Putting a Face on Theatre
Protecting the NEA
As the State of the Union address ends tonight I am heartened with the hope that we will find a leadership which works across party lines to manifest the best future for our country. However, I am concerned that the future the President mapped for us did not contain one mention of the arts or our culture.
The NEA is a necessary aspect of the economic life of this country. There is no argument against the fact that the arts are a major industry in our United States. According to Americans for the Arts, the nonprofit arts industry generates $166.2 billion annually supplying 5.7 million full time jobs and $12.6 billion in federal income taxes
The currently leadership of the NEA, Rocco Landesman, knows and understands the value of the arts and is innovatively reaching out to other federal agencies to create collaborative projects and programs with economic impact and social value. The grants which the NEA provides are not frivolous. They provide infrastructure and ensure broad access to the arts for all individuals from rural classrooms to major symphonies.
It is, for me, a simple truth that a nation with out a mandate for support of its artists is a nation without a soul. The innovation which President Obama spoke of also applies to those of us in the arts industry. We represent a vital aspect of the future and the NEA is an unquestionable necessity to continue to see it realized.
Cutting the NEA is a long-time agenda which will not solve our fiscal crisis and which will only add to the financial burden on this country. Jobs will be lost, opportunities will fall. The nation’s future will be negatively impacted. We must rise above the concept that the arts are the enemy of a healthy economic system and accept the REALITY that support of the arts industry is aligned with the health of an economy. One need only look to our abandoned downtowns and neighborhoods, such as found in Los Angeles, which have been revitalized through growth of local businesses flourishing around a central pulse of the artists who built studios and theatres in abandoned buildings and structures. Where art thrives, the economy blossoms.
I spent 5 years in Florence, Italy. The mayor of that city, Matteo Renzi, looks to the United States and its relationship and support of the arts as it encourages economic growth as an example of what is possible for Florence. He recognizes that we have found a healthy balance in our cities and towns to support the arts industry and revitalize communities. He sees our model as the Florentine future.
There is no good argument for the elimination of the NEA. Not a social argument and, certainly and without any question, not an economic one.
I urge you to stand for the future of our country, and protect the NEA from any attacks on its survival.
The Global Theatre Project
Comment
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Comment by Bari Hochwald on January 26, 2011 at 2:17pm -
I agree with you David with regards to the initial intention of our government's role in daily life. But we also must accept that this country is NOT the country that existed when our founders created it. The United States is so much more complex, so much more diverse with competitive interests and values at both federal and state levels. I found the speeches last night (both the President's and the Republican response) to be correct to our times and that they laid out not only the fiscal situation which is appalling, but the question you point out very clearly which is 'what is the role of government of the United States and is it time to reform that government?' I do think it is time for the federal government to look into itself and begin assessing waste and unneccessary spending. And you are right, the places which will be trimmed are going to hurt many of us terribly (although many of us are feeling pretty horribly now so I am not sure how much worse it can get in certain respects for particular aspects of the American population).
With regards to the NEA I would like to see a conversation 'shift' on this discussion. Just earlier I was speaking with a friend, an actress, who said 'well of course no one is going to talk about the arts at a time like this'.... I interrupted her because I believe that we need a collective shift away from a myth which we are simply accepting. That myth is that the arts have no value or economic impact on our societies. That they are 'extras' to our basic needs. We have to start combating that myth with facts and figures and change the conversation. The existence of the NEA is imperative because it symbolizes the belief that art has value to the nation. If we gut the NEA, we loose a platform for this conversation to shift and have its effect. If we gut the NEA we do so because of a conservative agenda which wrongly associates art and artists as exclusively progressive and of the 'intellectual elite.' If anything it would be a band-aid fix and the resulting loss far greater than the value of being able to say the program was cut and checked off of the agenda.
But of course, these are just my thoughts! Thanks for sharing yours.
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Comment by David McCall on January 26, 2011 at 12:44pm -
I agree with most of what you are saying. There are several things going on here. Whenever government has to tighten their belt, they go after things that the public will notice. Most often police and firemen. "If we have to make cuts the streets won't be safe and your house is going to burn to the ground", knowing full well that these are not the cuts people had in mind. Most people want to cut back on government in general.
The federal government is probably about 90% stuff that they shouldn't be involved in in the first place. Their main mission was intended to help to organize the states in an emergency. The ultimate power was to be at the local level as much as possible. This is according to our constitution. The federal government should be subservient to the states, Not the other way around as it is today.
The other thing is political. Folks on the right look to eliminate organizations that are near exclusively progressive. They don't feel that conservative tax payers should have to finance organizations that are made up predominately of left leaning folks. Especially if those government funded organizations tend to be politically active.
The main issue is the enormous debt that our government has chosen to run up, and they continue to increase every day. Trimming around the edges helps a little, but nobody has the guts to go after the big issues like immigration, pensions, healthcare and other entitlements.
SD News
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