Back in the Saddle Again…
It’s been a nice break these last couple months, but I’m back in the saddle, and ready to rumble. I’m not sure if I could have been more corny in the previous sentence, but you can bet I’ll sure try.
There has been a lot of talk over the last couple months, but not a whole lot of action, hence my silence. There’s been a lot of talk about health care reform, but no cohesive legislation for one to comment on (and I’d like to point out, no proposed legislation from the White House – just empty rhetoric). There have more recently been developments around missile defense. And of course, there’s always chatter about the economy. As was coined during the Clinton administration, “it’s the economy, stupid”, but that’s a big enough subject, I’ll leave it for another day (plus, my position is pretty clear, I would think, given my past articles).
What I want to touch on today, however is the National Endowment for the Arts. The NEA is a federally funded agency “dedicated to supporting excellence in the arts, both new and established; bringing the arts to all Americans; and providing leadership in arts education.” [link]
According to CNSNews, some Republicans in the House have raised an eyebrow to the content of a conference call the White House, NEA and Corporation for National and Community Service held last month. Apparently, during the call, Yosi Sergant, Director of Communications at the NEA said some thing which could be construed as coercive. According to federal law, it is illegal for federal funds to be spent encouraging people to support or oppose political agenda items, so the raised eyebrow may not be unwarranted.
Here are some quotes:
…help lay a new foundation for growth, focusing on core areas of the recovery agenda – health care, energy and the environment, safety and security, education, community renewal.
I would encourage you to pick something, whether it’s health care, education, the environment, you know, there’s four key areas that the corporation has identified as the areas of service.
Take photos. Take videos. Post it on your blogs. Get the word out. Like I said, this is a community that knows how to make a stink.
Now, I may be reading too much into this, and I’m probably allowing my personal bias through, but I wonder how enthusiastically the NEA would support an artist who wanted a grant to make something that protested health care reform. Sergant never explicitly encouraged artists to make things that support the White House’s agenda, but it’s not much of a stretch to pick out a bit of a subtext.
Based on the 3rd quote, it seems pretty clear that Sergant wants artists to “make a stink.” The question comes down to whether or not he wants artists that do not support the White House’s agenda to make as much of a stink as those who do.
Given the demographics of those in the “art community”, it may be a reasonably fair comparison to compare Sergant’s statements to someone encouraging KKK members to “make a stink” about race relations. You may not explicitly encourage them to go lynch people, but the reality is that plausible deniability only goes so far.
The Communications Director of a federally funded agency that gives monetary grants to artists encourages artists (who I would contend have a predilection toward more liberal viewpoints) to “get the word out” about one of the “key areas that the corporation has identified as the areas of service.” It doesn’t take a paranoid mind to see through the veil. If I were an artist, I could very reasonably think that if I create something that goes “get the word out,” that perhaps my chances of receiving a grant would increase.
Again, none of this was explicitly said in the conference call, but few things in politics are. It’s all about being able to discern the subtext. To read between the lines. I’d love to know why Sergant has been removed from the position of Communications Director since then. Perhaps to give the administration deniability? No, politicians would never do that…would they?
I may be biased, but it sure looks to me like the NEA was trying to get people to make art about policy issues, knowing the demographically, most of them would create art that supports the White House’s agenda. If that’s the case, it may well be illegal.
Of course, if I want to be fair, Occam’s Razor could apply. It could be that Sergant has a personal bias, that he allowed to shine through during that conference call, and it could be that he was removed from his position for it, or for some completely unrelated reason. Both the White House and the NEA said that Sergant had acted improperly, after all. However, I have to wonder if it’s case where they’re sorry it happened, or whether they’re just sorry he got caught. There does come a point, when there are enough isolated incidents, enough circumstantial evidence, that discussing the tree is pointless in light of the forest before you.
