Manufacturing Consent

The Obama administration is poised to use the National Endowment for the Arts to affect policy. Read about it here.

In it's 45 year history, the NEA has never been used this way. One could expect it in collectivist regimes, the usual set of socialists, communists and fascists, but not in the United States unless there is a national emergency. We did have Federal Project Number One under the Works Progress Administration during the Roosevelt years. It was devoted to promoting the arts, but not as propaganda. That would change with the coming of World War II when the arts did play a policy role under the U.S. Office of Emergency Management.

Our times may be tough, but this recession is not as difficult as the one many of us faced in 1982. This issue bears careful watching as it has its roots in the leftist Saul Alinksy playbook for community organizers. Obama knows this playbook well, as does Hillary Clinton.