Of all the crap the U.S. Government spends money on, the National Endowment of the Arts is probably one of the least offensive. When someone comes around and calls for eliminating funding for it, they come across often as either petty or too easily offended. Two main complaints rear their head when the subject of the NEA comes up 1) it’s a waste of taxpayer money and 2) OMG look at what they’re funding!!!!

Well #2 has never really moved me. Frankly if you have that kind of arts funding, I’m for having expression as free as possible. (Besides if your art actually had popular support you wouldn’t need government money, right?) And #1? There are a hella lot more wasteful segments of the government to spend energy attacking.

Problem is there’s a number three.

3) Anything funded by the State is eventually manipulated by the State to support the State’s own ends.

But Mr. Swann, it’s just paranoid to think that anyone would try and use the National Endowment for the Arts to try and manipulate their beneficiaries to become mouthpieces for some partisan political agenda.

Shall I quote from a blog post by Patrick Courrielche?

On Thursday August 6th, I was invited by the National Endowment for the Arts to attend a conference call scheduled for Monday August 10th 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!” […] Backed by the full weight of President Barack Obama’s call to service and the institutional weight of the NEA, the conference call was billed as an opportunity for those in the art community to inspire service in four key categories, and at the top of the list were “health care” and “energy and environment.” […] Obama has a strong arts agenda, we were told, and has been very supportive of both using and supporting the arts in creative ways to talk about the issues facing the country. We were “selected for a reason,” they told us. We had played a key role in the election and now Obama was putting out the call of service to help create change. We knew “how to make a stink,” and were encouraged to do so.

Isn’t it nice to know that political ideology is now explicitly part of the mix? Frankly, if you’re in the arts, of whatever political persuasion, this should really freak you out. Defining politically acceptable modes of artistic expression has never been a sign of a healthy regime.