little post of yours? Freakishly dumb own-goaling motivated by brainless team playing over actual reflection. And that’s what you would do with the NEA.
— Sanjay · Sep 22, 05:18 PM · #
“Check.”
— Sanjay · Sep 22, 05:19 PM · #
You appear, on the other hand, to be taking the fascist position.
I am, in fact, doing no such thing.
— Freddie · Sep 22, 05:22 PM · #
“I am, in fact, doing no such thing.”
Well, nah,nah,nah — there you have it.
I also disagree with Conor – this is not flirting, it’s to-the-hilt-sex propaganda — way past the flirting stage.
Of course, if they had been pushing the artists to paint puppies, all this could have been avoided.
— mike farmer · Sep 22, 05:30 PM · #
This seems to be the source of some confusion— even if we ignore the decidedly nonpartisan nature of the messages that National Service Day is supposed to be sending, and simply focus on the notion that the NEA should send no messages at all, I don’t think that amounts to a criticism of this instance. Why? Because despite what people seem to be saying, this is not an example of the NEA commissioning artists to make such art, and certainly not an offer from the NEA to pay for it. This is an administrator from the NEA participating in a conference call about the best way for the National Service Day messages to get out there. They aren’t asking him to use the NEA’s budget or infrastructure to make art that expresses any particular ideals at all, but rather are asking for advice on how to use art to send those messages. If there’s a conflict there, it is lost on me, and even if it exists, it is such incredibly inoffensive and small bore stuff, I can’t understand anyone making a big deal about it. Especially in the context of a country that recently was having literal loyalty oaths to the president and fired prosecutors for failing to tow the Republican party line.
Also, I’m with you for the precariousness of the funding you need to continue to enjoy current jazz, but to me, the people you should be arguing against are the people who are making a mountain out of this anthill, or the people who are explicitly opposed to an NEA in the first place.
— Freddie · Sep 22, 05:31 PM · #
Freddie: Your assertion is wrong. The NEA exists to promote worthwhile art to the public. You seem to feel that doing that involves consideration of message: indeed, you’re ciriticizing me and others up there because the message is so worthy. That’s the fascist position.
Again: I refer you to Belinsky, Futurism, Shostakovich vs. Mussorgsky, Karmen, Riefenstahl….
Evidently the transcript is one of many things you haven’t read.
— Sanjay · Sep 22, 05:32 PM · #
“Do your homework, kids.”
— Sanjay · Sep 22, 05:37 PM · #
You seem to feel that doing that involves consideration of message: indeed, you’re ciriticizing me and others up there because the message is so worthy. That’s the fascist position.
No, I don’t think that promoting art involves sending a message. That is an entirely separate argument from the one we are having.
I have this advantage when we argue, Sanjay. Unlike you, I am not desperately trying to create a flattering personae. I’m just arguing ideas. I don’t have to create some self-fellating personal narrative. Like, for example, how often you mention going to Harvard, but also how you insist everyone knows that you dropped out of high school. (I know! You’re smart, and tough! Wow!) I don’t, either, have to prove my personal connection to every issue to seek ideological cover. Yes, you work at a hospital, great. I don’t have to prove that my ideas come from having read anybody in particular. (Belinsky! Why, truly, you are a superman of the intellect!) I don’t have to constantly pose about what I’m not— I couldn’t give a shit about who is or isn’t a hipster, or my relation to any particular subculture. I just don’t care. It’s very freeing. Try it sometime.
By the way, chief— that “worthwhile” in “worthwhile art”? Cannot possibly be rendered nonpolitical. Any government agency is going to have political bias. But, again, that wasn’t what we were arguing, was it.
— Freddie · Sep 22, 05:42 PM · #
Incidentally, Conor’s silence on all this is not to his credit.
— Freddie · Sep 22, 05:46 PM · #
Oh, wait! The White House just said that the phone call was inappropriate!
Quick, Freddie, call them and tell them they didn’t read the transcript!
“Check, please.”
— Sanjay · Sep 22, 05:52 PM · #
_The NEA isn’t supposed to be a vehicle for Presidential policy. Period. Some leaks in indirectly but this phone call isn’t indirect.
Actually, I don’t care if art says, stay in school. In fact I don’t want the NEA to discriminate against art which says, fuck it, drop out (hell, I did). Because I don’t think the purpose of art is to make us good little citizens._
This is a good point, Sanjay, but don’t you think that there’s a bit of room between “the NEA should encourage no presidential policy whatsoever” and “the NEA is pushing a partisan political agenda” (Big Gov’t and Klavan’s assertion)? Room in which one might be able to hold both (a) that the NEA’s participation in the call was inappropriate, if one grants the first assertion, and (b) that it is not any kind of major scandal, as it is clear (from a fair reading of the transcript) that it was about uncontroversial, non-partisan policy?
— rob · Sep 22, 06:00 PM · #
They sure did. They’re wrong, just as they’re wrong about, say, the necessity of a public option. Crazy thing, Sanjay— I’m not the White House.
Why don’t you tell us where you got your degree? We’re all dying to know.
— Freddie · Sep 22, 06:00 PM · #
Sanjay,
I guess I’ll put it this way. I didn’t see anything on the transcript that bothered me. Had the call’s organizer asked the artists to push for increased protection of forests or support for teachers’ unions or health insurance mandates or increased government funding for homeless shelters, I would be concerned. But the specific things mentioned in the transcript don’t, for me, cross the line, and, as far as I can tell, there was no money on the line. Yes, I would have had a problem if the NEA guy had said that they were setting aside money for projects that address these four areas. But I don’t have a problem with suggestions or encouragement, unless that’s all this employee does with his time. If it’s just one phone call…
But maybe the problem is someone in the NEA saying, “listen, this is what the administration is thinking.” I haven’t been around long enough to be bothered by that, I guess. But I guess part of pluralistic democracy is realizing that people draw their lines in different places. I still don’t quite understand why you draw your line where you do, but given your position, is it enough for the NEA to implement new guidelines and be more careful in the future? Because it still seems to me like the level of impropriety is rather low.
— william randolph · Sep 22, 06:10 PM · #
“I’m just arguing ideas. I don’t have to create some self-fellating personal narrative.”
You always wind up with ad hominem when your “ideas” fail. Sad.
— mike farmer · Sep 22, 06:15 PM · #
Sure, Rob. I don’t think it’s a “major scandal” like, say, DoJ firings. I don’t think it’s big news like, say McChrystal’s assessment.
But it’s bigger news than most of what’s on the front page of my morning NYT or WaPo. And it’s a threat, I think, to an important American institution: again, it undermines the argument for the NEA, and the NEA does important work.
Sure: if you read five news stories today, they should be on Afghanistan. But this is an important story.
Freddie, your status anxiety is showing. Find anywhere on TAS where I’ve mentioned my undergrad instituion where we weren’t discussing something germane. So what does that say about you exactly? You’re foaming at the mouth, pup.
— Sanjay · Sep 22, 06:16 PM · #
William randolph: That’s easy. (1) Promoting nice shit is what the Ad council is for. I don’t actually care whether the policy is bipartisan or not. The NEA oughtn’t to discriminate against subversive art (hell, I wish it would discriminate for subversive art).
(2) No, it’s not enough to implement new guidelines and be more careful in the future. They should just be more careful in the future — and apologize for the screwup in the past (possibly by firing someone who doesn’t get his job). The guidelines are fine.
(3) My line is reasonable. The NEA staff don’t talk to artists about message. That’s not really their concern. They even try (though this is as hard as in science/engineering) not to let infatuation with particular messages or artistic schools determine funding choices. In fact I think that’s going to be more of a clear line than what yours might be, if you mull it over.
Hee. Somewehere out there Freddie is still trying to find me boasting about Ivy credentials to prove it’s not in his poor, inferiority-complexed head….
— Sanjay · Sep 22, 06:33 PM · #
And it’s a threat, I think, to an important American institution: again, it undermines the argument for the NEA, and the NEA does important work.
Logically, sure, but I’m not convinced that it significantly undermines the NEA in any practical sense, unless one reads it as the major scandal about political propaganda that Big Gov’t/Klavan want to, because (and I’ll admit I’m basing this on a general impression, not any kind of careful research) Americans are generally extremely accepting of the idea that the government’s role properly includes encouraging “good citizenship” and aren’t likely to make the distinction you make between those agencies of gov’t that should push a generic conception of the public good and those that shouldn’t.
(Hopefully textile will work for me this time…)
— rob · Sep 22, 06:34 PM · #
Part of the government’s role, sure, Rob. But I think the public is pretty damn sure that’s not the NEA’s job. If they weren’t, again, it’d have been demolished over “Piss Christ” and Mapplethorpe, because we were going around arguing, loudly, that it wasn’t the NEA’s job to “message.” I don’t think you’d find a lot of support even in the artistic community if you went around saying, the role of arts funding is to promote ‘good citizenship.’ Geez, it even sounds Orwellian when you type it.
— Sanjay · Sep 22, 06:41 PM · #
I doubt that the public would draw that connection, Sanjay, but not because there’s no a logical connection (I got what you were saying the first time).
I doubt it because I don’t think that’s how most people think; I think (a) that most people will react to “Piss Christ” negatively and then begin constructing/finding arguments that support their negative reaction and (b) that most people will find the message the NEA is promoting here innocuous, find themselves unbothered, and then construct/accept arguments that support that reaction. The contradiction between the arguments that support the two reactions will not bother (or even occur to) most people, and consequently they will not make the connection that you seem worried they will.
This does not hold, though — as I noted, if the public accepts the Big Gov’t/Klavan reading of the transcript, which is why, as a fellow fan of the NEA, I find the bad faith argument BG/K offer much more worrisome than the case you’ve constructed.
— rob · Sep 22, 06:55 PM · #
I don’t think you’d find a lot of support even in the artistic community
Especially not in the artistic community, I would think (or hope) — artists are the ones who should be most agitated by this, not liberals or conservatives. Although I guess “art for art’s sake” is no longer fashionable…
— kenB · Sep 22, 06:57 PM · #
And to clear a couple of things up that pop up in the last few comments:
(1) I do not think that the purpose of arts funding is to “encourage good citizenship”, or to promote any other particular message.
(2) I hope that “the artistic community” finds the idea that art exists “for art’s sake” as naive and simplistic as I do.
— rob · Sep 22, 07:09 PM · #
Sanjay,
I understand better now — thanks. I’m not convinced yet, since I still can’t see how this is related to funding, but I will have to mull it over, as I’ve been writing more or less from the gut. I’ve got nothing new to add.
— william randolph · Sep 22, 07:20 PM · #
Freddie is sad again. Perhaps Freddie wouldn’t be so sad if he read his comments with glee like I do.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Sep 22, 08:16 PM · #
You philistines! Propaganda is only the same as art to nihilists and ad-men.
You are missing the real issue here. Most of these artists suck.
They are empty vessels who elevate nothing but what they think is the latest trend. Most of them were selected because they already specialize in making heavy-handed, derivative, incoherent and shallow perfromances and concert-flyer xeroxes recycling each other’s bad metaphors, ‘powerful’ and ‘provocative’ ‘shock images’ that have lost all shock value.
(OK, I realize there were a few talented people addressed in that conference cal, but their actual talent to create profound art was not why they were included in the address.)
Most of these leaches aren’t really ‘artists,’ but just bad political cartoonists who are not literate enough to just express their ideas in writing, and yet too literal in their approach to make anything more than framed graffiti that can speak ‘universally’ to the widest, most unrefined audience possible.
The NEA could find other unmarketable artists with actual skills and genius who actually make more timeless, less disposable, work than promoting service and patriotism, and do so with much more subtlety and less obvious political messages about the day’s news.
That was their original political mission: elevating the coarse tone of modern life through cultivation, culture, patronage of all those things lacking any other support in bourgie America that might elevate and ennoble the minds of its citizens.
Sure, it was always for the political purpose of enhancing the greater good, but was sort of oriented around the view that art itself is good, so good for the whole.
The art supported was supposed to generally ennoble and elevate the modern souls of American citizens, but the NEA’s mission recognized that encouraging art for art’s sake was much more noble than simply telling people to “be noble” with sharp colorful images and catchy slogans.
The subsidized production of great works of art itself was part of the greater good.
The NEA was never just about encouraging a bunch of eager producers of tomorrow’s forgotten garbage to “inform” people that specific issues or causes are cool. Until now.
You know; that crap “art” is supposedly good for: stimulating citizens to think and feel through purposeless beauty – not simply manipulating and telling them what to do, think, and feel.
However, they are obviously looking for those who specialize in advertisement art but choose to cling to the idea they are just too proud to sell-out their skills to the evil marketeers.
So much more noble to serve the political powers that be than to get a job and admit you aren’t really that creative or unique.
Reminds me of when governments enlisted abstract impressionists and cubists to churn out more conventional images that actually resembled things during the 30s and 40s to fight fascism. The result was not always very good since many of these artists never really learned any techniques or craft before they started breaking all the conventions in order to be marketable. But for many of them this period marks some of their best and most interesting work.
In this case, however, the NEA isn’t really telling today’s message echoers to do anything much different than they were already doing.
The hilarious part is how they condescendingly call them out for what they really are: cool crusaders (followers) who haven’t yet gotten hired at a marketing firm to sell soap and iphones:
“you guys are so cool. everyone looks to you to tell them what’s cool because, let’s face it, you are the cool kids, the trendsetters. You are down, as they say. Now your country needs you to tell them health and serving is cool. Maybe some some fresh skateboard graphics and meta-ironic t-shirt logos will make these important issues like responsibility, voting, recycling, owning a home, staying fit, and paying taxes cool again. It’s up to you to give re-brand America as the young-person’s America. Let the youth know it’s fly to serve, like you guys – make them want to be like you – you know, cool tools of the fatherland and the president.”
Sounds like an Mtv cool-hunter opinion panel trying to manufacture the next big thing. Is that NEA’s mission now?
Personally, I find Obama’s utilitarian debasement of the NEA a much uglier, if not as unforgivable, sin than starting or stopping wars for quixotic ephemeral ideals. But I probably value beauty more than most of ya’ll seem to value money and life. Someone has to.
I’m sure that after four more years of politicizing and subverting the mission of state-supported arts by making the arts support the state there will be even less who do. How sublimely loyal, dutiful, and well-adjusted we will be!
I mean ‘cool.’ We’ll be so cool!
And Freddie,
Conor’s silence only speaks well of him. He is apparently aware of the futility of trying to explain why this is vulgar and wrong to those making vulgar and shallow arguments (reflexively peppered with the conditioned ‘Bush is worse’ mantra of the last rallying ad-campaign) to justify the transparently partisan debasement of culture by using one of the few purportedly transcendent, nonpartisan DC institutions to so crassly promote the current agenda and priorities of the day through the mobilization of bad artists. Good for him.
— Dictated by J Kim · Sep 22, 08:21 PM · #
Take this one:
Then later, when shown that TheVastlyHigherStandardOfYouGuys is, well, considered merely The Standard by the Administration:
His burdened schtick is You Guys, his doucheout is To Me. Freddie is truly the last man.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Sep 22, 08:35 PM · #
Please note: I have gold star degrees. My IQ is obese. Women and old men love me.
However (and oddly) my clothes wrinkle uncommonly fast, so I am also ridiculously likable.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Sep 22, 08:42 PM · #
Sanjay, Freddie has you dead to rights, I’m sorry to say. Did you, or did you not, say:
Yes, Chet, that’s right, my physics Ph.D. and I bow before the awesome might of Wikipedia.
Please note that I have quoted that post in its entirety, from a thread where you repeatedly presented your supposed academic credentials in lieu of any argument supporting your position. You’ve got a big chip on your shoulder about what an expert you supposedly are and how important people supposedly find you. Freddie’s not the only one to have noticed.
— Chet · Sep 22, 09:58 PM · #
Got him Chet! Good burn.
What an elite snob, mentioning his degree in polite company. I can’t think of a much more damning quote than that.
We can’t let Sanjay’s comments slide without bringing up something else he said in a different context that we find offensive to our sense of equal dignity.
Some statements should just not be given a pass and always held in mind before considering someone’s comments on an entirely different topic. Especially if we don’t feel like engaging his actually arguments
Exposing oneself as a physicist is almost as vile as outing oneself as a Truther by saying,
“I think they knew an attack would be imminent, and instead of taking the steps to get to the bottom of it, said to themselves ‘you know, another minor bomb in some shopping mall somewhere might be just the thing we need to swing people over to our agenda. Let’s pretend that we didn’t really see this warning.’”
Now that would be truly embarrassing and indicative of having issues of insecurity, paranoia, and being easily manipulated.
— Lieu Hue · Sep 22, 10:49 PM · #
Actually, Chet, that’s not what Freddie accused me of. And, yeah. I have a physics Ph.D., did undergrad work on fluid dynamics, etc. But as I said — it was germane. So, no, you didn’t get me.
It was germane because a complete idiot was trying to explain quantum mechanics, and later Godel, so it was helpful to point out that, yeah: I have studied mathematics of which said idiot has heard not.
Keep trying, dum-dum. It’s inconceivable that you’ll help the poor sap.
— Sanjay · Sep 22, 11:01 PM · #
Lieu Hue,
It’s worse than you think. Chet’s a 9/11 Truther and a Trig Truther.
And I love the way commenters like Chet and Freddie constantly claim moral and intellectual superiority over their ideological opponents, but when the going gets tough, they foam at the mouth and shout, “Elitist!”
— Kate Marie · Sep 22, 11:22 PM · #
And by the way, I’m nowhere near as smart as Sanjay, but I went to Harvard, too. (hee hee)
— Kate Marie · Sep 22, 11:26 PM · #
If he’s got it, that’s fine; if he thinks it’s relevant to a discussion lets see him use the expertise it represents to clarify issues and defend positions.
Please note that what Sanjay actually did was present his degree in lieu of an argument. Responding to a reasoned position with “I have a degree, and presumably you don’t” isn’t the action of an elite, it’s the action of a dick.
It’s bare mention was not, in fact, germaine. The argument from authority is never germaine because it’s a fallacy. What was germaine to that conversation would have been an argument that I was wrong. What you supplied, instead, was “I have a degree and you don’t, so neener neener neener.” If you think you came out looking the victor in that exchange you’re too stupid to have the degree you claim.
This is not a “Truther” position. The “Truther” position is that “9/11 was an inside job.” I do not and have never believed that. That the Bush administration was warned about domestic terror attacks but took no action is not “Trutherism”; it’s a matter of historical fact, widely accepted by all but doctrinaire conservatives.
Hey, I went to Oxford! (That’s even true.)
— Chet · Sep 23, 12:37 AM · #
It’s bare mention was not, in fact, germaine. The argument from authority is never germaine because it’s a fallacy. What was germaine to that conversation…
Chet, old sport, is that particular spelling of germane an British spelling, or are you referring to one of the Jackson 5?
— Kate Marie · Sep 23, 12:59 AM · #
Well, nobody’s perfect. (Except for Kate.)
— Chet · Sep 23, 01:02 AM · #
Thanks, old sport. ;)
— Kate Marie · Sep 23, 01:16 AM · #
No, Chet. What I did was say, look, any thinking person will tell I know what I’m talking about and you don’t, and there’s no point disagreeing. Which there wasn’t: you continued to bang the physics drum, and do it remarkably ignorantly.
After which multiple people claimed I came out looking the victor. Funny, that. In fact, every non-Chet who called that one, said I came out the victor. Ha, ha! And I have a better life than you, so there.
And I too a swipe at Wikipedia, which I enjoyed.
Yeah, Chet, I’ve been to Mississippi too.
— Sanjay · Sep 23, 01:21 AM · #
Chet,
You are oxford’s shame.
If that ain’t truther-talk then intellectual design ain’t creationism in disguise. The latter is mistaken, but the former (you) are weak-minded fringe coo-coo nut babble. As bizarre and insane as birthers, but even more potentially dangerous, if anyone takes it seriously (one just leads to paranoia, the other is justification for “justice”)
You can redefine trutherism all you want.
It doesn’t make you any less ridiculous. Don’t play games, as if it isn’t just as evil for a president to have let an evil happen as it would be to carry it out himself.
You live in a fantasy world where this could be “historical fact” and yet no serious person is actually stringing the guy up for this very provable treason? Why wouldn’t they?
If you think this is so, it’s an historical fact Bush knowingly allowed an attack on the country he was sworn to defend and you aren’t doing anything about it, aren’t you, and all of the American sheeple who tolerated 8 years of Bush and now let him live in peace to write memoirs as guilty of compliance as he?
Why, exactly are you less guilty or evil if you “know” that Bush “knew” it was going to happen, yet all you can do is quibble over terms on a website?
Either you are a coward or a liar. Certainly in no position to lecture anyone, Oxford or not.
Do you even see how this sort of lazy shameless assertion is reckless and dangerous? Or how saying it over and over makes you irredeemably indecent and unfit for civil society?
But we don’t have to argue over the obvious.
No need to quibble over terms that you want to give unique definitions for in order to hide the fact that you are willfully hiding from reality.
I can respect you are more cowardly than other truthers who do not run from what they are and stand by their statements, so you want to deny the label you’ve earned.
How about I just call you and your denomination of truther faith something else? A Truist? Dogma Dope? Truth-duped Believer? Pseudo-Truther? Vile Veritist? Dishonest self-hating Truther? Half a Charlie Sheen? Deluded Truther? Historical Facter? Conspiracy-Apologist? Tinfoil Veracist? Untruther? Impotent Hatefilled Smear-lobber? Useful Liar? Assassination-Instigator? Partisan Derangement Justifier? Death advocate? Hate-monger?
I’m sure we’ll come up with something to fit your double delusion.
— Lieu Hue · Sep 23, 01:29 AM · #
But that’s not what you said. Remember, when I quoted your post in its entirety just now? Sure, sure, you “know what you’re talking about.” The problem is that you weren’t talking about anything but your degree in physics.
— Chet · Sep 23, 01:37 AM · #
No, I’m not.
But I didn’t. Everybody knows that the 9/11 “Truther” position is that “9/11 was an inside job.” That’s not a redefinition, that’s what they believe.
Why would who? Who are you talking about? I don’t really understand, I guess. You understand that we’re talking about the President of the United States at the time, right?
And how exactly would you “prove” this “treason?” Humor me.
Um, no, I don’t. (Over and over? Seems like I said it once.) Can you explain? If it’s true, how can it be unfit to say? What could be the possible justification for these histrionics? And what, if anything, does any of this have to do with NEA?
— Chet · Sep 23, 01:57 AM · #
“what, if anything, does any of this have to do with NEA?”
It is every bit as relevant same as Sanjay’s degree, Truther.
Except his quote only qualifies him to talk physics, yours disqualifies every opinion you have as the product of a broken, lying, cowardly mind.
— Lieu Hue · Sep 23, 04:13 AM · #
I notice you’ve opted not to defend any of your calumnies against me, only to repeat them. Remind me who’s the coward, again?
— Chet · Sep 23, 02:38 PM · #
Voices in a Truthers Head:
“And how exactly would you “prove” this “treason?”
-Chet
“it’s a matter of historical fact, widely accepted by all but doctrinaire conservatives.”
-Chet
“(Over and over? Seems like I said it once.)”
-Chet
“The fact that he was the President at the time, and therefore responsible for the nation’s defense – that’s just coincidence, to you? No blame or responsibility at all can be laid at his feet for 9/11?”
-Chet
“I think they knew an attack would be imminent, and instead of taking the steps to get to the bottom of it, said to themselves ‘you know, another minor bomb in some shopping mall somewhere might be just the thing we need to swing people over to our agenda. Let’s pretend that we didn’t really see this warning.’”
-Chet
“There is widespread evidence and documentation that elements of the US government were involved in facilitating the 9/11 attacks. This is not to say that Muslim extremists were not involved or that everything was faked. Many of the claims attributed to the “9/11 truth movement” are speculative, irresponsible, and downright false. This does not change the fact that there is a huge body of legitimate evidence.
Whether or not one believes that government complicity is conceivable or possible does not matter until he or she has personally reviewed the evidence. All citizens should be vigilant in independently studying important events or issues such as 9/11, rather than simply accepting the official line from the government and corporate media.”
-Truthmove.org
“they allowed the attacks to occur for political gain.”
-Chet
“the previous administration had prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks”
-Chet
“I notice you’ve opted not to defend any of your calumnies against me, only to repeat them. Remind me who’s the coward, again?”
-Chet
Chet, you do realize that when I call you a coward I’m not referring to your tendency to say the same thing over and over again, right?
I’m referring to your gutlessness of saying things then not owning up to them. Like saying something is a fact, but then implying it couldn’t be proven and no one is going to try to impeach or convict a president.
That makes you lower than the low.
And just claiming ignorance (like you don’t really know the real definition of the term) doesn’t excuse you.
It just makes everything you say about everything that more tainted and invalid.
You aren’t fooling anyone. These Truther maneuvers are 5 years old now, you insecure coward.
But mostly you are a coward because you cannot admit to what your own ignorant, irresponsible statements make you. Other Truthers may be reprehensible, but they at least have the courage of their convictions to own up to what their opinions make them.
— Lieu Hue · Sep 23, 04:19 PM · #
Lieu – you’re an off-topic troll who can’t defend her arguments. Nothing that you’ve quoted from me – and I stand by those statements – supports your contentions. I trust interested parties to perceive the vast gulf between what I’ve actually said and how you’ve characterized it.
No conversation with you could possibly be fruitful. You’ve exceeded even Kate in that regard, which is truly astounding.
— Chet · Sep 23, 04:43 PM · #
Conversation? With a truther? Impossible.
Can’t own up to what you are. Presented with the actual definition of trutherism written by truthers themselves, you go back into shell, “this will not be fruiftul” = “I am scared of what I cannot deny.”
All I can do is quote you in order to construct a conversations of madness.
Hard to argue with your own stupid assertions and the inability to any longer play dumb, huh, coward?
— Lieu Hue · Sep 23, 05:35 PM · #