The communications director for the National Endowment of the Arts has resigned after bloggers and Glenn Beck (VIDEOS at story) - not the lamebrain media - and a conservative artist complained that the NEA was coordinating artists to produce works to further Obama's legislative aims.
UPDATE: FoxNews is reporting that he is keeping his job.
The artist complained that in an online telephone conference with Yosi Sergant, communications director for the NEA with 75 artists and publicly-funded art agencies, the NEA and the White House Office of Public Engagement and the Corporational for National Service called on the artists to produce art to support the Obama administration goals.
THE WHITE HOUSE SPOKESMAN unintentionally confirms the politicalization of the NEA.
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.The flagrant lie is in red.
The artist's statement here.
The telephone conference was "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 artist was a former employer of the NEA’s Director of Communications.
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.---------------------------------------------------
No wonder those election Obama posters look so creepily Big Brotherish.
And no wonder the American public was leery of the White House-created lesson plan for Obama's speech to schoolchildren. Makes you wonder what that speech would have been without the outcry. Previous blog post.
UPDATE: The NEA lied to the Washington Times when asked about the NEA conference call. Sergant claimed that a third-party had organized the call. "It didn’t come from us, so I don’t have it to distribute."
The artist responded to that lie. With the copy of the e-mail invitation from - Yosi Sergant, the Communications Director for the NEA. yosi@arts.gov
The NEA isn't the only group lying. "Joshua Miller reported for Foxnews.com that Siobhan Dugan, a spokeswoman for the Corporation for National and Community Service, the very agency that Sergant claimed was responsible for the invitations, stated that the conference call “was organized by an ‘individual interested’ in the group and was unable to provide a list of those invited to participate on the call.”
And then there's Rock the Vote's subsequent contest. "Their announcement of the design contest states, “We can’t stand by and listen to lies and deceit coming from those who are against reforming a broken system…We need designs that tell the country YES WE CARE! Young people demand health care now.”
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LA WEEKLY (an arts mag) bio on Yosi Sergant. "Is Yosi Sergant this week’s Van Jones?"
He was the strategist and facilitator for aspects of the [Obama HOPE] campaign. Besides bringing in high-profile artists, Sergant also partnered with MoveOn.org to create a contest for artists across America to submit works for inclusion in the gallery.
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