National Embezzlement of the Arts - Part 3

 Just prior to this election cycle I received a number of art email updates that included a New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) set of marketing talking points. One of these spoke about voting and linked to the various State and independent programs.

I followed the Connecticut links and a few links later came to the Connecticut Arts Alliance (CAA) - one of the many, seemingly limitless obscure arts organizations that feed from the Connecticut arts funding trough. I suffer from a degree of organizational vertigo when it comes to remembering where in the clusterfuck of Arts organizations the CAA is situated so when I landed on their webpage I poked around a bit. They are funded from a number of Foundations and State Arts and Humanities Funds. I mention this to simply point out that there's nothing partisan about the funding of art and presumably the funds aren't being awarded for partisan purposes.

Next I looked at their latest news and was absolutely fascinated by the following entry.

We are being told that Michelle Obama has founded a "non-partisan" organization called "When We All Vote" that is shaving money away from the sales of prints and original artwork sold under the auspices of Art For Change, an arts advisory business.

The problem is that When We All Vote has a collection of Co-Chairs that may as well have been

 the campaign staff of the Harris/Walz election effort. The claim that Michelle Obama, these co-chairs or anyone on their staff were somehow representative of an impartial (e.g. "non-partisan") organization simply dedicated to registering stray voters is absurd. There is not a conservative, Republican, third party, or otherwise interested political individual in sight.

Furthermore, all of the sugar-coated rhetoric about political posters being art cannot disguise the fact that every example of political art advocates a progressive or liberal advocacy.  This is subversive to young artists and insulting to everyone who has every right to expect that non-partisan rhetoric and advocacy will fairly represent the broad spectrum of American democracy.

IMO, the When We All Vote organization has a disingenuous, money-laundering profile. The Connecticut Arts Alliance should be ashamed for promoting this kind of material ever but particularly before a national election.

The newly elected federal DOJ should take a long, hard look at this and all non-profits that claim non-partisan status.