—–

There’s something disturbingly Being John Malkovich about Griffith’s Being Andy Taylor routine in these ads. That said, you have to credit the ObamaCare marketing team for this stroke of advertising genius. How do you best sell a wildly unrealistic, Utopian health-care fantasy to a resistant American public? You hire the beloved star of a beloved show set in a beloved, unrealistic, Utopian fantasy town, naturally.

Or do you?

Because, paradoxically, that’s exactly what’s wrong with hiring Sheriff Taylor to pitch ObamaCare. Mayberry was an alien, antiseptic fantasy-land of normalcy run amok. Even by the pristine naive standards of rural 1960, that America never existed.

Having Andy Griffith cooing at us over the benefits of ObamaCare makes about as much sense as having Ray Walston (Bill Bixby’s “Uncle” Martin of My Favorite Martian) don his rabbit ear antennae to soft-soap us on the now mercifully moribund cap-and-trade bill. (Although Sheriff Taylor and Uncle Martin do have one thing in common—neither creature was of this world.)

—–

Now had the Obama ad team instead used Andy’s other celebrated TV persona –Ben Matlock — to hawk ObamaCare, it might have had a fighting chance. I don’t know about you, but I always preferred cranky Ben to stuffy Andy. Matlock was far better company than the asexual, forever-moralizing, holier-than-thou Taylor. (Come to think of it, Andy sounds an awful lot like the President.)

Compared to Andy Taylor, Ben Matlock had personality. First of all, he’d stick up for you—even if he thought it possible you’d killed someone. Sheriff Taylor might toss you in jail for littering or jaywalking. Matlock was always getting people out of jail, helping you fight the system; Andy was the system.

In addition to their differing views on the highest and best use of jail cells, Matlock was human. He had flaws. A wildly successful and wealthy defense attorney, nevertheless the man was too cheap to own more than one light-gray suit or spend more than a few bucks on lunch—a dubious-looking hot dog purchased from a two-bit street vendor with a push-cart.  (By the way, in Obama’s czarist America that street vendor and his dangerous wares would have been regulated out of business long ago.)

—–

Matlock usually demanded his fee (or a healthy chunk of it) up-front. He understood the free market capitalist system was the best arbiter of individual freedom—literally. He could get you found not guilty, but you’d have to pay for it. Liberty had a price, the same way a carton of eggs did. Unlike in Mayberry, in the Land of Matlock there was no such thing as a free acquittal.

Ben was cantankerous, avaricious and, the way he ogled some of the hot young things around the office, even borderline lecherous. In short, he was lovable. He reminded us of us.

Sheriff Taylor on the other hand was all sanctimony, condescension and platitudes. (Sound like anyone we know?) Since I was never a big fan of The Andy Griffith Show, I don’t know how Sheriff Taylor wound up a widower. But my guess is he bored his wife to death—either with all those cloying renditions of dusty Americana prairie songs like “Turkey in the Straw” or with that annoying self-congratulatory altruism. Regardless of how he did it, I’m thinking not even Matlock could have gotten Taylor off that murder rap.

 As Ayn Rand wrote in The Virtue of Selfishness,

Only a rationally selfish man, a man of self-esteem, is capable of love—because he is the only man capable of holding firm, consistent, uncompromising, unbetrayed values. The man who does not value himself, cannot value anything or anyone.

Ben Matlock was a selfish, greedy, petulant sonofabitch. But if he had tried to sell me on ObamaCare, I’d probably have gone all in.

Still, something tells me Ben wouldn’t have cared much for the ironically-named Patient Protection (sic) and Affordable (sic) Care Act. Lifelong skinflints have a way of sniffing out a terrible waste of money.

Too bad, though. Because I’d give anything to see the episode where Matlock shouts down the Federal Hot Dog Coronary Endangerment Panel.

Here’s the gasbag, now, gasbagging:

—–

“We see it as an entrepreneurial bill – a bill that says to someone, if you want to be creative and be a musician or whatever, you can leave your work, focus on your talent, your skill, your passion, your aspirations because you will have health care.”

So, to put it plainly: If you want to play your guitar in the subway, no worries – we’ll supply your health care. If you want to join a death metal barbershop quartet that plays everything on a children’s xylophone- that’s cool too. If you want to freeze-dry your feces, jar it, and call it an indictment on the Bush regime, relax, you daring artist – we’ll pay for your pink eye.

This is EXACTLY the news our young Americans need. With health care a non-concern, they can now focus on their crappy folktronica ragacore techstep. I’m sure their parents will be pleased to know their kids will get a real job.

Look, it used to be that those who embarked on careers in the arts did so because the lifestyle rejected the idea of a safety net. The rest of those boring old farts can become accountants and lawyers – but not the creative soul! He’s leaving town with nothing but a guitar, the wind at his back, herpes in his future. But when he snubs his nose at the safe and the boring – he also snubs the benefits that come with it. That boring company he mocked happens to provide steady income and benefits.

Life on the road doesn’t. That’s why it’s called “life on the road.” Somehow I don’t remember Bruce Springsteen singing, “Tramps like us, baby we were born to stay on our parents’ policies as dependents until age 26.”

Although that sounds better than the original, if you ask me.

And if you disagree with me, you’re a racist homophobe who won’t boycott Arizona.

Tonight’s show puts the delight in delightfanstastic!

We’ve got

Andrew W.K.!

Steven Crowder!

Juliet Huddy!

and Slayer’s Kerry King!

Uh oh.

We must come by the thousands.

Speaker Pelosi will stop at nothing to fulfill her corrupt conquests. She will bring all of the corrupt ACORN liars to try to bully all the Democrats that may be having pangs of guilt knowing quite surely what their votes can and will do. If they’re bullied into saying “yes,” it will destroy America.

Join me and Rep. Michele Bachmann in Washington DC at 12 noon EST so we can give all the Democrats who know what the end result will be the courage to say: “No, do not pass this destructive bill.”

I’ll see you there.

For a real case-study, however, spend a little time on the website of the nation’s foremost youth-voter organization, Rock the Vote.

Just before Christmas, when many Americans were turning their attention to faith and family, Rock the Vote, a tax-exempt 501 (c) (3), remained firmly fixed on pushing through the administration’s health-care reform legislation. According to the organization’s website, they asked (commissioned) web-comedy team Funny or Die to create a video to help cut-through voter-fatigue over the issue.  The result, which was then featured in front of the RTV homepage, is called “F the Vote,” and its concluding recommendation to young voters is that they join a pledge to “never, ever, f**k” anyone who is against health care reform.”  That’ll show ‘em.

–

According to the group’s blog, the video is a parody of the system, but of course, it does not parody the system in anyway.  At best, it is a parody of the “I Pledge” video featuring Ashton Kutcher and company, but the system?  Saying it don’t make it so.

But this isn’t the biggest lie to be found on the RTV website.  Try this assertion:

Rock the Vote is a nonpartisan organization. This means that we do not support or endorse candidates nor do we participate in any activities that could benefit one party over another. There are many laws governing our work as a nonpartisan organization and we take our non partisanship seriously.

It’s times like these I wish I had my own friends at Funny or Die.  Non-partisan? Even the organization’s mission statement makes a mockery of that assertion:

Rock the Vote’s mission is to engage and build the political power of young people in order to achieve progressive change in our country.

A quick trip to the dictionary, and you’ll be reminded that the word progressive, in a political context, means:

Advocating or implementing social reform or new, liberal ideas.

Seems a little partisan for a non-partisan 501 (c) (3).  In fact, compare this mission statement to the mission statement of another organization, a decidedly partisan 501 (c) (4) political lobbying group that happens to be housed in the same offices as the tax-exempt, “nonpartisan” Rock the Vote, the Rock the Vote Action Fund.

Rock the Vote Action Fund, founded in 2008, is dedicated to educating and engaging young progressive voters to make change in our country.

The Rock the Vote Action Fund, however, can go much further, since it is not bound by even the pretense of non-partisanship.  Their mission statement goes on to say:

…Our goal is to encourage massive turnout of young progressive voters to the polls through education on the issues and the candidates.

After the election, we will harness the power of young people to take action on key issues, from health care to Iraq, at the local and national level. 

Not to worry, though.  They close by stating quite clearly that, despite having the same name, much of the same staff, and being housed in the same offices as Rock the Vote…

Rock the Vote Action Fund is a non-profit 501(c)(4) organization and is independent of Rock the Vote, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization.

Oh.  They say it.  It must be so…

It is readily apparent even at a glance that the non-partisan Rock the Vote is just a beard for the decidedly partisan Rock the Vote Action Fund.  Rock the Vote gives the partisans behind both organizations the cover they need to, among other things, recruit on high school and college campuses, receive large corporate partnerships from AT&T, the WWE, and Lifetime Television, and, perhaps most troubling of all, to launch a new nationwide high school civics curriculum.

The good news for those of us who don’t like the idea of left-wing partisans reaching into our public school classrooms or targeting teens with nihilistic video ‘parodies’ is that, despite the lengths the folks at Rock the Vote take to maintain the illusion of non-partisanship, they don’t do a very good job of it.  In fact, even with the sister company shield in place, Rock the Vote still violates its tax-exemption restrictions overtly and often.  Which brings us back to the “F the Vote” health care video.

According to the RTV blog, Support for Health Care Reform is Nonpartisan.  The trouble is – No it’s not, at least not if health-care reform in any way implies the specific legislation currently being considered in the Congress.  Consider this graphic from the homepage (the day I wrote this):

Is it an historic step if it does not pass?  This graphic clearly encourages young voters to get in the game to help push the current resolutions, which have passed the House (Step 1) with exactly one out of two hundred two Republicans supporting it, and which passed the Senate (step 2) with exactly zero out of forty Republicans supporting it. If only one out of two-hundred forty-two members of one party vote for something, and you are encouraging action to ensure its passage, you are clearly opposed to the position of one party (read: Partisan).

According to the IRS:

In general, no organization may qualify for section 501(c)(3) status if a substantial part of its activities is attempting to influence legislation (commonly known as lobbying).

What exactly constitutes lobbying?

An organization will be regarded as attempting to influence legislation if it contacts, or urges the public to contact, members or employees of a legislative body for the purpose of proposing, supporting, or opposing legislation, or if the organization advocates the adoption or rejection of legislation.

According to Rock the Vote’s own blog, the purpose of the “F the Vote” video was just that:

The video updates the old “call your Congressman” adage in a funny, provocative, and attention-grabbing way. The video, which seems to have done its job of getting attention, then acts as a bridge to the sections of our website where you can get serious information on what is at stake, what is in the current bills, how the process works, and how to take real action.

How does RTV suggest taking real action?   Click the link and it will take you to a page featuring this graphic:

Of course, I am no lawyer, but that seems like a pretty clear violation of the prohibition against urging the public to contact congress in favor of a bill.  The same page calls on voters to sign the “Yes we Care” pledge.  As political slogans go, “Yes we Care” sounds a bit derivative, but I can’t quite put my finger on what exactly.  I’m sure it isn’t meant in any way to favor one candidate or party over any other since the IRS states that:

… Voter education or registration activities with evidence of bias that (a) would favor one candidate over another; (b) oppose a candidate in some manner; or (c) have the effect of favoring a candidate or group of candidates, will constitute prohibited participation or intervention.

At every turn, Rock the Vote makes clear whose side they are on. Refer back to that video they asked Funny or Die to make and gave them permission to use their logo on.  Says the actress:

“Maybe some creep who thinks death panels are real is hitting on you.  He’s lying to you.  You can rock the vote by lying right back!”

Since ‘death panels’ is a term popularized by Sarah Palin, recent Republican candidate for Vice President, and since Republican legislators raised it on the floor of the United States Congress, it seems pretty clear that calling people liars who believe in them is a decidedly partisan assertion.

In the end, the entire term, “Rock the Vote,” is used by RTV as code for “Advance Liberalism.”  Take the first line of “F the Vote:”

“Good Job, young America, you Rocked the vote!”

How did young America Rock the Vote?  Again, to the RTV website:

Rock the Vote ran the largest youth voter registration drive in history in 2008. 

2.6 million people completed registrations [through RTV].

But to what end did they do this?  A nonpartisan end?  Says RTV, on a page titled 2008 Accomplishments:

The power of young voters made headlines from the Iowa caucuses to Election Day in November, as a force that propelled Barack Obama to the presidency.

There is a check mark beside this fact, clearly marking the election of Barack Obama to the presidency as an accomplishment of Rock the Vote.  Again, according to the IRS:

Under the Internal Revenue Code, all section 501(c)(3) organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office. 

… Violating this prohibition may result in denial or revocation of tax-exempt status and the imposition of certain excise taxes.

And yet, Rock the Vote continues to function with impunity, wantonly violating at a minimum the spirit, and apparently even the letter of US tax law.  They do so while reaching millions of young voters with their progressive message and placing their curriculum in our public schools, all the while aided by corporate donations from businesses where we all spend our money because of the tax-exempt status they flaunt.

Maybe the IRS just doesn’t speak Texan.

Subtlety is necessary if a federal agency intends to incite activists to take action on the hot issues of the moment. This approach is what we see when we look at the most recent documents acquired by a Freedom of Information Act  (FOIA) request of the controversial August 10th conference call.

President Obama with Former NEA Communication Director Yosi Sergant

Readers of Big Hollywood may recall an article published in late August entitled “National Endowment for the Art of Persuasion?” that described an August 10th conference call organized by the White House, the NEA, and the Corporation for National and Community Service. As stated during the conference call, the goal was to bring together a group of pro-Obama artists to push the President and his agenda, with United We Serve as the first proposed effort. During the call, Yosi Sergant, then Communications Director for the NEA, encouraged artists to create art on the vehemently debated issues of health care, energy, and the environment. 

In the newly obtained documents, Nell Abernathy, a representative of The Corporation, is shown providing the handpicked moderator a list of “concrete asks” to be emailed to the call participants following the conference call. The first concrete ask in the document [document 1] included volunteering on issues that were closely related to legislation being vehemently debated nationally:

“Serve in your community. You are probably already working to improve health care or green a neighborhood. Reach out to friends, colleagues and fans to serve with you. Ask five to pledge to serve with you.”  

Health Care Reform and Cap-and-Trade legislation were both being intensely debated in Congress in August, causing town hall meetings at the time to go nuclear over the proposed health-care legislation. Democrats were widely viewed as losing the debate. Asking a stacked group of pro-Obama art activists to address these issues could only lead to policy advocacy – and it did, as we have shown (here & here).

The new documents also show that other efforts were underway. In response [document 2] to the “concrete asks” document, an artist that participated in the call sent the following (emphasis added):

“We’ve been doing a lot of brainstorming about how we can add our skillset to this effort, and here are some of our thoughts…Making prints that subtly encourage the progressive agenda. Health care, Employee free choice, immigration, energy conservation, etc.”

This is the type of propaganda art that Big Hollywood helped stop by publishing the article. The response was sent by a talented print designer (Tugboat Printshops) prior to, but on the same day that, the article was published.

In addition to this email, other documents [documents 4] show that multiple events were in the planning phase leading up to the publication of the article – however all dialogue was abruptly halted the day after its publication. The events revealed in the FOIA documents include a Los Angeles event with hip-hop and indie-rock artists, and a film-screening event with on-air promotions led by Al Gore’s Current TV.

In addition to terminating discussions on these events, the article also halted the NEA’s involvement in another conference call scheduled for August 27th and moderated by Americans for the Arts, a NEA grant recipient. In an email [document 3] dated August 26th, Sergant stated:

“in light of the current situation…I am reviewing the current situation with my team and may or may not be able to participate in the upcoming [United We Serve] call. I will let you know shortly.”

The NEA ultimately did not participate on the conference call due to the article, a fact that was correctly guessed by Lee Rosenbaum, a participant on the August 27th call. One can only wonder how different that call may have been had the NEA participated.

Ultimately Sergant was forced to resign from his post at the NEA and the White House issued conduct guidelines to address the “appearance” issues of the call. However the White House and the NEA both claimed that no laws were violated in this effort.

The obvious question is – if the NEA, the Corporation, and the White House weren’t doing anything wrong, why did this activity abruptly stop?

On August 25th 2009, Big Hollywood’s Patrick Courrielche broke the story of a conference call he attended with other “rising artist and art community luminaries”:

On Thursday August 6th, I was invited by the National Endowment for the Arts to attend a conference call scheduled for Monday August 10th hosted by the NEA, the White House Office of Public Engagement, and United We Serve. The call would include “a group of artists, producers, promoters, organizers, influencers, marketers, taste-makers, leaders or just plain cool people to join together and work together to promote a more civically engaged America and celebrate how the arts can be used for a positive change!” 

The email invite came directly from Yosi Sergant, then-Director of Communications at the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), and it advised this hand-picked group that the call was about laying “a new foundation for growth, focusing on core areas of the recovery agenda – health care, energy and environment, safety and security, education, community renewal.” 

Courrielche describes the call this way:

Backed by the full weight of President Barack Obama’s call to service and the institutional weight of the NEA, the conference call was billed as an opportunity for those in the art community to inspire service in four key categories, and at the top of the list were “health care” and “energy and environment.” The service was to be attached to the President’s United We Serve campaign, a nationwide federal initiative 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. I decided to call in, and what I heard concerned me. 

Within 48 hours of this phone call, 21 arts organizations endorsed President Obama’s health-care reform plan. Within days, Rock the Vote started an all out blitz that included a “health care design contest.” 

The NEA’s Yosi Sergant

On August 27th, two days after Courrielche’s piece published on Big Hollywood, the Washington Times picked up on the story, contacted Sergant and asked him about the call. Sergant claimed to be only a “participant in a call” and then lied outright claiming the conference call email invites were sent by a “third party,” not the NEA.

Courrielche’s  August 31st follow-up piece, which included copies of Sergant’s email invite, proved the complete opposite was true.

The next day, September 1st, the Washington Times posted copies of Sergant’s invites from Courrielche’s Big Hollywood piece along with their own transcript of Sergant denying he sent the invites. They titled their piece: “Official Dishonesty From the NEA.”

On September 6th, columnist George Will brought the story into the mainstream media when, on “This Week,” he wondered aloud  just how many laws the August 10th conference call had broken.

On September 10th, the Washington Times followed the money trail and published the explosive news that of the 21 arts organizations who endorsed President Obama’s health care reform plan…

“…16 of the groups and affiliated organizations received nearly $2 million in grants from the National Endowment for the Arts in the 150 days before the conference call. According to a Washington Times analysis of NEA records, more than $1 million of that total came from the stimulus package.

September 10th was a rough day for the NEA. The same day the troubling money trail was revealed, Yosi Sergant was “reassigned.” The NEA has yet to explain why Sergant was “reassigned.”  This is the only statement they released:

“On August tenth, the National Endowment for the Arts participated in a call with arts organizations to inform them of the president’s call to national service. The White House office of public engagement also participated in the call, which provided information on how the Corporation for National and Community Service can assist groups interested in sponsoring service projects or having their members volunteer on other projects. This call was not a means to promote any legislative agenda and any suggestions to that end are simply false. The NEA regularly does outreach to various organizations to inform of the work we are doing and the resources available to them.”

That same day, the Washington Times looked at this statement, looked at the evidence, and declared “The NEA Lies Again.”

Patrick Courrielche, who was a participant on the call, agrees:

It just goes against my core beliefs to sit quietly while the art community is used by the NEA and the administration to push an agenda other than the one for which it was created. It is not within the National Endowment for the Arts’ original charter to initiate, organize, and tap into the art community to help bring awareness to health care, or energy & environmental issues for that matter; and especially not at a time when it is being vehemently debated. Artists shouldn’t be used as tools of the state to help create a climate amenable to their positions, which is what appears to be happening in this instance. If the art community wants to tackle those issues on its own then fine. But tackling them shouldn’t come as an encouragement from the NEA to those they potentially fund at this coincidental time. 

In his September 18th Washington Post column, George Will sides with Courrielche: 

“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. …

“[T]he Obama administration is tightening the cinch on subsidized artists, conscripting them into the crusade to further politicize the 17 percent of the economy that is health care.

That Obama administration officials would make even tacit suggestions about potential artistic output to a collection of federal grant recipients is, itself, troubling. That these suggestions matched-up with very specific and time-sensitive legislative priorities should give us all pause.

Buffy Wicks

But, there is even a larger issue that hasn’t yet received much attention in the press. Among the Obama Administration officials on the call were Buffy Wicks, Office of Public Engagement and the lead White House official on the President’s Serve.Gov initiative to promote national service. Also on the call was Nell Abernathy, Director of Outreach for Serve.Gov. One of their main goals on the call, it seems, was to encourage artists to produce works that would reinforce the President’s call for service; specifically through the Serve.Gov web-portal.

As Dana Loesch recently reported at Big Government, the Serve.Gov portal funnels citizens to volunteer or service projects connected with ACORN and other leftist groups. The taxpayer-funded website is evolving into a cyber-recruitment tool for the progressive movement.

So what did happen on that call? Was the NEA coordinating with the White House to push their agenda on a group of artists eager for and reliant upon the NEA for grants, or is the NEA telling the truth that this call “was not a means to promote any legislative agenda”?

Tomorrow at noon ET, explosive new information will answer that question and raise many others.

Sometime between when I finished the critique and when it went live online, 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.” 

Now admittedly, I’m a skeptic of BIG government. In my view, power tends to overreach whenever given the opportunity. It’s a law of human nature that has very few exceptions. That said, it felt to me that by providing issues as a cynosure for inspiration to a handpicked arts group – a group that played a key role in the President’s election as mentioned throughout the conference call – 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. Could the National Endowment for the Arts be looking to the art community to create an environment amenable to the administration’s positions? 

Before arguing why I see this as a gross overreach of the National Endowment for the Arts and its mission, a brief background on the conference call is needed. 

On Thursday August 6th, I was invited by the National Endowment for the Arts to attend a conference call scheduled for Monday August 10th hosted by the NEA, the White House Office of Public Engagement, and United We Serve. The call would include “a group of artists, producers, promoters, organizers, influencers, marketers, taste-makers, leaders or just plain cool people to join together and work together to promote a more civically engaged America and celebrate how the arts can be used for a positive change!” 

I learned after the conference call that there were approximately 75 people participating, including many well respected street-artists, filmmakers, art galleries, music venues, musicians and music producers, writers, poets, actors, independent media outlets, marketers, and various other professionals from the creative community. I suppose I was invited because of my work in creating arts initiatives, but being a former employer of the NEA’s Director of Communications was probably a factor as well. 

Backed by the full weight of President Barack Obama’s call to service and the institutional weight of the NEA, the conference call was billed as an opportunity for those in the art community to inspire service in four key categories, and at the top of the list were “health care” and “energy and environment.” The service was to be attached to the President’s United We Serve campaign, a nationwide federal initiative 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. I decided to call in, and what I heard concerned me. 

The people running the conference call and rallying the group to get active on these issues were Yosi Sergant, the Director of Communications for the National Endowment for the Arts; Buffy Wicks, Deputy Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement; Nell Abernathy, Director of Outreach for United We Serve; Thomas Bates, Vice President of Civic Engagement for Rock the Vote; and Michael Skolnik, Political Director for Russell Simmons. 

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. The now famous Obama “Hope” poster, created by artist Shepard Fairey and promoted by many of those on the phone call, and will.i.am’s “Yes We Can” song and music video were presented as shining examples of our group’s clear role in the election. 

Obama has a strong arts agenda, we were told, and has been very supportive of both using and supporting the arts in creative ways to talk about the issues facing the country. We were “selected for a reason,” they told us. We had played a key role in the election and now Obama was putting out the call of service to help create change. We knew “how to make a stink,” and were encouraged to do so. 

Throughout the conversation my inner dialogue was firing away questions so fast that the NRA would’ve been envious. Is this truly the role of the NEA? Is building a message distribution network, for matters other than increasing access to the arts and arts education, the role of the National Endowment for the Arts? Is providing the art community issues to address, especially those that are currently being vehemently debated nationally, a legitimate role for the NEA? I found it highly unlikely that this was in their original charter, so I checked. 

The NEA published a book entitled National Endowment for the Arts: A History 1965-2008 early this year. Combing through the 40+ year history of the NEA, I could not find a single instance of the agency creating or supporting a national initiative that encouraged the art community to address current issues under contentious debate. 

The NEA was created by the Congress of the United States and President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965 as “a public agency dedicated to supporting excellence in the arts, both new and established; bringing the arts to all Americans; and providing leadership in arts education.”  The issue of health care is curiously absent from this description on their website. 

So I’d like to start a little debate and ask you, the reader, the same question. Do you think it is the place of the NEA to encourage the art community to address issues currently under legislative consideration? 

And before answering, let me give you my take. 

The NEA is the nation’s largest annual funder of the arts. That is right, the largest funder of the arts in the nation – a fact that I’m sure was not lost on those that were on the call, including myself. One of the NEA’s major functions is providing grants to artists and arts organizations. The NEA has also historically shown the ability to attract “matching funds” for the art projects and foundations that they select. So we have the nation’s largest arts funder, which is a federal agency staffed by the administration, with those that they potentially fund together on a conference call discussing taking action on issues under vigorous national debate. Does there appear to be any potential for conflict here?   

Discussed throughout the conference call was a hope that this group would be one that would carry on past the United We Serve campaign to support the President’s initiatives and those issues for which the group was passionate. The making of a machine appeared to be in its infancy, initiated by the NEA, to corral artists to address specific issues. This function was not the original intention for creating the National Endowment for the Arts. 

A machine that the NEA helped to create could potentially be wielded by the state to push policy. Through providing guidelines to the art community on what topics to discuss and providing them a step-by-step instruction to apply their art form to these issues, the “nation’s largest annual funder of the arts” is attempting to direct imagery, songs, films, and literature that could create the illusion of a national consensus. This is what Noam Chomsky calls “manufacturing consent.” 

Now, if you are for the issues being pursued by the current administration, you may be inclined to think favorably of what I am labeling “overreach.” What a powerful weapon to fight those that are opposed to our ideas, you may think. For those in this camp I ask you this – will you feel the same when the opposition has access to the same machine? If history is any indication, the pendulum swings both ways. Is persuasion what the originators envisioned when they brought the legislation that created the NEA to the floor of Congress? 

As a member of the art community for the past 14 years, I raise these questions only after careful consideration. Many of those on the call are from my hometown. My position here should not be construed as a personal attack on the call participants. Many of those on the call worked tirelessly on the Obama campaign and are proud of their victory. They look at this as an opportunity to be involved directly with the White House, which is an exciting prospect to many in the art world whose experience with the government may be limited to paying taxes and voting. 

But the art community must put this excitement aside and ask itself about the proper role of government agencies created to promote the arts.  And if put in the wrong hands, could a message machine built by the NEA be used in a nefarious manner not currently foreseeable? 

In an attempt to recapture the excitement and enthusiasm of the campaign the organizers of this conference call have entered murky waters, a strait that the NEA cannot afford to swim. Previously shackled with the controversy over the Serrano and Mapplethorpe images of 1989 that escalated to a debate over its very existence, the NEA needs to stay far away from any questions of impropriety. 

There is no shortage of problems within the art community that the NEA could tackle. Museums across the country have been hit hard by the financial crisis. Their trusts and portfolios have seen massive declines. Donations, attendance, and memberships are down. Many have had to reduce exhibition hours due to staffing and budget reductions. And countless art galleries, the lifeblood and revenue stream for many artists, have closed or are on the brink of closure.  Rallying the art community around these issues seems a more appropriate use of its resources. 

I’m not a “right-wing nut job.” It just goes against my core beliefs to sit quietly while the art community is used by the NEA and the administration to push an agenda other than the one for which it was created. It is not within the National Endowment for the Arts’ original charter to initiate, organize, and tap into the art community to help bring awareness to health care, or energy & environmental issues for that matter; and especially not at a time when it is being vehemently debated. Artists shouldn’t be used as tools of the state to help create a climate amenable to their positions, which is what appears to be happening in this instance. If the art community wants to tackle those issues on its own then fine. But tackling them shouldn’t come as an encouragement from the NEA to those they potentially fund at this coincidental time. 

And if you think that my fear regarding the arts becoming a tool of the state is still unfounded, I leave you with a few statements made by the NEA to the art community participants on the conference call. “This is just the beginning. This is the first telephone call of a brand new conversation. We are just now learning how to really bring this community together to speak with the government. What that looks like legally?…bare with us as we learn the language so that we can speak to each other safely… “ 

Is the hair on your arms standing up yet?