square white world

NATIONAL: 2008: Arts, Culture & Heritage Policy
by Christopher Finlayson, Arts, Culture and Heritage
15 July 2008

ARTS, CULTURE & HERITAGE

ENCOURAGING THE ARTS –
ENCOURAGING OUR ARTISTS

- Was Weist der Aisel von Mord, Attila Richard Lukacs, 1988

National values arts, culture, and heritage. We value them equally. We value the one - or do we mean the ones?

We value the one(s) we’re supposed to value and not the other one(s), or what is called in progressive parlance: the other’s ones.

To clarify: we value those arts, that culture and this heritage which are native to … us. Which is also not to say that we somehow devalue or disrespect those, that and this, not native, indigenous. and otherwise not conventionally deemed New-Zealand-made. It is to say that we don’t extend our support to it.

We, your incoming National government, have no place in supporting these arts, those cultures and heritages not native to New Zealand… native in the inclusive sense.

We believe there is an important role for government in supporting the arts at all levels. However, we are not going to tell you in this document how we define ‘level.’ As Michael said the other day about the English curriculum, ‘It’s like Dungeons and Dragons. If you get this number you advance to a higher level.’

Our approach is intelligent intervention rather than constant interference. Please do not infer anything élitist from the élitist sounding phrase, ‘intelligent intervention.’ In fact, it would be very Labourite and Politically Correct for you so to do. We mean ‘intelligent’ to mean, based on our intelligence.

- Let Me Show You My Wonderful World, Attila Richard Lukacs, 1990

The National Party Research Unit has for some time been out in the field gathering arts, cultural and heritage intelligence at all levels.

Using this information our approach is to intervene and not interfere. We will come between the arts and artists, culture and culturati, heritage and inheritors (or, if you prefer, legatees) but not come in with some ideologically questionable agenda … some may have done so … some time.

Our policies focus on:

• Stimulating demand for the arts.
(we would like to titillate the nation’s taste buds)
• Supporting artists and arts organisations, not the bureaucracy.
(we believe that ‘organisation’ rhymes with ‘organic’)
• Ensuring funding agencies have cultures of service.
(the sector of highest employment in the developed world is the service sector; however, we hope to develop the service without employing a higher number of staff to serve.
(See our definition of culture, above: our culture is ours because we support our culture, and so on)
• Helping arts organisations operate on a sustainable, long-term basis.
(read ’sustainable’ as ’self-sustaining’ if you must)
• Promoting a culture of giving and community support.
(we support a culture of giving and ‘community support’ because the giving is what the culture does, not the government, just as ‘community support’ is a natural effect following on from strong and morally constituted communities in which our intelligence tells us we need not intervene)

- Range of Motion, Attila Richard Lukacs, 1990

OUR PRINCIPLES

• Building opportunity for all.
(’building’ is a participle and not a nominal piece of developed real-estate with bricks-and-mortar investment)
• Encouraging ambition.
(within the parameters of the portfolio, i.e. arts, culture and heritage. We imagine that ambitious heritage is all about wanting to make a come-back, possibly for those aspects of our national heritage which have been ignored and/or destroyed under three terms of the outgoing government. Ambition in culture should not be thought of as ideologically inflected. And the National Party is all about ambitious artists)
• Strengthening our communities.
(see above, ‘community support’ comes from strong communities; strong communities make extra support from government look like interfering, which rhymes with ’social engineering’)

- Krishna Stealing Milk, Attila Richard Lukacs, 1988

NATIONAL’S PLAN

1. Supporting Arts Funding
(as a good idea)

• Maintain the current level of taxpayer funding for arts, culture, and heritage, and promote additional sources of funding through turbocharging community groups. This is a serious undertaking and not to be confused with an initiative to improve conditions for boy racers.
• Focus the Ministry of Culture and Heritage on its core responsibilities, like a magnifying glass, and reform the Arts Council to improve service delivery. See above for our belief that service need not go hand on arm with employing more staff.
• Improve the Creative Communities scheme and strengthen links between the Arts Council, local authorities, and iwi. Details of how this improvement and strengthening will be achieved is not contained in our intelligence, however take it as read that what we’ve got so far confirms that there is a need for it.

2. Encouraging Artists
(’You go, boy!’ & ‘You go, girl!’)

• Maintain the PACE scheme and help establish a creative sector law centre. The PACE scheme is the most successful employment scheme we have in terms of numbers led into employment.

- Painters Lie with Fools Mask, Attila Richard Lukacs, 1988

However, our long-term thinking does not extend to considering the arts sector as the engine for the national economy. Simply put, too much is at stake to risk it on artists.
• Update the Copyright Act. Oppose resale royalty rights for art. We are and remain recidivists when it comes to remediation.

3. Maintaining Our Heritage
(see our definition of ‘our’ above: it is meant in an inclusive sense. Just like: President Elect Obama is an American, in the inclusive sense)

• Review the Historic Places Act, because it’s time we did.
• Support the National Portrait Gallery through the National Library. We as a Party are in favour of portraits and portraiture as a level in arts, culture and heritage. (See the discussion of ‘levels’ above.) We would like to see more portraits kept once they have been painted.
• Require Te Papa to improve the quality of service provided by the National Services Directorate. The latter has lately been dragging the chain.

4. Supporting the Sectors
(there are disciplines and then there are disciplines that need to be punished)

• Update the Film Commission Act and reform the commission. Maintain the Large Budget Screen Production Grant and the Screen Production Investment Fund. Peter Jackson has offered his own intelligence in intervening in the Film Commission. As has almost every successful New Zealand film maker.
• Retain the Music Commission and maintain NZ On Air funding for Kiwi music. Ensure Rockquest continues. We are about continuance. Music is not our thing.
• Support the reform of the Authors’ Fund. Too many authors spoil the fund.
• Require all state funding agencies to place a greater emphasis on emerging artists. Once they realise they are in the matrix they wake up and find themselves covered in something which looks and feels like jelly. Plus they have holes where they’ve so recently been plugged in. As a source of power, nothing beats emerging. As long as it is followed by emerging. As it long as it is followed by emerging. As long as it is followed by emerging. As long as it is followed by emerging. As long as it is followed by emerging. As it long as it is followed by emerging. As long as it is followed by emerging. As long as it is followed by emerging. As long as it is followed by emerging. As it long as it is followed by emerging. As long as it is followed by emerging. As long as it is followed by emerging. And another emerging. We are the jelly. We have always been there.

- Allegory of Water, Attila Richard Lukacs, 1987

There’s something to be said for a country of approximately 4 million people who want to hold a national election as if it were a US presidential race - to which at times it actually referred.

Prime Minister Helen Clark in her concession speech played the ‘gracious in defeat’ role which was so recently attributed to John McCain. In addition she announced that she would stand down from leadership of the Labour Party. Possibly because the blame for the defeat in the party vote does not rest with her leadership; possibly to avoid that blame … and accentuate the positive of 9 years of responsible government both in terms of foreign affairs and economically: lower unemployment rates and a higher, and an existing, minimum wage.

… As far as John Key is concerned, he has been schooled, whether by watching TV over the past couple of days, or by an advisor, on how to deliver a speech. Go slow, John, they’ve said to him. It’s a question of phrasing. We won’t be getting over your speech defect in one lesson but it’s less noticeable if you measure your words.

And the question of for whom JK is the acceptable face, in view of the lack of brains or potential for duplicity, and the requisite smarts therefor, among the old boys we know, becomes no clearer: Steven Joyce ?… Tim Groser ? .. or the Honourable Undead Sir Roger Douglas, who has been returned to parliament under the Act list, after all … ?

The alliance even if it be on a confidence and supply basis which most scares me remains that potentially existing between National and the Maori Party. Why? … Because it is a case of sheer opportunism on the latter’s part. And, as Sandra Lee also said, the notion of the Maori Party as National’s “Treaty partner” in parliament would be a constitutional abuse. However, mutual respect, says JK, is sufficient to secure such an expedient dialogue.

Asked to comment on the US election, Noam Chomsky said, ‘We should have no illusions.’ He was remembering Kennedy. His BBC interlocutor wondered whether he would be hanging out the flags. ‘We should not be hanging out flags no matter where we are,’ said Chomsky.

Chomsky’s point was that it would be in such a measure as President Elect Obama would be seen not to deliver on his promises that his legacy could properly be judged, in that measure to which there’d be disillusion. The BBC, determined to reach a positive statement, pursued the line of questioning to ask whether it might not be taken as an advance that there would soon be a black man in office. Chomsky answered that the civilizing forces leading to this resulted from the disillusion and subsequent activism after JFK.

He didn’t remove Kennedy as sign but pointed to a process taking place alongside the election of a president upon whom the population had pinned their hopes. Disillusion, loss of hope, the argument runs, as long, I suppose, as they are explosive in their publication, catalyze popular movements, activism, more effectively than elected leaders with socially progressive agendas.

JK promises to help those who need help; he says that the country has not met its potential; he argues in favour of ambition and the opportunity to improve oneself without excessive government intervention. This agenda, he has said, will not be fulfilled without going into debt … to Australian banks; we will be in fact paying for your election decision by going deeper and deeper into debt.

… Unless, as every poll, apart from saying National would win, has also indicated, we cannot trust him and them.

And so we are nicely delivered back into the precinct of the cynical and the negative.

It seems clear-cut for Key: he will be judged by his failure in the measure to which it inspires us to do better.

Which is no more than judging him by his own stated principles.

In the meantime, Allah be thanked we have Obama for him to cuddle up to in foreign policy and not Bush I or II.

• Labour + Greens = a short step to communism

• Helen Clark has been in too long = it’s time for a change

• a coalition headed by Helen Clark = a five-headed monster => a Clark government = a monster

• Kyoto = NZ loses in the race for global trade

• Labour’s foreign policy = no FTA with USA

• FTA with USA = the apex of NZ diplomatic achievement

• FTA with USA = no implications for NZ self-determination/sovereignty

• Helen Clark = Stalin after a face wax

• you can tell when it’s election time = Helen Clark starts to look a bit better / dresses with care / has been to the beautician / makeover artiste

• Helen = ambiguous sexuality

• Helen Clark’s government = nanny state

• nanny state / monster / negative / muck-raking campaign = gender neutral

• National’s campaign = positive + Labour’s campaign = cynicism + muck-raking

• clever campaign = clever government

• National = we’ve got fresh ideas

• John Key = the leader / new face of the National Party / of the new National

• John Key = new media savvy => 1.5 b. spent on universal broadband = an investment in the future of NZ

• “We will not sell state assets” = “We will not sell state assets”

to be continued at leisure … = after all there’s no hurry => speed in communication and bandwidth for communication does not equal communication (or when it’s time for a change in public opinion we are arrogant enough to assume we can change public opinion)(or a man with no qualities can lead a country without qualities)

• Helen Clark will go down in history as a great manager = not a great leader

- listen to Kathryn Ryan interviewing John Key by tapping the hand that takes, National - your freedom

Ozchralians shouldun be bailed ou’ by Nyu Zillindaz - however we can allegedly afford to carry on with gross liability to the bankers of oz, liability on such a scale - a potential indebtedness exceeding three times the value of the NZ economy - that at worst is a threat to our sovereignty and that at best compromises it.

We’re nod sellin’ enny asseds akshurely… [Key titters]

Oy godda look Nyu Zillannaz in th’ oy … Oy godda sleep in the bed, oy godda look in tha mirror… - a good working relationship with the Maori Party. (Albeit that they set their bottom line and then two days later they change it, says Key: a partnership based on mutual respect?)

Oy’ve god ass strong s[e]nse of bellince…

Are you a manager? asks Kathryn. …

That’s a bank, not a country, says Kathryn.

National advocates less big government yet have already outpledged Labour in government spending:

As a National voter you are less likely to have chosen rationally than a Labour voter. In other words, the present basal temperature of NZ is Blue; Red or Green requires an expenditure of energy, as does Brown or Black. It is this to which media pundits are responding.

To find out if this is true, try the Glassbooth New Zealand Election 2008 survey provided by Pundit.

The great irony is that as the world swings to the left, away from Milton Friedman and monetarism, New Zealand, the pioneer of deregulation and everything-must-go state asset sales, could veer to the right. And who would be grabbing the wheel to lead to this historical accident? Certainly not JK himself.

A majority may aver that they do not trust him in the driver’s seat. But that does not mean they will not elect him. In fact, that they don’t trust him is an argument in his favour. It flatters the general populace with the notion that they are nobody’s fool.

As with George Bush II, that evidence was available of his lack of suitability for high office and of his ineptitude and that he was a puppet of the neo-cons, that this was all, as they say, transparent, made him a solidly see-through contender: the conspiracy is that there is no conspiracy.

The voting public was let in on the joke. That the joke was dangerous and would not act in the interests of the people was not so compelling as the fact that we were instrumental in making the wheels spin. They’re not going to spin our way? They were never going to anyway.

Perhaps what motivates a John Key or a Dubbya is what makes them both men of the people: they recognise their ineffectuality. They too like us are strapped on the Ixxion wheel. Their putative humanity resides in the extraordinary narrowness of the horizons they set for themselves. Like us, their choices are irrational. But they are choices that have to be made.

[Bryan Gould addresses himself to the historic turn to government intervention in the market precipitated by crunchy credit crises here.]

Herakles battles the Hydra, a snakelike beast with between seven and nine heads, identified with the earth goddess, Hera.

Hera is Zeus’s jealous wife. Herakles is not Hera’s son.

Kles in Old Attic Greek comes from the verb kleio. It means ‘to shut up, close or block.’ Might it not also be the root of key? as in German, Das Klee?

Hera it is alleged removes Herakles from her immortal breast before he can attain immortality. He is barred from the breast of which the milk would grant him immortality. Locked out.

Herakles spends his life set on by Hera’s jealousy. The madness she sends him leads him to kill his family. His famous tasks are undertaken to restore as much as claim the immortality he might have had at Hera’s breast if it not been placed under lock and key.

Upon the completion of his tasks and his apotheosis at Olympus the breast is restored to Herakles and he becomes Hera’s glory, Hera-kleos. Kleos means heroic fame and glory.

- here’s Hera giving suck to Herakles on the back of an Etruscan mirror (’look but in‘…)

Hera is the original of the punishing phallic mother, a monster mama. John Key has identified her with a ‘left-wing five-headed monster.’ He encourages us to take his side in the battle so that he may claim the fame and glory he might have had at her breast if she, in her jealousy, had not denied it him.

- John is milk fed

Labour? the wabe ate her

- this is the Jabberwocky - note the one head and the large mouth of the monologist

asked by Express mag the Rove question, JK answered that he would for Brad Pitt - adding some strange comments about Pitt’s current age, perhaps to preempt debate that JK’s into much younger men - but that he thought when the question was popped about Tom Cruise. However, Cruise, his sidebar comment ran, looks too young for his age.

Who would I go gay for? … Brad Pitt,” he told Express. “Now he’s a bit older, he’s a bit of a looker. I was going to say Tom Cruise, but someone of his age shouldn’t look that young.
- John Key, Herald

Too young for you? Unhealthily young? Or the more familiar, creepily young?

So in choosing Brad over Tom - while not suggesting Brad should be over Tom - JK is opting for the more credible of the two, the sensible shoe.

Why then think of Tom? Should we infer from this triviality that JK was playing to his audience? Choosing Brad, perhaps he thought, would make him look more hetero. It would be to give the generic reply.

Choosing Tom would have stuck out a bit. A lot.

JK’s reasoning is interesting in this regard. He didn’t choose Tom because Tom looks youthful. A straight man with some odd speech defects going for a Peter Pan who shares his first name with the famous Finn (see image below) and who’s second name is Cruise might lead us to entertain, if only for an instant, the notion that JK has an inch or an ounce of sincerity or a genuine bone on his body.

- image by Tom of Finland (1920-1991)

I don’t believe JK has come across Tom of Finland. (The artist’s biography is here.) To say, I’d turn gay for a big blond Scandinavian hunk and I wouldn’t even need to know his name, would possibly have been harder to self-correct.

As soon as I read this, thoughtfully placed on the front page of Herald, I wondered if Express would or could ask Helen Clark the same question. Apparently not, read on, dear reader…

What if she’d taken a career on Broadway? In which play would she perform?
“I think 12 Angry Men - that wonderful play about the jury, where the sole person who objects to the verdict talks through it; certainly not a Shakespearian tragedy.”
- Hannah JV, Express

Here they are old boys, the National caucus:

- image courtesy, The Standard, original here