Gov. Ron DeSantis gave no explanation for zeroing out the $32 million in grants that were approved by state lawmakers.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
What part of driving pickup trucks with giant tires through the mud while drinking cases of ~~bud light ~~ Modelo and wearing jorts and a tank top with a picture of Rambo Trump firing footballs from a grenade launcher isn't culture?
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 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
Not for another 40-150 years. By then local politics will have shifted substantially in the state, and future external fascists can claim Florida was destroyed for being too brown, woke, and gay.
Might be that they will, but for now they are doing very well on an objective scale, beeing placed on #1 for education and economy compared to the other states and beeing on #9 overall.
A short boost from tax breaks to convince rich people to move there doesn't make the place financially successful or livable. It just looks better for a bit.
He's obligated to take a two year hiatus from his current position at the end of eight years. But he's free to run for another office during the downtime.
That's why Rick Scott became a Senator after his gubernatorial tenure.
How much you wanna bet that somebody tied to the arts recently emasculated Ron in public? Pulling funding from a huge swath of people over a petty personal embarrassment is a very on-brand move for DeSantis.
Not even that the arts have more gay people, but people involved in the arts are much more likely to be accepting and fair to gay people. So they want to hurt these people too. This is maybe overused but I think it's appropriate and I think about it a lot:
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
—Martin Niemöller
This guy originally supported Hitler. He said this after the war.
I hope some of the "artists" that make those photos of "trump" with shirt off and a fake chiseled, glistening physique get unintentionally caught up in this grant cancellation - you know these images, the ones they stare at for hours while locked in the bathroom thinking about how straight they are.
Why? As in why would you waste your time even vetoing this? What does this guy do all day, stand in the shower and daydream about making the dumbest fucking decisions possible?
Well he needed to veto something yesterday, and it certainly wasn't going to be the bill that now fundamentally prevents Floridians from holding their elected officials accountable when they suspect ethics violations: https://flaglerlive.com/integrity-florida-veto/#gsc.tab=0
Uhhh, isn't "the arts" (namely Disney and Universal) like, the main money maker of Florida? Not a lot of reasons to go there beyond that, beaches, and the fact that it doesn't snow.