Gov. Ron DeSantis gave no explanation for zeroing out the $32 million in grants that were approved by state lawmakers.
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Leaders of arts organizations in Florida, many of whom have worked in the state for decades, cannot remember a governor ever eliminating all of their grant funding. Even in the lean years of the Great Recession, at least a nominal amount — say, 5 percent of the recommended total — was approved.
Established arts organizations usually know better than to overly rely on nonrecurring state dollars subject to the discretion of politicians, said Michael Tomor, executive director of the Tampa Museum of Art. But to cut funding at a time when arts organizations are still struggling to recover from the coronavirus pandemic sends a concerning message “that taxpayer dollars should not be used in support of arts and culture,” he added.
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Mr. DeSantis, a Republican, gave no explanation for zeroing out the arts grants. His office said in a statement that he made veto decisions “that are in the best interests of the State of Florida.”
In all, Mr. DeSantis vetoed nearly $950 million in proposed spending and proclaimed that the remaining $116.5 billion came in under the previous year’s budget.
Yeah, I get it. When has the world ever become a better place when nations fund artworks?
Look at this Florentine shit:
That is what you get when a nation’s leader becomes a patron of the arts. Is that sort of smut what you want our kids seeing?
Next thing theyll do it paint porn on the roof of the Cistine chapel, however you spell it
The true horror is that this is some Greek smut. We need good, clean Christian nudity for our money.
Because arts uplift, and misery is a huge part of the engine of fascism
Well adjusted societies have less temptation for it on the pro side, and a lot stronger and more inspired resistance to it from the anti side. It needs to breed sickness in order to really take hold and thrive.
I doubt DeSantis has that much of an organized plan for it, of course; I think it’s simple mean spirited ness on his part that he happened to see some vulnerable people that he can punish.
Art is also political, and more popular with open minded people than regressives. Fascists have historically hated art.
Not entirely true, they can’t get enough of art that is exactly like the things they already like. A boring landscape that could have been painted a century earlier? They love that shit.
But if you dare try to get creative (with message or medium) they will demand your head.
Id say that is exactly why they hate art. Art is inherently an extension of oneself, everything from a beserk warrior creating poetry as they fight to a master craftsman working for a week straight on a statue are expressions of art. Hell even things not generally considered art could still be classified as being from the same expression, like a person restoring and touching up an old axe.
Fascistshate personhood, they wish to strip away all that is unique if not in a literal sense then by a cultural sense. They hat the broad capacity of mankind thusly they hate art. Reminder Hitler threw a bitch fit when German archeologistswere digging up actual ancient Germanic and pre Germanic villages because it broke his narrative.
True. And art brings people together who might then talk to each other and find allies and form a base of communication centered around something other than “do what I say or I’ll punish you.” There’s lots not to like about it if you’re trying to destroy a country’s democratic institutions.
This is the better answer. People don’t want a bleak, colorless world, they want art that makes them feel good.
But art isn’t something that makes you feel good necessarily. It can but it also can make you feel other things, it’s a tool for conveying feelings and ideas to someone else, it’s a type of communication. We were supposed to have been taught this as children, that art is communication and we have to be able to hear and see things that make us uncomfortable or we will never, ever succeed in life at the things we want.
Fascists don’t want people empowered, they want people’s imagination squashed so people don’t imagine an alternative narrative to the propaganda that keeps people propping up their dear leader. All channels of communication will be controlled.
This is some toddler-level conceptual understanding. When we start banning forms of communication then everyone should stand up and point at someone trying to undo society. This is a real threat to everything we’ve accomplished as a species.
This high heeled tough guy wannabe is the living embodiment of poor and spiteful decision making. Nothing he does helps anybody. It’s fascinating really. Everyday I wake up I count my blessings I escaped that shit hole state
Fascist 101:
Blame minorities
Get to Power
Make things worse for everyone
Blame minorities harder
Manifest more power
…
You can’t defund social welfare programmes without defunding the arts first. To defund healthcare you have to defund the arts. To defund schools, you first have to defund the arts.
You know where this is going.
The arts are the canary and it is lying dead at the bottom of the cage.
To defund healthcare you have to defund the arts.
To defund schools, you first have to defund the arts.
Why are the arts required to be done first, or at all? I’m not seeing it. They seem separate, and doable in any order.
to me having a funded arts curriculum is a sign of an fully developed/advanced education system. Of course you need the mandatory subjects for function like reading, math, science, etc. But to complete the full human experience you need subjects like history, music, art, philosophy, etc. You take those things away, it’s like removing a part of what makes being alive enjoyable, and also in parallel, the ability to express struggle in an an almost universal way. The education is no longer for thriving, but for surviving
Desantis hates culture.
“When I hear the word culture, I reach for my gun”
Seems that’s a slight mangling of the line, but it’s a common Nazi trope
Sure he does. It’s drinking a warm can of Bud at a Lee Greenwood concert.
