The most linked-to and referenced defense came from Ben Davis at the well-respected artnet Magazine.  After spending many paragraphs attacking Patrick and questioning the nefarious motives behind his unforgiveable act of betrayal (I’m not referring to Patrick recording the conference call, the real betrayal was Patrick appearing on “The Glenn Beck Show”), Davis goes on to repeat the Obama talking point:

This notorious conference call, in other words, was essentially a pitch for artists to make glorified PSAs about volunteer work. As far as I can tell, the truth is exactly the opposite of the ominous attempt to yoke artists to the Obama Agenda that critics suggest; if anything, the call was an effort to take the inspiration for radical change that led many creative types to vote for Obama and channel it into low-level, local activism.

This article has been rallied behind and taken as the final word on the subject as far as the left-wing blog world is concerned.  Only problem:  it’s spin and obfuscation.  First, through the Freedom of Information aAct, Courrielche further proved that artists responded to the call with tangible, policy-oriented ideas that went way beyond a call for volunteer work.

And now, after four months, we see some real, tangible propaganda.  Enter Justin Kemerling.

Earlier this week Big Hollywood exposed the tangled web of left-wing blogs and political agitation groups controlled by Hollywood producer Jane Hamsher.  ”Hollywood” Jane Hamsher used her considerable clout within the Hollywood Left mafia family to pressure celebs from supporting Susan G. Komen for the cure as long as they continue to retain Hadassah Lieberman (or, I suppose for as long as Haddasah retains Sen. Joe Lieberman as her husband).

While investigating one of Hamsher’s many left-wing confrontation pages, Public Option Please, we discovered that people who donate to the cause and become members of the movement receive free art work (a button or a poster) designed by pop artist, Justin Kemerling.

Kemerling was on the conference call that day with Patrick Courrielche.  He heard the same things Patrick heard.  Within weeks of the call, he designed this neat little button for Hamsher’s Public Option Please campaign:

He also designed this poster for Hamsher:

And these stickers:

I know that our friends from the left in the art world recoil and get defensive when accused of creating propaganda, but look at these designs…. What would YOU call them?  Propaganda is a form of communication aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position. Seriously, what do YOU call this stuff?

Kemerling created propaganda.  He created the propaganda exactly the way the NEA and White House requested him to on the August 10^th conference call.  “Public Option Please” was launched on October 8^th, so the propaganda Kemmerling made was done about a month after the NEA and White House told him to.

So Kemerling is a left-wing artist located in Nebraska and Hamsher is a Hollywood Producer/Activist now located in Virginia.  How do these two star-crossed lefties hook up to create the “Propoganda Opportunity”?

Enter Yosi Sergant.

Remember Yosi?  After he took the fall for the NEA conference call (even though it was really pushed by the White House Office of Public Engagement, right Yosi?  Come on, you can tell us…) Yosi laid low for a while.  We hadn’t heard from him or about where he ended up employed.  And then, we saw this article in the Washington Post announcing an art contest for Jane Hamsher’s Public Option Please.  (BTW:  Notice how the winning artistic design put a symbolic heart of our country right smack in the middle of Washington DC?  These people really do think that Government is the heart of our country).

At the end of the article Hamsher reveals a key fact:

You can vote for your favorite on the group’s Web site, though the winner will be picked by a panel of judges including Arianna Huffington, Margaret Cho and Jesse Dylan.  Hey, why not Yosi Sergant (the publicist behind “Hope,” who resigned his NEA job after a conference call in which he exhorted artists to support the Obama agenda)?   “He’s been advising us,” Hamsher said.

Well there you go.  Looks like Yosi landed on his feet and scored a cool little consulting gig for the woman who promulgated a picture of Joe Lieberman in “Sambo Blackface” and is shaming Hollywood celebs into dropping their support for a breast cancer charity until the charity dumps Hadassah Lieberman.

So let’s connect a few dots, shall we?  Yosi knows Kemerling.  Yosi coordinates a conference call that Kemerling is on.  As Director of Communications for the National Endowmant for the Arts, Yosi encourages Kemerling 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… And then my ask would be to apply artistic, you know, your artistic creative communities utilities and bring them to the table.”  Within weeks of Yosi’s “resignation” Hamsher launches Public Option Now and focuses the fundraising campaign around Kemerling’s art.

Many will contend that there is no link between the conference call and this propaganda.  And that Kemmerling has a history of supporting left-wing causes through his art; he would have done these posters without White House encouragement.  Those who hold this position are probably right, actually.  But the fact that I can so easily reach the conclusion that Kemerling was motivated and inspired by Yosi Sergant and Buffy Wicks call to action is exactly the reason why the conference calls and the policy behind them should never have been made.  And, it is exactly the reason why Yosi Sergant no longer works for the NEA.

I would love to hear Ben Davis’ honest reaction to this article.  I wonder if he would honestly and openly re-visit the subject and if he would be tolerant enough to recognize that there are many people (many, Ben) in the art world who disagree with him on this subject and just about every social and political view that he holds.  I doubt it, given this passage from the same article:

Of course, there are all types in the art world, but in general, it is a cosmopolitan group; urban, educated and tolerant. Not really the Sarah Palin crowd. You have to defend the art world’s right to be what it is.

Yeah, that’s some impressive tolerance on display, Ben.  Aren’t you even a little bit hesitant to speak for the entire art world in such a way?  Can you find any room in your oh-so-tolerant world view to grasp the idea that you have many colleagues who actually like and respect Sarah Palin, but because of your totalitarian methods of politically correct manipulation of thought, they would never tell you?  Isn’t it possible, given your refusal to acknowledge the obvious reasons why Sergant was fired and your ability to call Sarah Palin supporters (about half of our country) as the antithesis of tolerant, educated and cosmopolitan, that YOU Mr. Davis are the intolerant, un-educated, parochial, mind-numbed, knee-jerk reactionary?

It’s true — U.S. government demand for art and art-like products has never been higher! Uncle Sam and the good folks at the National Endowment for the Arts are on the lookout for go-getting, obedient artists like you for a fast-paced career in state propaganda. With the quick and easy Federal Art Instruction Institute course, now you too can get a first class ticket on the federal art gravy train!

Tell Me More!

From heath care to the economy to the environment, Washington has become infested with pesky state enemies who are clogging up the legislative pipeline and making life miserable for our cool, art-loving president. That’s why he has ordered the NEA to fund obsequious bohemians to help him exterminate the competition and drive traffic to his hip new website Servile.gov. The Federal Art Instruction Institute will show you how to get off funemployment and on the payroll of this exciting $3.6 trillion growth industry!

How can the Federal Art Instruction Institute help me?

Unlike traditional art schools, the Federal Art Instruction Institute doesn’t waste your time on boring Post-Modernist theory, messy bodily fluids, or painful self mutilation. With our easy-to-learn program you will quickly learn how to channel your natural artistic ability and suburban self-loathing at state enemies who, when you think about it, are a lot like your parents.

Can you draw triangles? The Federal Art Instruction Institute will show you the easy way to turn them into Ku Klux Klan hoods. Turn them upside down and they become scary vampire fangs! Even a simple black rectangle can become a Hitler mustache with our easy to learn methods.

Our award winning studio instructors includes some of the top young professional kowtowers, bumnuzzlers and bootlicks working in the government art field today — people like Buffy Wicks, Yosi Sergant and Michael Skolnik. They will keep you up to date on all the hot new policy trends and enemy lists, and what your patrons at the NEA need you to do about it. Using tried and true traditional art techniques from Cuba, Germany and central Asia, they will teach you how to pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it — for big cash prizes!   

I’m skeptical. Do you have previous success stories?

And how! Just read these testimonials from FAII graduates:

“I made over $1 million in my first year, and all I had to do was obey! Thanks, Federal Art Instruction Institute!”
– S. Fairey, Los Angeles, Calif.

“As a cutting edge visual artist, I had a natural aptitude for political servility and blind hatred. The Federal Art Instruction Institute showed me how to turn it into a solid government career with great benefits!”
– J. Greenberg, New York, N.Y.

“The Federal Art Instruction Institute showed us how to win big government contracts for our failing business. This program was a lifesaver!”
–The two hipster assholes from SaraPalinIsAC**tTShirts.com

But I can’t draw. Can I still take advantage of this exciting program?

No problem! Thanks to new NEA guidelines, anybody can be an artist! Are you a musician? filmmaker? Web designer? Guerrilla marketer? Graffiti tagger? HopCore ElectroChill DJ? Freelance vandal? Whatever your mode of expressive behavior the NEA has a sweet load of grant money waiting — and qualifying has never been easier!  Do you have –

• an ironic trucker hat?
• ironic facial hair?
• ironic douchebag glasses?
• a vocabulary that includes “bringing utilities” and “mindspace”?
• deep insecurities about your place in the art world hipster food chain?
• a slavish desire to do the bidding of your government?
• no idea what “ironic” really means?

Can you –

• Follow orders?
• Take a hint?
• Maintain plausible deniability?
• Keep your mouth shut?

Then you just might qualify as a student in one of FAII’s prestigious secret conference call classrooms! 

Sounds too good to be true! What’s the catch?

No catch, but enrollment is limited. So don’t delay, write today for your free talent and obedience test and see if you have what it takes to be a professional in the new art capital of the world — Washington, D.C.!

Remember — The U.S. Art-my Wants You! 

When did artists in this country decide it was a good idea to take marching orders from the government? Did I just wake up in some third-world country from a long sleep or am I having a nightmare where I go back in time to Mao’s China, Stalin’s Russian or Hitler’s Germany? No such luck — this is actually happening here and now and some of you artists are too stupid to figure out you’re being had. Wake the $%@# up! Always question the powers that be! The only “change” that has taken place are the faces in high places. Politicians have an agenda-first, last and always — but make no mistake — these guys are worse, much worse!

Today’s liberals are the art community! From galleries, curators, critics, authors, film makers, musicians, actors, bloggers, magazines, publishers, collectors, directors of art institutions, museums and alternative art spaces to the artists themselves-most are already in lock step with the liberal ideology that has been a long standing tradition. That’s why the conference call between the White House, the NEA and the other artists was an easy call to make … literally. They invited Patrick Courrielche to sit in on the call — too bad for them but great for those of us who care.

In Hollywood, actors and others learn to keep their conservative opinions to themselves if they want to work-I get that! It’s the same thing with conservative visual artists like myself, no matter where we live. That’s why I put out my A Call To Artists video. I wanted to let my fellow artists know they are not alone. What I don’t get is how so many of these artists can be so easily swayed? Are artists truly as talented and intellectual as we have been led to believe or are we the recipients of our own praise and largess at the expense of the little guy we pretend to respect and care for so much? Who is pulling the strings? How many hoops do you have to jump through before you begin to understand that you are not an artist if you are not free to express yourself as you see fit. The artist formally known as Prince understood that and made his choice. I like his art/his music-but right now I really admire his stand.

I known first hand about wrongly being labeled and how much more difficult that makes it to earn a living. I also know what it’s like to be shunned by my peers. What I don’t get are the conservative artists who have had great success and are still hiding in the shadows. How much more money, fame, success do you need to feel safe enough to speak up and what does that say about the state of fear we already live in? What are you afraid of and where are your priorities? Here I must thank Mr. Jon Voight for having the courage to speak out. You, sir, are a man!

Have established artists not figured out that if you don’t speak out and stand up for your rights now you can kiss your freedoms goodbye, along with everything you have earned and worked for your entire life? And don’t worry about who gets what when you’ve passed on. At this rate it will belong entirely to the state. Hell, a lot of it already does!

How much more proof do you need to believe that this has been going on for a long time now — this current administration has just shifted to light speed! They’ve been watching, listening, studying and learning, especially from their mistakes. They have been patient and are now fully entrenched. They believe this is their moment and that they cannot let it get away — so anything goes!

 This is not a sparring session, this is the championship bout, the final round — winner take all and “We The People” better come out swinging!!!

But while this great cinematography would make a great scientific outing for you and your kids, you’ll have to outfit them with heavy duty earplugs or enroll them in a deprogramming seminar, afterward.  That’s because narrator Jim Carrey (yup, that guy) repeatedly hits you over the head about how we  humans are destroying the underworld (no, not that underworld) and the fish and other wildlife that live there.  (No mention, though, of how Carrey and girlfriend Jenny McCarthy repeatedly “global warm” with their private jets and heavy lighting and energy use on movies.) 

Yes, just as they did in “Arctic Tale’s” child abuse, your kids are once again told that they and their parents are killing the cute and cuddly sea lions.  It’s like they  used the same template and did a summer version of “Arctic Tale.”  Gee, I wonder how many sea lions Jim Carrey killed with his energy use in making “Yes Man.”  Under the Hypocrisy 3D.

Since the movie is only 40 minutes long and has lots of great 3D stuff going on, it’s ideal for antsy kids and antsy adults (like me).  But do  you really want to subject your kids to a repeated global warming propaganda 2×4 hit over the head?  And, by the way, the trailer lies to potential viewers, without any inkling of the global warming fine whine throughout.

It’s a tough decision.

Check out my reviews of this weekend’s other new movies.  The best thing about the dull “The International” is when a shoot-out destroys most of the interior of the Guggenheim.  I love seeing modern (phony) art destroyed.  And read about my experience confronting the moron “parents” who took their young kids to see “Friday the 13th”–more graphic, explicitly sexual, and horrid than the previous gore-fests of the same name.  Some might say these parents are prime targets for Jason.