In his first interview since resigning from the National Endowment for the Arts, Yosi Sergant blames both the White House and right-wing media for the NEA Propaganda Scandal, as the controversial August 10th conference call has come to be known.

The article, riddled with factual errors and omissions characteristic of a student and/or mainstream media, lays out a revisionist’s version of what happened behind the scenes of the scandal. During the interview, conducted by a journalism graduate student and admitted “close friend” of the former White House appointee, Sergant states that he was called to a meeting in the West Wing at the end of his four-month stint in the White House’s Office of Public Engagement. The White House, fully aware of his role as an art activist during Obama’s election campaign, offered Sergant two jobs. One was to continue at the White House, and the other was as the Communications Director of the National Endowment for the Arts. Sergant selected the NEA.

President Obama and Yosi Sergant

“I think [the West Wing] made a bad decision to put me in a job without giving me any kind of guidance, not providing me with any kind of mentorship,” said Sergant in the interview. He continued, “That was a bad decision. I’d never worked in government before.”

However the White House knew where Sergant’s expertise resided, and how he would potentially put it to use in an arts position. He was the promoter behind the now famous Obama Hope poster. Sergant indicated in the interview that he was given some direction by the White House in his new position at the NEA. “The idea was that Yosi would help pave the way for the new director’s arrival,” wrote Hillel Aron, referring to Rocco Landesman, incoming Chairman of the NEA. On paving the way, Sergant said, “I started working on things that I knew were happening, that I thought would be safe… and I was wrong.”  (more…)

The allegations raised in “White House Creates ACORN for the Arts” and prior stories about the NEA enlisting artists who receive government grants to support President Obama’s political goals certainly raise a number of issues.  Foremost among them is whether such actions violate White House policy and potentially federal law.  The White House Counsel was concerned enough about the conference call that it was compelled to issue new guidelines for public outreach meetings, noting that some of the comments on the call may have been “misunderstood as seeking to inappropriately politicize activities of the NEA.”  But beyond violating these White House guidelines, which could result in further forced resignations but little else, what is really at issue with the alleged conduct?

By seeking to enlist the private sector in lobbying for the President’s agenda, the alleged conduct may have violated the Anti-Lobbying Act (18 U.S.C. §1913), which as Ben Shapiro pointed out in a previous piece, explicitly provides:

No part of the money appropriated by any enactment of Congress shall, in the absence of express authorization by Congress, be used directly or indirectly to pay for any personal service, advertisement, telegram, telephone, letter, printed or written matter, or other device, intended or designed to influence in any manner a Member of Congress, a jurisdiction, or an official of any government, to favor, adopt, or oppose by vote or otherwise, any legislation, law, ratification, policy, or appropriation, whether before or after the introduction of any bill, measure or resolution proposing such legislation, law, ratification, policy or appropriation.

The Anti-Lobbying Act, according to government handbooks, prevents government employees from engaging in “substantial ‘grass roots’ lobbying campaigns … expressly urging individuals to contact government officials in support of or opposition to legislation …. Provid[ing] administrative support for lobbing activities of private organizations”

(more…)

The NEA apology from the White House is laughable, at best.  Again, if this was just all a big misunderstanding then why was a representative from one of the country’s largest political advertising firms involved?  And pushing the health care agenda on company time?

I believe the following information might help explain Bim Ayandele’s involvement.  Not only did he help set up the Office of Public Engagement, but before joining a division of one of the largest PR firms in the world — which specializes in “grassroots organization”, “issues management” and “crisis communications” — Ayandele:

served as the Director of Cures Now, a Los Angeles based non-profit organization leveraging a coalition of actors, directors, producers, musicians, and writers to promote the rapid, responsible and ethical advancement of science-related social issues, such as stem-cell research and diabetes awareness.

It seems Mr. Ayandele’s expertise is in “leveraging” the entertainment industry to “promote” health care related issues. A skill which would have been useful should, say, the White House or another interested third party wish to get NEA grant recipients to push President Obama’s health care agenda.

(more…)

“It may be the Devil, or it may be the Lord. But, you’re gonna have to serve somebody.” – Bob Dylan

“Rule #7: A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.” – Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals

For a presidential candidate to dispatch his agents of Change® to recruit artists & entertainers into his campaign is one thing. He understandably wished to avoid becoming old news. Heck, even radical activists get bored. So, to maintain their excitement and involvement, professional community organizers must constantly devise new tactics. And, as so many enjoy smugly reminding us all, “the ‘One’ won!”

Poli-end-zone-dances notwithstanding, for the President of the United States of America to use the power of his Office and the lure of his NEA’s favor, potential grant funds and the ideological “yes, we-can-change-the-world” Hope® & prestige for artists to create promotional propaganda for his Serve.gov & Corporation for National & Community Service partisan political agenda, produces an entirely different pattern and data set. (more…)

Today, Big Hollywood released a full audio recording and transcript of the NEA conference call. A full review of the call reveals several new and more troubling aspects to what transpired on the August 10^th phone call. What is inescapable is that the origin of the call reaches into the highest offices of the White House. It is clear, from the transcript, that the call was orchestrated by the Office of Public Engagement, whose Director, Valerie Jarrett, is among the closest advisors to President and First Lady Obama. It is also apparent that Ms. Jarrett’s office directed the involvement of the National Endowment for the Arts and the Corporation for National and Community Service, two independent federal agencies. (This is important, as neither is officially part of the executive branch.)

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…)

In the aftermath of the Andrew Breitbart/James O’Keefe/Hannah Giles-broken ACORN scandal, President Obama and his allies in Congress have distanced themselves from the community organizing goliath.  Congress has cut off funds, and Obama has refused to speak about the matter.  End of story, right?

Wrong.

There’s only one problem: the ACORN mentality – pinpointing and mobilizing particular groups in support of a radical-left agenda – is no longer restricted to government-funded private non-profits like ACORN.  The ACORN mentality now dominates the government itself.  Taxpayer dollars are being used by elected officials to encourage the deification of President Obama and his agenda.  And one of the chief organs of the government propaganda machine is the National Endowment for the Arts.

Let’s start from the beginning.  On August 25, artist Patrick Courrielche told the story of a conference call he attended on August 10.  That conference call was hosted by the NEA, the White House Office of Public Engagement, and United We Serve.  The goal of the conference call: “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.”  The call would push “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!” (more…)

**NEA conference call full audio and transcript here**

Should the National Endowment for the Arts encourage artists to create art on issues being vehemently debated nationally?

That is the question that I set out to discuss a little over three weeks ago when I wrote an article on Big Hollywood entitled The National Endowment for the Art of Persuasion?”

The question still requires debate but the facts do not.

The NEA and the White House did encourage a handpicked, pro-Obama arts group to address politically controversial issues under contentious national debate. That fact is irrefutable.

President Obama with the NEA’s Yosi Sergant

But some have claimed that the invite and passages, pulled from the conference call that inspired the article, were taken out of context. Context is what I intend to establish here.

On August 10th, the National Endowment for the Arts, the White House Office of Public Engagement, and the Corporation for National and Community Service hosted a conference call with a handpicked arts group. This arts group played a key role in Obama’s arts effort during his election campaign, as declared by the organizers of the call, and many on the call played a role in the now famous Obama Hope poster. (more…)

Play:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Full Transcript:

Full NEA Conference Call Transcript and Audio –

Another conference call has materialized, revealing a concerted effort by government to use the arts to address political issues.

Lee Rosenbaum, a blogger for Artsjournal.com, posted her experience with a meeting that occurred on August 27th and confessed that she also felt “uneasy” about the government’s arts effort.  The meeting invitation (viewable here) went out to all “member local, state, and regional arts agencies, community-based arts organizations, and national partners of Americans for Arts.” Americans for Arts is a non-profit arts organization that has received substantial grants from the National Endowment for the Arts.

As with my conference call, the art group was invited to the meeting to work together to “tackle some of the nation’s toughest issues: education; health; energy and the environment; community renewal; and safety and security.” Also like my call, it included a private citizen moderating the phone call with key White House representatives participating. Kalpen Modi, Associate Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, was to represent the White House and key representatives from the National Endowment for the Arts were also to participate.

Even more disturbing than learning that the White House and NEA are using the arts to address specific issues, is to learn what was discussed on this new conference call. Rosenbaum mentions that there was much talk of “leveraging federal dollars” to get artists and cultural organizations involved in social-service projects.  (more…)

I recently wrote a critique of the art community’s lack of dissent in the face of many controversial decisions made by the current administration. Entitled “The Artist Formerly Known as Dissident,” one of the key points argued in the article was the potential danger associated with the use of the art community as a tool of the state. Little did I know how quickly this concern would be elevated to an outright probability. 

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.”  (more…)