Re: Klezmer in corporate hands?

[JeffSchan <JeffSchan...>]

Marvin Margoshes wrote:

<How does it become "if it's not censorship, it might as well be" when the
government decreases its support for the arts.  I think there should be some
government support for the arts, but I can't justify making it enough to pay
every artist who asks for a grant.  Then, some choices need to be made, and
"he who pays the piper calls the tune".  That would be more like censorship,
IMHO.>

What is the result of artistic censorship?  That the artist is not allowed to
bring his work to the public.  If an artist can't make a living at his art and
has to do something else to survive, he is also not able to bring his work to
the public, which is the same result.  I myself objected to the use of the
term "censorship" in Ingemar's friend's statement.  However, the NEA and other
institutions have made clearly political decisions to support institutions who
produce the "safe" work of primarily dead European artists as opposed to
institutions who produce the work of living American artists.  The US
Government's support for the arts is perhaps the least of any industrialized
nation.  The point is, in American capitalism, you have kids who barely know
how to play their instruments making enormous amounts of money (mainly
immitating African-American musical styles) because the big corporate media
companies can make lots of profit from them, while a great black composer like
Leroy Jenkins is still struggling after thirty years of prominence.  And, to
bolster my views that Leroy is one of the greatest living composers in the US,
please see _Village Voice_ critic Kyle Gann's new book "American Music in the
Twentieth Century."  (OK, I know I am a bit biased since Kyle also gave my
wife, Bernadette Speach, a nice section in his book)

Reyzl wrote:

<But Jeff, he didn't have to mention this issue because the chance of a =
candidate of the American Nazi Party or the Ku Klux Klan running in =
Crown Heights would be virtually nil, so why are you holding this =
against him?>

Of course my point about the rebbe's political guidelines not excluding a vote
for fascists is a polemical tool.  In fact, there are plenty of anti-Semitic
politicians in New York.  It just strikes me as supremely suicidal for members
of a minority group which has a history of persecution to support the
persecution of another minority group.  If a person has a religious belief
that homosexuality is against the laws of God, that is the business of that
person.  But to translate that belief into politically opposing equal rights
for gays helps to strenghthen the very same right wing forces which want to
take the rights of Jews away too.  And since both Reyzl and I are both second
generation, let's remember that Hitler began throwing gays in concentration
camps before Kristallnacht.  Abortion is also a touchy subject, but when my
mother sees some right wing anti-abortion fanatic on TV, she immediately calls
them a Nazi.

Jeffrey Schanzer