[Newsbot]

Title: Cultural groups blast additional federal arts cuts
Category: Misc CDN
Posted By: snookums
Date: 2008-08-15 13:15:57
Canadian

[Demian_164]

why is it the responsibility of the federal government to sponsor artists?

[Tracker]

If you don't approve of federal funding for art, you should feel guilty and all around bad about yourself.

[Streaker]

The CONS are showing their barbarian colours. No surprises here.

[Tracker]

The CONS are big meanies.

[EyeBrock]

How come I don't feel guilty? I appreciate the arts but either patrons start supporting them or we cut down on who gets the cash and how much they get.

If certain 'cultural groups' decry their funding being pulled, find alternate funding sources. I'd rather my tax dollars, both federal and provincial, fund hospitals.

Why should we be doling out cash to the Toronto Film Festival, supporting millionaire American actors? Plus there are other causes our taxes go to such as:

Camilla Gibb, the novelist -- who, like Mr. Dyer, lives in London -- was given $10,000 last year "to travel to the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia to participate in public diplomacy activities in support of Canada's dialogue with Muslim communities." Again:Why?
Barbara Willis Sweete of Rhombus Media received $2,000 from the program to allow her "to present her production Five Days in September -- The Rebirth of an Orchestra at the 2006 Sydney Film Festival in Australia." That seems OK. But why should ordinary working Canadians give former CBC activist Avi Lewis, who now has brought his anti-American schtick to al Jazeera, $5,000 to attend film festivals in Australia and Argentina? Why should they underwrite his jet-setting travels when they are having trouble saving up a few hundred dollars for a summer camping vacation of their own?
Alexander Mair was given $4,200 "to participate in seminars in Helsinki, Finland and Trondheim, Norway on cultural exportation in the sound recording industry." If he wants to fly thousands of miles to hear a Finnish academic drone on about business models for alternative rock bands, so be it. But PromArt paid for several other Canadians to attend the same seminars, then added several thousand more dollars to subsidize the conference itself.
Many of the recipients weren't even Canadian and had very little connection to Canada. A group called Peru 2021, for instance, received nearly $30,000 from Canadian taxpayers "to organize a one-day conference on corporate social responsibility," while nearly $44,000 was doled out to the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development And Transparency to "host a two-day conference on Pakistan's national Elections in 2007 and possible political scenarios for the region."
Among the biggest beneficiaries of PromArt is the Toronto International Film Festival, which last year was given nearly $150,000 to bring out-of-country film buyers to T. O. and wine and dine them while they were there.

http://www.nationalpost.com/arts/story.html?id=710676

Giving funding to an Al Jazzera journo?

[commanderkai]

Tracker wrote:

If you don't approve of federal funding for art, you should feel guilty and all around bad about yourself.

The pain cripples me...



I can't exactly tell if you're being sarcastic or not

[Thanos]

Yeah, creating something as artistically unique and spiritually uplifting as "Piss Christ, Part 2" doesn't come cheap ya know.

[hurley_108]

Demian_164 wrote:

why is it the responsibility of the federal government to sponsor artists?

Why should artists be beholden to the whims of corporate interest or fickle public opinion to get funding for their work? Why should artists be hired to create what someone else wants rather than produce what they're inspired to and then be aided in marketing that to whomever might be interested?

Only the government has the resources and the position to be able to provide funding for something in which they have no direct stake. A private individual or media corporation will not comission an artist to produce somethign they don't want or don't think they can sell. If it was left up to such prifate funding there would be no (or at least significantly less) art for art's sake.

A motivated, talented artist will create what they want to even if they get no help, and if they happen to cross paths with someone who thinks it's really great and pays them for it, then that's great. What's wrong with helping that artist get some broader exposure, to make that chance meeting more likely?

[mtbr]

Streaker wrote:

The CONS are showing their barbarian colours. No surprises here.

the left wing socialist lazy arses are showing theirs...no surprise

[robmik43]

hurley_108 wrote:

...A motivated, talented artist will create what they want to even if they get no help, and if they happen to cross paths with someone who thinks it's really great and pays them for it, then that's great. What's wrong with helping that artist get some broader exposure, to make that chance meeting more likely?...

Because too many of the subsidized artiste are neither motivated nor talented.
They are ready and willing to never get a real job while we fund them though.

Because so much of what is produced is unmitigated rubbish,
that is why :
'Sculptures' made with meat or shit or dead people.
'Paintings' that animals could do better.
'Songs' that could only be played as a Gitmo interrogation tehnique.
'Humour' like Shawn Majumder on his best day [...WHAT best day..?]
'Journalism' that inly a CBC fan could love.

Because so much arts money is wasted on crap like trips and seminars
and other "experiences" that ordinary people have to PAY for.

Because so many on the public arts tit are not artists at all, just
hangers-on like that know-it-all a-hole Gwynn Dyer.

You want to be a "patron of the arts" as in days of old ?
Then spend your own money.
Not mine.

Find a motivated, talented one...take the fucker home
with you, feed it and watch it grow like a goddam cultural
Chia pet ....if the groceries keep comin'....

[dino_bobba_renno]

Tracker wrote:

If you don't approve of federal funding for art, you should feel guilty and all around bad about yourself.

You you know I actually do feel bad, oh wait a minute,... I guess that was just that taco I had for lunch. Sorry false alarm.

[commanderkai]

hurley_108 wrote:

Demian_164 wrote:

why is it the responsibility of the federal government to sponsor artists?

Why should artists be beholden to the whims of corporate interest or fickle public opinion to get funding for their work? Why should artists be hired to create what someone else wants rather than produce what they're inspired to and then be aided in marketing that to whomever might be interested?

Only the government has the resources and the position to be able to provide funding for something in which they have no direct stake. A private individual or media corporation will not comission an artist to produce somethign they don't want or don't think they can sell. If it was left up to such prifate funding there would be no (or at least significantly less) art for art's sake.

A motivated, talented artist will create what they want to even if they get no help, and if they happen to cross paths with someone who thinks it's really great and pays them for it, then that's great. What's wrong with helping that artist get some broader exposure, to make that chance meeting more likely?

So let me get this straight, artists are better than everyone else because they get sponsored by the government, and are not accountable to public opinion/demand? So we should sponsor what even the public might not consider art just because some artist and a few elitist circles see it as such, when those wealthy in those elitist circles won't even sponsor those artists themselves?

Not only that, the public, aka the taxpayer, who you admit might not even consider the art piece actually art, has to pay for sponsoring the artist when the public/taxpayers have no desire for the works that artist creates.

So screw taxpayers, screw public opinion and market demand, just create a new form of welfare for those who are considered artists by whatever government forms/system there is to classify a person as an artist. Maybe I should start punching clay and calling it art and get a grant. Even you say that this motivated talented artist would create art with or without the support from the government, so why should we do the work for them, and give them financial backing when they can find their own patron using their own contacts and their own hard work? If an artist sees his artwork isn't selling, maybe he'll get the motivation to either do it as a hobby and use his own free time as he works in the private sector as an art teacher or a museum curator.

[hurley_108]

commanderkai wrote:

So let me get this straight, artists are better than everyone else because they get sponsored by the government, and are not accountable to public opinion/demand? So we should sponsor what even the public might not consider art just because some artist and a few elitist circles see it as such, when those wealthy in those elitist circles won't even sponsor those artists themselves?

Not only that, the public, aka the taxpayer, who you admit might not even consider the art piece actually art, has to pay for sponsoring the artist when the public/taxpayers have no desire for the works that artist creates.

So screw taxpayers, screw public opinion and market demand, just create a new form of welfare for those who are considered artists by whatever government forms/system there is to classify a person as an artist. Maybe I should start punching clay and calling it art and get a grant. Even you say that this motivated talented artist would create art with or without the support from the government, so why should we do the work for them, and give them financial backing when they can find their own patron using their own contacts and their own hard work? If an artist sees his artwork isn't selling, maybe he'll get the motivation to either do it as a hobby and use his own free time as he works in the private sector as an art teacher or a museum curator.

Spare me. You think other industries could do it on their own without government support? What do you think ROADS are? Roads were built by the government, used by private business at no charge to ship their products to their buyers. The internet, built for no commercial purpose but instead for communication purposes for the US government, and now being used by ecommerce firms to do their business. Oil sands royalty breaks to get the resource developed. Tax breaks to lure businesses to your area.

The entire fucking economy gets tax breaks and other government help, without which those businesses wouldn't exist, or wouldn't be where we want them.

You knuckle dragging conservatives just have this bee in your bonnet about the smallest such forms of help because you have no creativity (hence the ham-handed "punching clay" reference) and so don't see the value of it.

[dino_bobba_renno]

hurley_108 wrote:

Spare me. You think other industries could do it on their own without government support? What do you think ROADS are? Roads were built by the government, used by private business at no charge to ship their products to their buyers. The internet, built for no commercial purpose but instead for communication purposes for the US government, and now being used by ecommerce firms to do their business. Oil sands royalty breaks to get the resource developed. Tax breaks to lure businesses to your area.

The entire fucking economy gets tax breaks and other government help, without which those businesses wouldn't exist, or wouldn't be where we want them.

You knuckle dragging conservatives just have this bee in your bonnet about the smallest such forms of help because you have no creativity (hence the ham-handed "punching clay" reference) and so don't see the value of it.

Conservatives spent more on cultural programs than Liberals
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=726631

Quote:

For the current fiscal year, which ends March 31, 2009, Parliament has voted to spend more than $4 billion on cultural programs, including the CBC, the Canada Arts Council, the National Gallery of Canada and the Department of Canadian Heritage. That amount is $660 million or 19.7 per cent more than was spent in fiscal 2006, the last year when the Liberals controlled the purse strings.

What was that you said ... oh wait a minute it was "You knuckle dragging conservatives just have this bee in your bonnet about the smallest such forms of help because you have no creativity (hence the ham-handed "punching clay" reference) and so don't see the value of it."

Guess you should have checked your facts first