CONNECT
NationofChange / Op-Ed
Published: Sunday 30 September 2012
“Romney openly plans to eliminate essential programs such as funding for PBS, which provides rare quality entertainment for kids.”
This is One Issue that We Cannot Ignore
Art cannot be separated from our culture; it is our culture. Everyone has heard that art imitates life, and life imitates art. This is not a coincidence. Without one, we would not have the other. Art is the vessel by which we preserve and perfect our collected cultural knowledge.
So when I read the transcripts to an interview that Politico recently published of Mitt Romney, including his comments on his intention to bleed the already languished government funding of the arts, I was sick. Romney's comments can be found here.
Romney openly plans to eliminate essential programs such as funding for PBS, which provides rare quality entertainment for kids. I am extremely concerned, as we all are, what kind of entertainment is delivered to our children. Non-violent drama and expressions of compassion empower our children. We shouldn't bombard them with violence, but engage them with being who they are, and pursuing happiness through expression of themselves. This is art.
Romney also plans to eliminate the subsidy for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), who have awarded billions of dollars to art organizations and projects all over the Nation. These projects focus on finding more and more effective ways of engaging the public with diverse and excellent art. Programs like NEA ensure that our collected culture and experience will continue to grow, and never be lost. In Romney's own words:
“[F]irst there are programs I would eliminate. Obamacare being one of them but also various subsidy programs -- the Amtrak subsidy, the PBS subsidy, the subsidy for the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities. Some of these things, like those endowment efforts and PBS I very much appreciate and like what they do in many cases, but I just think they have to stand on their own rather than receiving money borrowed from other countries, as our government does on their behalf. …"
Cutting funding to PBS and the NEA would be one giant step in the direction of an American Dark Ages and loss of our American culture. Keep an eye on this one y'all, we cannot let our guard down if we want to safeguard the most human part of ourselves, the arts.
Get Email Alerts from NationofChange
ABOUT Caleb Jacobo
Caleb Jacobo is an independent writer living in Southern California. He runs the New American Scholar Project, an orginization focused on making great works of literature accessible for everyone. You can find out more about Caleb at his blog at calebjacobo.com. You can find out more about the New American Scholar Project here thenasproject.org.
Top Stories
By Kiley Kroh
2 comments on "This is One Issue that We Cannot Ignore"
September 30, 2012 4:25pm
The problem is that you have 50% of the United States who think art is "against their religion" simply because it causes people to think.
Remember "The Piss Christ?" So many people never even read the artists explanation, but simply took it as an offense to their religion. Thus, it was banned in several places.
People supporting repealing art programs like this go ballistic when they find out that someone actually questioned their belief system and that their own tax dollars helped create that question.
We're up against a body of people who don't want to think, don't care nor understand art, and are not interested in questioning their own belief systems.
October 03, 2012 3:25pm
In some localities, the problem is even worse than banning "offensive art." For example, the board of directors of a well-heeled non-profit library support group refuses to support performances by a concert band, orchestra, ballet, or any other performing group that can't be shoehorned into a tiny library's limited space. The excuse given is that such cultural enrichment "doesn't promote literacy." I love how an esteemed neighbor put it: "Anyone who believes that is illiterate!"
It didn't occur to me that such idiocy is a formal Republican trait until I read this article, but I should have known. A Republican Congress did the same thing during the Great Depression, thus decimating public funding for the arts at a time when many performers were jobless. Now, we are faced with major bands, orchestras, and theater groups all over the country going bankrupt while cultural enrichment is on the rise all over the world, thus contributing to the decline of education in all fields in which the United States once enjoyed supremacy.