When Arthur Miller wrote “The Crucible” it was rightly seen as a brilliant allegory to the House Un-American Activities Committee.  It was a brilliant piece of drama about the Salem Witch Trials of the late 17th Century with obvious corollaries to the political climate of post-World War II America.  And no matter where you fall on the political spectrum you must recognize the play as a classic in the canon of American drama.

My admiration for much of Miller’s work gives me enough confidence to say that he would view the current efforts to ham-handedly inject political statements into television sitcoms as absolute crap.  It takes a deft hand to send a message without it seeming like you are sending a message… and the writers of “The Office” and “30 Rock,” as glib as they may be, are no “Arthur Millers”.

I love “The Office.”  I’m one of those apostates who actually like the U.S. version better than the original (must be my knee-jerk patriotism at work).  But I saw my very first example of lousy (and I mean REALLY lousy) writing this season when they tried to force the issue of “Volunteer-ism” into the storyline.

–

And remember what genius came up with the idea for this storyline?  According to the memo revealed by Big Hollywood it was inspired by a call to action by the “most powerful writer since Julius Caesar.” And now, to paraphrase the words of a truly great leader…“well, here they go again.”

The left-wing flavor of the month is Green Week, on GE owned NBC.  We have already reported that our children have to suffer through “Sustainable Living” storylines on “Sesame Street” and now NBC is preaching to the parents how being green is easy.  Unfortunately, it’s probably not going to be too entertaining.

Maybe the AP description doesn’t do it justice, but this doesn’t sound very funny to me:

This year on “30 Rock,” corporate boss Jack Donaghy tells the late-night show’s staff it has to cut its carbon footprint by 5 percent, and puts Kenneth the Page in charge of getting it done.

In the comedy “Community,” the college is renamed “Environdale.” College students think they’re hiring the band Green Day for a gig, and instead gets the Celtic combo Greene Daeye. Dwight in “The Office” takes the role of “Recyclops” in that comedy. “Heroes” features cast members filling a truck with recyclables and talking about the importance of giving back to the earth.

If the end-product is anything like the embarrassing “Volunteer-ism” thread from “The Office” we might actually see a four-way Shark Jump that Evil Knievel would admire.

I know a lot of writers.  And they all have a rebellious streak.  They love marching to the beat of a different drummer.  In fact, one of the main themes of “30 Rock” is the constant battles between the Bohemian writers and the corporate demands from the network.  So, why in hell do they go for this stuff?  It’s probably because they believe it.

That’s why we rarely see a storyline on a crime drama where a gun owner prevents a crime and saves a life.  Or why we rarely see a storyline about a teen in trouble choosing to give her child up for adoption rather than be an un-wed mother or extinguish the nascent life she is carrying (although I have high hopes for “Glee” and the storyline they are pursuing).

And over on HBO, if you really think about the notorious scene where Larry David is relieving himself with offensive results.  Objectively speaking, wouldn’t it have been MUCH funnier if his assistant had been black and the urine splashed on a picture of President Obama and the assistant thought it was a divine miracle and began devoting her life to worshiping Barack?  It would have been funnier and it would have been a more contemporary comment on American Culture rather than a tired joke about Latino culture.  But, Larry David would never have thought in those terms because it’s not what he believes.

The biggest crime in all of this is that these stories will suffer due to this obnoxious attempt at preaching.  And the audiences’ enjoyment will suffer as well.  In the same way the audience is jarred out of their enjoyment of the musical “Wicked.”   The producers spent millions of dollars in costuming and special effects to transport the audience to the magical Land of Oz.  When the house falls on the Wicked Witch of the East in Act 2, the character of Glinda refers to it as “Regime Change.” It is supposed to be a laugh line.  But given the juxtaposition of Glinda in the story and her role as propagandist for the malevolent Wizard’s government, the majority of ticket holders who supported President Bush and the war in Iraq were sure to feel like they were being mocked from the stage.

If you’re Arthur Miller and you can tell me a story with great characters and great dialogue, I barely care that you’re criticizing the industrial war complex (“All My Sons“) or commenting on the post-war “American Dream” as a myth (“Death of a Salesman“).  Good writing is good writing and great entertainment is great entertainment.  Green Week on NBC, is doomed to be neither, so they should just stick with what they do best and leave the political propaganda to Valerie Jarrett.

Now VJ could have listed some of these false statements, but instead she barked a lazy “of course they’re biased”– a statement you’d expect from a pierced Greenpeace volunteer, not a White House adviser.

But let’s focus on what she really said:

She claims America doesn’t have time for such “distortions.” Replace “distortions” with “debate,” and you’ve got the real truth. The administration wanted to push health care reform like a hot knife through butter, but the public wised up and said, “hold on there, pal.” Jarrett also said Americans should be allowed to reach their own judgment – which is odd since it was the Dems, not Fox News, who were trying to preempt the conversation. I mean, let’s not also forget their take on the global warming debate: the debate is over! But you can bet when the debate does start over the climate change bill –VJ will blame Fox News for preventing the debate!

By starting it!

You follow?

Cuz I sure don’t!

Finally, there’s VJ’s description of their spat with Fox News as part of the White House’s strategy to “speak truth to power.” Okay, the last time I checked, in order to “speak truth to power,” the dynamic has to be the little guy vs. something hugely powerful. How hilarious is it that even when they’re in power, the left still wants to speak truth to power – which, theoretically, is them!

But if they’re so desperate to speak truth to power: here are some powers they can speak truth to (besides a cable news network): Iran, North Korea, Russia, George Soros. But I suppose speaking truth to those powers takes more balls than sniping at Fox News.

So much for the hyper-masculine environment of the Oval Office we’ve heard so much about. This isn’t a White House, it’s a dollhouse.

And if you disagree with me, then you’re probably racist.

Tonight we’ve got the awesome Mike Baker, the swell Ann Coulter and the charming Noelle Hancock – as well as Ambassador Bolton.

Want to know the Obama Administration’s idea of what constitutes art?  There’s no better place to look than the newly-reconstituted White House art collection.  So what’s there?  How about this gem:

Yes, it is boring and banal.  It does look like your three-year-old’s recent construction paper cut-out from pre-school – the one she made with the rounded scissors.  It’s Watusi (Hard Edge), by black painter Alma Thomas.

Now here’s Henri Matisse’s The Snail (1953).

Notice any similarities?  How about now:

That’s right.  It’s a direct copy of the Matisse picture rotated 90 degrees and the colors inverted.  What magnificent art.

Sort of reminiscent of the Shepherd Fairey plagiaristic “art” poster for Obama, ripped off directly from an AP photo:

But let’s not assume that all Obama’s art is this bad.  Let’s look at it.  How about this masterpiece by Ed Ruscha, appropriately entitled “I Think I’ll…”:

Isn’t that magnificent?  It certainly sums up Obama’s thinking process, which is based on considering all the options, then eating a cup of applesauce and taking a nap while waiting for mommy (read: Valerie Jarrett) to make a decision.

Or how about another Alma Thomas piece, “Sky Light,” which could more appropriately be titled “inverted ant races on your broken television set”:

Then there’s “Berkeley, No. 52,” by Richard Diebenkorn (1955), which aptly sums up how the world must have looked to Obama while attending a liberal college and doing cocaine:

And, in case we forgot that the Obama’s are black, the text of “Black Like Me” on a piece of canvas (Glenn Ligon’s “Black Like Me No. 2”):

It’s as though the Obamas decided to do a poll as to what Americans would least like to post in their living rooms, then adopted all the top choices, with special credit to black artists based on their race.  No doubt, Malia and Sasha will have an entire wing of the White House dedicated to their Play-Doh sculptures.  And the New York Times will praise their artistic flair.

In essence, the Obamas are elitists who think that the inscrutable is deep, and that the incompetent is profound.  Sadly, President Obama’s presidency is the same as his art: something that outsiders assume has substance, even in the absence of substance.

[Ed update: first two images are now in the correct order.]

There is no shame in artists receiving monetary compensation to sell ideas, products or a presidential agenda. When everything is transparent and contracted aboveboard, this is called advertising. When this process is whispered into being, strategized and set into motion from the shadows of government and from behind closed doors, it is propaganda.

From Sun Tzu to Psy Ops, propaganda has won wars, toppled cultures and changed civilizations. As a self-identified enlightened and educated culture, we  thought ourselves beyond such base manipulation. We were wrong.

Where were the voices of dissent on the NEA conference call when so called “artists” were asked to further the President’s agenda?

I have danced ballets and I have done commercials; one side art, the other side business. What side were the NEA recipients on?

Art for propaganda was an essential tool of Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse Tung. What the heck is it doing in the White House? This should outrage freethinkers, citizens and artists from every corner of America.

The National Endowment of the Arts strategy has been traced straight to Valerie Jarrett, President Obama’s policy facilitator and Grande Dame of his inner circle. As disturbing and possibly illegal as this is, it becomes truly frightening when you connect the rest of the dots:

1)      The Democrats repeated commitment to implement the Fairness Doctrine and destroy conservative talk radio.

2)      S.733: The bill that would give the President control over the internet in the event of an “emergency.”

3)      On Sept. 20, 2009, President Obama stated that he would look into bailouts for print newspapers because he is concerned that blogs will take over the world and be a threat to democracy.

Imagine that: the President of the United States is concerned free speech may be a threat to democracy. Is anybody paying attention?

Thomas Jefferson knew that a free press is essential to a free republic. Control the flow of information and you control the people. This hasn’t changed much since 1933.

Perhaps this is not as visually arresting as book burning, but the results are the same. Joseph Goebbels needed to ensure that the views of the Nazis were put forward in the most persuasive manner possible and make certain that no one in Germany could read or see anything that was damaging to the Nazi Party.

Is this that far removed from the news coverage of Honduras or the under-reporting of turnout for the 9/12 DC rally?

But I submit to you that these propaganda assaults will fail because they are lacking the one element critical to mission implementation: fear.

President Obama and his team are convinced that they are smarter than the average American citizen.  They don’t just say Middle Americans “cling to their Bibles and guns out of fear,” they truly believe it. This administration has banked on using fear to push stimulus packages, carbon taxes, bailouts and health care reform. That is their Waterloo.

Fear is not at the core of the American psyche; independence and patriotism are. And when enough Americans step back, take a breath and realize the extent of this manipulation, they awaken with a determination and that is truly frightening to those that would attempt to govern from the shadows.

The fear is now on the other foot.

The Muslim Brotherhood has long taught their operatives in the USA to attack their opponents with charges of “hate speech” and “racism” whenever they were called out to defend their positions in public. The Democrats have called out their big guns: congressmen, congresswomen and even an ex-President to do the same. Why would anyone do this if they were not “afraid” of an informed public debate?

It will not work this time. The sleeper has awakened and she sees the man behind the curtain.

Apathy can no longer be counted on as a tool for those who would seek to control the populace and erode the Constitution.

In this “Constitution Revolution,” the American people are not coming after you with guns or explosives; they are armed with truth, a desire for transparency, a desire for enlightened and informed public discourse, a demand for civic responsibility and a call to politicians to honor their oaths to the US Constitution.

 However, Obama is animated by seemingly crude gestures made powerful by his position.  He and his motivated White House staff, without explanation, used a black painted piece of plywood to cover up the letters IHS (Latin for “Jesus Savior of Men”) when he spoke at a Jesuit University (Georgetown), but while speaking abroad, our president deftly referred to the Koran as “ holy,” a descriptive primarily used by followers who believe in the Islamic faith. Why?

These choices are thoughtful, not thoughtless, and symbolic of current White House ideology. When Obama was simply a candidate, and not yet our chosen leader, he had already attempted to use a circular symbol suspiciously reminiscent of the presidential seal to signify that the prize was all but attained before the fact. It was adolescent pop psychology, symbolic and laughable, but a telling trait that should have warned us that we were dealing with a symbol-holic, and a degree of hubristic thinking that had danger written all over it. 

Human symbols are the glue for his “green” and very radical political testament. It’s humorous to listen to the apologists excuse the appointment of Van Jones as a failure of vetting procedures. Jones is a soul mate, not a soul mistake. He’s a beloved symbol and a disciple who habitually uses the required neo-com radical lingo.  Catch phrases such as “redistribution of wealth” or “redistributive justice” are the common symbolic logos of all of Barack’s brothers and sisters like Carol Browner, Cass Sunstein, John Holdren, and Valerie Jarrett.  

Manipulating words for symbolic effect is an important aspect of Barack’s background skills. He proclaimed September 11th “a national day of service and remembrance” … service first and remembrance second. Service is an unnecessary little addition to that horrible anniversary that we certainly did not need, but for it to precede remembrance in the spoken or written phrase is an affront to our national dignity. Can you imagine every news report mentioning Joe Biden first whenever referring to our national leadership? It would be demeaning to the president.

Obama symbolically and purposefully diminished the real meaning of that day, the remembrance part, for his egotistical linguistic and ideological needs.  In America we don’t have a problem with service, our problem is remembering certain truths that are self evident and remembering those who first enunciated those truths to the astonishment of the entire world.

Obama has traveled that world denigrating his own country wherever and whenever possible; bowing to a Saudi king and listening to communist Daniel Ortega savagely berate the US for an hour with nary a word offered in defense of the American people are just two examples. He also smiled warmly in the direction of Hugo Chavez, a porcine tub of human excrement who happens to be presently allied with holocaust deniers and killers of our men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan.  

If Obama treats his own country with such obvious disdain, can we really be surprised by the way he treats new Eastern European allies? Betraying them on the 70th anniversary of the Polish invasion was not a mistake any more than the gift of 25 dvd’s was a mistake. It was for Barack a perfect degree of respect! They will deny it, but reneging on our missile treaty agreement on this specific historical date will always remind us of the harm done to our new relationships,  and of those who so arrogantly chose to abuse symbolic remembrance.

Do you remember that NEA phone call? I think it was back in August, the 21st or the 25th, and it featured basically a coordination from the White House to the National Endowment for the Arts to promote Obama’s health care and parts of his domestic agenda. One of the artists on that call got hold of Breitbart and said they’re turning the National Endowment for the Arts and www.Serve.gov, the latest website out of the White House, into political instruments, and there are four pieces written on this at BigGovernment.com. But all it really exposes up ’til now is that the NEA was lying about their coordination with the Obama White House on spreading propaganda. This is the thing that George Will had a comment on This Week, said some laws were broken in this call. Then after some attention was focused on this they announced that the National Endowment for the Arts director of communications Yosi Sargent had been reassigned. They said he was fired but he was actually just reassigned. (more…)

At the very beginning of the call, the general ‘moderator’ of the call, Michael Skolnik, political director for Hip-Hop mogul Russell Simmons, explains the genesis of the call:

I have been asked by people in the White House and folks in the NEA about a month ago in a conversation that was had. We had the idea that I would help bring together the independent artists community around the country.

This is important, because in the immediate aftermath of the breaking story, the NEA has tried to state that a ‘third party’ organized the call. This clearly isn’t true. The e-mail invitation to the call was sent from Mr. Sargent’s government-provided NEA e-mail address. In addition, as the transcript reveals, Mr. Sloknik was “asked” by the White House and NEA to organize the call.

(more…)

]]> http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/mikeflynn/2009/09/21/taxpayer-funded-propaganda-the-abcs-of-the-nea-conference-call/feed/ 0 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/aspades/2009/03/18/obama-appoints-minister-of-culture/ http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/aspades/2009/03/18/obama-appoints-minister-of-culture/#comments Wed, 18 Mar 2009 14:47:15 +0000 Ace of Spades http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/?p=82638

Meet Obama’s new Culture Warrior:

President Barack Obama has established a staff position in the White House to oversee arts and culture in the Office of Public Liaison and Intergovernmental Affairs under Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser, a White House official confirmed. Kareem Dale, right, a lawyer who last month was named special assistant to the president for disability policy, will hold the new position.

“It’s a big step forward in terms of connecting cultural and government with mainstream administration policy,” Mr. Ivey said in an interview on Friday. …

 Mr. Ivey, a former chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, said he expected that the job would mainly involve coordinating the activities of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute of Museum and Library Services “in relation to White House objectives.” 

Okay, where to begin?

1. Yet another distraction for our overwhelmed president.

2. It’s creepy.

3. It’s unnecessary. Our “culture” already is falling over itself to connect with “mainstream administration policy.”  How much adulation from the media does our Narcissist in Chief need? He’s got all the free adulation in the world; now he feels the need for a post crafted specifically to handmaiden more of it?

4. Did I mention it’s creepy? He just admitted that his goal was not to advance “culture” itself — already a dubious proposition — but was in fact, specifically, “a big step forward in terms of connecting cultural and government with mainstream administration policy.” He just announced, in other words, his point was to be a propagandist, to inject “mainstream administration policy” into our “culture.” Like the government-sponsored artists of the 30’s, apparently our new “culture” will be in service not of art but in propagandizing the Obama Administration. 

Add another one to the ever-growing What If Bush Had Done It? file. 

There was a hue and cry over a Clinton era (and Bush era) government program to subsidize TV shows which carried anti-drug messages. Even that was considered a breech and improper marriage of government and media. (I have to say I’m uncomfortable with the precedent myself — look where it’s gone.) 

And now Obama’s Minister of Culture is going to connect “culture” with “mainstream administration policy,” and the NYT welcomes it as if it’s a positive development? 

Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me?