Ok, this is not looking so good, people. From the conversative bloggers who broke the story about 18-years olds going undercover to bust ACORN, comes a new scandal.
Now, 90% of the time the stories are just alarmist and unsubstantiated, but this one is gaining steam. The story from this blogger (with a huge number of links to additional
articles plus the call's transcript) about a conference call from the NEA asking arts organization to back the president's health care plan.
Fine, just a bunch of blogging wackadoos, right? Except the story is going mainstream, look at this:
As per the Chicago Tribune:
The NEA is the nation's largest single source of financial support for the arts, and its grants often prompt supplemental private donations. He who pays the piper does indeed call the tune, and in the four months before the conference call, 16 of the participating organizations received a total of nearly $2 million from the NEA. Two days after the call, the 16 and five other organizations issued a plea for the president's health-care plan.
I have only 4 words: say it ain't so.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Tags: healthcare, nationalendowmentofthearts, NEA, politicalart
I think this is great, you can't get something for nothing. Buck up kids your in the real world now. I'll back the health care plan $125,000 (a sixteenth of $2,000,000) hell I'd do it for $20,000.
Well, it's one thing to have the NEA sponsor government-backing art ventures, that's one way the NEA could be. But this sounds like it was done privately, and designed to sound like grassroots support - this is now so frequent that there's a name for fake grassroots efforts - astroturf efforts.
It makes everything inauthentic and then you don't believe anyone.
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Gary Marr: the arts community has many members who don't have insurance, etc... doesn't it make sense to make sure that people know how it can benefit their constituency and make sure the constituency knows about it - I mean look at all the right wingers bashing it .
Kenneth Stein i hate to say it, but i would happily do this for an nea grant. c'mon you dangle some good size coin in front of a starving artist..... why is everyone so surprised?
and how is this any different from the art dealer who tells me what subject matter i should consider working on?
sad but true.
To which I reply: Are we mice or are we men??? If your dealer asks for something that you agree with, great, but if not, you walk away. All I have is my name. I'm reasonable and I'll work within limits, but I can't do something that's against my principals. I'm for health care, but against getting money and then being told what type of art to make with it.
AND I ask, what if it was a republican president with a conservative agenda? At what point do you turn down the money?
I fully agree with you.. why should only big business and wealthy interest groups be allowed to lobby and bribe..? Don't get what the big deal is..