Obama Using National Endowment for the Arts to Create a Cult of Personality
Yes, we can! With tax dollars!
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Spin this, Media Matters!
On his TV show, Glenn Beck spoke to filmmaker Patrick Courrielche who revealed at Big Hollywood that he had participated in a teleconference call in which the National Endowment for the Arts — the largest funder of the arts in the U.S. — encouraged artists to create pro-Obama art:
I was invited by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to take part in a conference call that invited a group of rising artist and art community luminaries “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.†[...]
…the National Endowment for the Arts was steering the art community toward creating art on the very issues that are currently under contentious national debate; those being health care reform and cap-and-trade legislation. [...]
NEA is, by the way, the same government agency that used to fund anti-Semitic communist Amiri Baraka, the writer who penned a “poem” after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in which he implied that President Bush had orchestrated the attacks and that Jews who worked in the Twin Towers were given advance notice not to attend work that day.
Courrielche writes that the conference call was touted as an opportunity for members of the art community to inspire service in four key categories, including “health care†and “energy and environment.â€
That service was to be attached to President Obama’s United We Serve campaign, a federal program that aims to make service a way of life for all Americans.
“It sounded, how should I phrase it…unusual, that the NEA would invite the art community to a meeting to discuss issues currently under vehement national debate,” he wrote. He called in and what he heard worried him.
White House officials participated in the conference call which was run by Yosi Sergant, communications director for the NEA, Courrielche wrote. Sergant happens to be the publicist behind the iconic Obama “Hope” poster created during the 2008 presidential election by artist Shepard Fairey.
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.
Courrielche, whose audio recording of the teleconference was played on-air by Beck, said that whenever governments and artists collaborate on art, the results are never good. That is an understatement.
Here is some Soviet taxpayer-funded art:
Here is some German taxpayer-funded art:
Here is some Cuban taxpayer-funded art:
Courrielche also discussed the issue a few days ago on Fox Business:
Trackbacks and Pingbacks
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- Govt Watch: Washington Tea Party, Freedom Works Protestors and the Death Knell of ObamaCare « Lighthouse Patriot Journal
- Using NEA for propaganda?? - INGunOwners
- Pajamas Media » Talking Back to the Talkbackers
Is this a misappropriation of funds? Where is thr congressional oversire committe? We need a special prosecutor, I’ll bet Scooter Libby has something to say about this.
Glenn Beck got invited somewhere?
I agree this is a waste of money. We should be encouraging art that portrays Beck’s head exploding from interal pressure.
I can’t believe people watch hours and hours of this gasbag saying whatever he wants. All he needs is the slightest sliver of truth to do an hour -long adventure into paranoia and conspiracy theories.
God forbid we have art that celebrates health, the environment and peace. Where are all the paintings of tanks and arabs getting tortured…you know the art of Beck’s America….not all this pussy stuff like civic duty or community.
BTW: The President doesn’t decide who gets what from the National Endowment of the Arts.
It is chilling, and possibly illegal. Te part Beck played on audio, “where we can talk safely”??? You can’t tell me, that they aren’t looking for a way to sommon the minions and direct their astroturf without any possiblity of daylight ruining their fun.
Smokey…
hate much do you?
You can dislike Beck all you like,.. have fun, but frankly I’d imagine your list of “approved” talking heads include flaming retards like Olberman.. the left is populated by idiots who are reality impaired, and google challenged, and fact checking always seems a skill they never got around to learning, like how to speak to people without making them think of wanting to push you out a 4th floor window. The left has put speakers on air all this month to push back against the public’s disdain..
and they all are oblivious to the facts put in front of them..
The POTUS said you can keep your plan, but HR… implicitly aims to force the private players out eventualy, the more honest leftwing reps admit it openly.
They pause, blink three times.. then smile and return to the very same line,.. you can keep your plan, … like the black cat deja vue in the Matrix,.. the fix is in, and no diviation from the official line will be tolerated…
but hey,..
to you,.. it’s all about Beck being paranoid.
Well chuckles, I was in the cold war, and I studied Soviet era propaganda, and Obama’s crew uses all the same tricks. But you swallow the same tired old lies, and think skeptical thinkers are being mean too juuu..?
The same fools who lectured us in ominous tones for 8 years not to trust the government, have now embraced their inner “good nazi” and wouldn’t question anything done in Obama’s name, if they had gas poured on them and got tossed a lighted zippo..
not much credibiity on the left when it comes to telling us, not trusting Obama is paranoid.
unless you are confessing, the left was moonbat fullbore spittle hanging from the lower lip lunatic fripping INSANE during the Bush years with patisan hate.
confess tht.. and I might consider you have some merit in wondering if the mistrust of Obama is overdone,.. but merely,. that,. overdone, NOT unwarrented.
I guess now we know why the National Endowment for the Arts got a big chunk of cash in Obama’s “emergency” stimulus package. What’s more urgent than propaganda???
Government funded art is what graces many of the Public Buildings in Washington DC, is it so bad? The Federal Buidling in Every large city is a Public, Federally owned, building, and it too has art of some form in it, funded with public dollars, what’s wrong with that? And what about the Public and National Parks systems? They too have art and that is funded by public dollars.
The problem with the examples given is that in both cases the patron of the arts was a dictator, Hitler and Castro, ergo they dictate what the subject of the art shall be.
In a democracy the subject is suggested, but then too if the patron doesn’t like the subject he can reject it, as in Diego Rivera’s “Man at the Crossroads” Rockefeller didn’t like the presence of a image of Lenin in the mural and had it destroy when Rivera wouldn’t change it for aesthetic reasons.
An artist is an odd character, you don’t tamper with her or his creative spirit, and the patron is generally a cold, calculating and unfeeling thing, interested only in his or her investment.
Thank you.
I think it says it all that every piece of information provided by Matthew in this post comes from Fox News. Try embracing more media sources and maybe your post could actually have some credibility. Watching a Right Wing Conservative news station does not exactly provide an unbiased account of the events.
Celebrates…sure, boring though. Propagates a specific, highly contested political issue using taxpayer money to push a partisan agenda? Yep, that sounds like a conspiracy, too bad it’s been caught on tape. Facts are facts. Red Herring, Ad hominem retorts hold no weight here. FAILBLOG is more suited for that type of “Logik”.
The evidence presented by Beck’s guest and witness are powerfully credible. They expose a time-honored totalitarian tactic; employ art to create imagery that reflects the regime in a “positive” light and then bombard the serfs to affect a change in their perceptions and attitudes toward Dear Leader and the regime.
You fail to refute anything said by Beck or his guest and instead make infantile and irrelevant comments about Beck’s head exploding and the torture of Arabs. My advice to you is, invest a couple bucks and buy yourself some intellectual honesty. We would miss the unintended humor but you might gain a modicom of respect.
BTW: Obama might not conrol every cent the NEA spends, but he certainly can, and apparently has, made known the “new” direction he would like the agency to take.
As for the BTW. I agree, the president doesn’t decide who gets what from the NEA. It was noted in the audio (and consiquent commentary) that it was a conference call. The parties were already decided. The issue is that an agenda is being pushed by the whitehouse. I don’t live at 1600 Pennsylvania ave. And, I don’t think you do (unless you are “The One” moonlighting?). It’s clearly stated in the audio (and not logically refutable) that they want artists to focus on “key” areas that are vital to this administration. Also noted was the “whitehouse” was represented on the line. Was O on the line? Doubt it. Does it mean he endorsed it? Yes. Nixon did not break into the Watergate but was still accountable for it.
At least it isn’t as bad as when the Bush administration paid cash to FM Radio talk show hosts to push his agenda. I’m glad those morons are no longer in radio.