Art for the masses

The National Endowment for the Arts is a conglomeration of parasites advancing a political ideology and calling it art. The NEA actually got caught in 2009:

Yosi Sergant : The Next Van Jones?
September 10, 2009 3:51 PM
ABC News' Yunji de Nies reports:

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/09/yosi-sergant-the-next-van-jones.html

Nothing came of the NEA using tax dollars to advance the liberal agenda most Americans disagree with. In fact, the NEA is pleading for more money. My comments follow this brief article:

Obama arts chief grilled at House Appropriations
By Erik Wasson - 05/11/11 11:40 AM ET

The Chairman of the National Endowment of the Arts was forced to defend controversial grants Wednesday at a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing.

Chairman Rocco Landesman was grilled by budget hawk Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), about grants like those to an international accordion festival and to the San Francisco Mime Troupe.

Making grants like these “feeds the cynicism out there about everything we do,” Flake said.

“Those just kind of grants lend themselves to ridicule,” he said. “These are a bit tough to justify…how can we justify these types of grants?”

“The marketplace shouldn’t be the sole determinant of what is allowed to flourish,” Landesman said, adding that the renowned San Francisco Mime Troupe would likely not be able to survive solely on ticket sales.

Flake said he will do anything it takes to kill funding for the accordion festival. This prompted Rep. Jose Serrano (D-N.Y.) to note that Flake will be getting hate mail from Polish folk musicians and Mexican performers alike now.

“Even during difficult budget times we have to protect, preserve and grow the arts,” Serrano said.

Flake also scrutinized NEA support for small university presses and university drama programs. He noted that some of the richest universities in the country, such as Yale and Columbia, receive NEA grants.

Landesman answered that the drama programs and small university presses are generally fiscally independent from the universities and their billion dollar endowments.

He said that NEA is doing more to ensure that poor quality programs do not receive funding.

“There has been fear of death panels being conducted at the NEA,” he joked.

Landesman said that NEA needs more staff in order to conduct field visits to ensure quality arts programs.
The Obama administration is seeking to reduce NEA funding by 13 percent from 2010 funding but the agency could see deeper cuts as the House tries to cut discretionary spending across the board.

Flake said he wants to see funding cut even further, below 2008 levels.

Appropriations subcommittee chairman Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) emphasized that he is a strong supporter of the NEA especially for its rural outreach program.

http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-mon...a-arts-chief-grilled-at-house-appropriations-

The NEA should be shut down. Funding cuts will not make the problem go away. At the first opportunity Democrats will restore funding with a huge increase thrown in for good measure.
Reducing the NEA’s funding has a poor track record. In 1996, the NEA’s funding was cut to 99.5 million. In 2009 funding was up to 155 million.

Since it’s founding in 1965 the NEA gave away over 4 BILLION tax dollars in grants. Parasites obviously did alright by those grants. No one can show a benefit going to those taxpayers who were forced to pay for government “art.”

Soviet Communists pioneered government art. Basically, government officials decided what qualified as art. Conversely, Nazi Germany railed against entartete Kunst, the German term for degenerative art. Artists found guilty of creating degenerative art were punished. Perhaps that’s why the people at the NEA delude themselves into thinking they are noble defenders of art when in most cases the NEA defends garbage. Don’t get me wrong. I would not censor anyone. I just don’t like being forced to pay for garbage. In addition, there would be more art and less garbage after the government gets out of the business.

The Soviet Union’s, and Nazi Germany’s, control of “art” should be reason enough to shut down the NEA. Government control always ends badly.

Government art in America attracted so many parasites to the public trough liberals were forced to expand the definition of art. The San Francisco Mime Troupe is one example. Even the NEA admits:

“. . . that the renowned San Francisco Mime Troupe would likely not be able to survive solely on ticket sales.”

That’s crux of it. Reality says “If you can’t sell tickets for your shtick find another line of work.” The government says “Don’t worry about it. We’ll make everybody support you anyway.”

There are many more examples, but photography is the government’s crowning achievement because it gets tax dollars through the NEA and through education funding. I’m not sure how much money “photographers” got from the NEA. Here’s the appropriate question “Is photography art?” The answer depends upon your view of socialism.

In my opinion, photographers take pictures with a mechanical device and call it art when, in fact, photography is a craft at best. If there is one income group that gives away the NEA’s art fraud it is those photographers who are hailed as artists. True artists are the most unique creators of wealth because they create something from nothing, or from within themselves if you prefer. In my definition of art Thomas Edison was no less of an artist than Vincent Van Gogh.

It is imperative for Socialists to convince the world that they create wealth rather than accumulate it through various tax scams. It is imperative for photographers to convince the world that they are creative artists rather than artisans. Socialists sell their religion by passing it off as an antidote for capitalism. Photographers sell copies of their snapshots for more than they are worth by passing it off as art.

Photography is roughly the same age as socialism. By the time FDR took office photography had made some technological advances but no one considered photography an art form at that point in time. Murals that were commissioned for federal and state office buildings during the Great Depression were so sterile the government media began the process of deifying photography.

Socialists had to show the world that their system of government was artist-friendly; so mechanically generated motion pictures, and still pictures, became art for the masses. Labeling photography art was the best thing socialist propagandists could come up with since a true artist cannot create art simply to decorate a system of government even if he or she wanted to. Michelangelo’s superb eye-hand coordination may have flourished under the patronage system, but artists in every field thrive where the most individual liberties exist.

The thing about high-priced snapshots sold by art galleries that always puzzled me is what happens to the negatives? At least if you purchased a Picasso you knew he was not going to run off a few more “originals” after he had your money in his pocket. And can anyone honestly see any of today’s photographs selling at any time in the future for 40 million plus in today’s dollars?

 

$4 billion since 1965?

Compared to other government waste, the NEA is hardly worth a sneeze.

I'm against government funding of it, but I'd rather work on the big problems first.

 

To BullsLawDan: Two things:

1. Take care of the pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves.

2. It’s important to shutdown the ideology driving the NEA.

 

A pithy statement, for sure, but I don't see any evidence it's rooted in truth.

Meh... It's a chicken-and-egg question. Does the ideology already present in the art world drive the NEA, or does the NEA drive the art world? I think it's the former.

The fact is, short of GW Bush's personal portrait artists, you're going to be very hard pressed to find a Republican artist. It's just the way things are. They're going to give most of their funding to liberals because most artists are liberals.

I mean, judging by your scathing dismissal of photographers as artists, you don't seem like someone that spends a lot of time around art in general.

Like I said, I'm against funding it, but there are much bigger fish to fry.

 

To BullsLawDan: There is no bigger fish to fry than dismantling the welfare state one bureaucracy at a time if that’s what it takes.

 

Fine - then I want $4 billion over the next 45 years.

Since no one will miss it...

 

I agree with BullsLawDan that the amount of money as part of the national budget is really almost pennies, I have to agree with the original post that much of what the NEA funds is useless bunk and should be cut anyway.

There is zero national benefit in "International Accordian Day" or even personal expression art being funded.

City, county or federal structures I think are appropriate to fund with tax-payer money.

It would seem like common sense, but as many note, what is created and added to the national budget is fairly easy to enhance and much harder to reduce or remove.

This particular budget crunch we are experiencing now might provide some oomph to Congress moving to curtail some of the ridiculous excess of the NEA and perhaps the agency itself.

 

Absolutely true. Even the rich benefit of making sure the poor do okay. And in any event, the rich will take care of themselves anyway and they don't really need any help.

However NEA money is probably more corporate welfare than going to any struggling artists.

 

To Meta777: You’ll have to explain how you see my views as contradictory.

To Cherrywood: I just can’t make the connection to corporate welfare. The NEA is a political bureaucracy promoting the liberal agenda. Every taxpayer is forced to subsidize the NEA’s definition of art and artist.

 

To Meta777: I don’t doubt that you believe what you say. Can you supply even one sentence written by me in all of my threads that might have led you to believe I agree with using coerced tax dollars to support the poor?

For your edification: I can’t count the ways I’ve said “Taking care of the poor is not the government’s responsibility, nor is it authorized in the US Constitution.”

 

The grant process is a fascinating one. You might want to delve sometime into who gets what and why.

I looked into because I wondered about some of the inane federally funded studies and projects, myself.

 

To Meta777: My statement was in reference to the parasites in unnecessary, unconstitutional, bureaucracies not the poor. Put it in context by reading permalinks 2 through 5.