Bobby Jindal Don't Like No Science And Don't Like No Art -- So That Makes Him A Bona Fide Redneck?
Last night a friend and I were trying to grapple with-- if not exactly "understand"-- some conventional wisdom, namely that Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal is "very educated," a "very intelligent" man and a "policy wonk," or at least what would pass for a Republican version of a policy wonk. His 100% Know Nothing attack on volcano monitoring made him sound like either an ignoramus or a two-bit craven hack pandering to the worst instincts of the purposefully ignorant anti-science crowd that had its day of quasi-respectability when George Bush sat in the White House. Soon after his snide comment about how the federal government (i.e., Barack Obama's new budget) "wastes" money by trying to understand volcano eruptions, Alaska's Mount Redoubt exploded for the first time in decades. It's still exploding nearly a week later. Senator Mark Begich of Alaska sent Jindal an e-mail: "I sleep better knowing the scientists are at work ... keeping track of this activity."
I suppose the Louisiana electorate is happy Jindal didn't denigrate hurricane monitoring. No amount of media hype will ever persuade me that a man who gratuitously addresses the nation by demeaning science and scientists-- a man, no less, claiming to be able to cure cancer by performing an exorcism-- is actually "intelligent," other than perhaps in a cunning and purely political, manipulative kind of way.
Yesterday Shaun Treat, who got his PhD at Louisiana State University in 2004 and is now an Assistant Professor in the Dept. of Communication Studies at the University of North Texas, teamed up with Holley Vaughn, a doctoral candidate in his old department at LSU to warn us about the real life effects of Jindal's politically motivated budget cuts, another manifestation of his exalted status in GOP circles as a "policy wonk," I suppose. Their report:
Bobby Jindal is about to enact a shameful budget cut that will devastate Louisiana's economy by slashing the state budget for the Arts and Arts education by 83%.Yes, you read that correctly... 83 percent!
This extremist Republican will virtually eliminate a $10 billion industry supporting 144,000 jobs. The Louisiana House Appropriations Committee will be meeting on April 2nd-- which is next week!-- and they are our last hope to stop Jindal from pressing this insane course of action!
We are working to persuade the media to cover this story and give desperately-needed assistance to those Louisianians fighting to keep the Arts and Arts Education alive in our communities and schools!
Investing in the arts is economically productive. It is paramount in revitalizing struggling urban centers and dilapidating historic districts. In terms of civics, these programs foster public discourse and debate and critically activate public memory. Moreover, these programs attract tourism, which is a vital part of Louisiana's struggling economy.
This shameful attack that shows Jindal's true NeoConservative colors!
Now keep in mind that aside from berating scientific pursuits like volcano monitoring, Jindal also gave the finger to funding the National Endowment for the Arts, a perennial Republican Party target. The U.S. Conference of Mayors blasted Jindal after his speech, pointing out that "Louisiana is home to 7,013 arts-related businesses that employ 27,117 people."
In Northwest Louisiana (10-parish region around Shreveport), nonprofit arts groups and their audiences generate $89.77 million in economic activity, support 2,367 jobs, and provide nearly $13 million in state and local tax revenue.In addition to the arts contributing tremendously to Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts, the state launched the World Cultural Economic Forum this past fall to showcase the link between the arts, economy, and tourism. It will be expanded in 2009.
Louisiana's Department of Culture, Recreation, and Tourism launched the Louisiana Cultural Economy Initiative in 2004; in addition to promoting the arts, the program aims to attract businesses related to the arts to the state. Its 2004 report showed that for every state tax dollar spent, $5.86 is returned to the state treasury and citizens of Louisiana.
The National Endowment for the Arts will distribute $50 million of the stimulus funds to arts projects in all 50 states which specifically preserve jobs in the nonprofit arts sector that have been most hurt by the economic downturn.
In 2008, Louisiana received 27 grants totaling $1,343,700 from the National Endowment for the Arts.
The "cultural economy" in Louisiana is very real and Lt. Governor Mitch Landrieu's office explains that the $2.5 million grants Jindal is trying to eliminate are a tremendous economic boost to every parish in the state. "The cultural economy is a $10 billion industry supporting 144,000 jobs. It's certainly worth the investment, and the return on the investment has been significant. Our cultural stakeholders have made the industry a significant player in Louisiana's economic health."
I think it will surprise most of my friends to know that I'm an honorary officer of the Louisiana Highway Patrol. Even more shocking, the person who appointed me to my position was Governor David Treen, the first Republican governor of Louisiana since Reconstruction! And why would a conservative Republican governor appoint someone like me, who leans slightly to the left and ran a punk rock record label in San Francisco's Mission District, to such an exalted position? Bidness-- arts bidness. I signed a band from Metarie, the Red Rockers, to my label and their music and videos started getting airplay all over America, boosting Lousiana's image as a cultural center. I doubt Gov. Treen ever listened to their songs or grasped what it meant when critics termed them the "American Clash," but he sensed it was something that would bring Louisiana some business. Tony Award-winning actress Jane Alexander, who chaired the National Endowment for the Arts from 1993-1997, remembers when a Republican Congress gleefully slashed the organization's budget back then and disagrees with Jindal's claim that funding the arts are not in any way "Stimulus" for an ailing economy. Alexander:
What people forget is that there are over 2 million people in the United States of America who are professional artists. Those are jobs like any other jobs. The artists have families, they have people for whom they're responsible and they give to their communities.
We all have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The life part would be health and housing. The liberty part would be our civil rights. And the pursuit of happiness, the arts would come under that. And it's as vital a part of well-being in the United States as anything else... [W]hat he [Jindal] doesn't understand is that $50 million goes directly ... as a grant to organizations which employ people. It's quick and it's a system that works beautifully and it's done within a year.
There's a great deal that Bobby Jindal doesn't understand-- or makes believe he doesn't understand, which-- my friend reminded me-- is even worse. Like I said, I'm pretty sure Gov. Treen never listened to the Red Rockers and I'll bet Gov. Jindal never has either. I put together a short music clip last year they probably won't want to watch either. You may though:
Bobby Jindal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Who Is Bobby Jindal? The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly
10 Things You Didn't Know About Bobby Jindal - US News and World ...
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Anybody old enough to remember the "Red Skull", Captain America's arch enemy? Tell me that photo of John McCain isn't a dead ringer...*grin*
hahaha... Holy Hitler SuperSoldier, you're right!
http://www.marvel.com/universe/Red_Skull_(Johann_Shmidt)
I still have my LP copy of "Condition Red." I never really liked the Red Rockers though. They always sounded too commercial for my ears. I was never much of an OC punk fan myself. I preferred the further north sounds of SST--from Black Flag to the Minutemen.
Well according to Randy Newman it's if he doesn't know his, "A$$ from a hole in the ground..!"
Question: if a fatcat defense contractor spends $10 million of our tax dollars throwing a bat mitzvah for his daughter, and invites Steve Tyler, Joe Perry and Tom Petty (his daughter's favorite acts, no doubt) to play at it, does that count as defense spending or arts spending?
You know what? I want the 20% of my income taxes that go to bloated, cost-plus, no-bid defense contracts to go to the arts instead.
Shouldn't Congress Hold the Pentagon to Account?
“Billions of dollars are being squandered... that would be better spent in classrooms, emergency rooms and veterans hospitals.”
There's no real doubt about the need for reform. The Office of Management and Budget recently determined that, over the past four years, the Pentagon failed to recover close to $300 million in erroneous contract payments. And those are just the mistakes that are admitted.
What about the cost overruns of defense contractors? According to the Government Accountability Office, 95 major weapons programs that are currently in play exceeded their original budget allocations. Cost to taxpayers: $295 billion.
Then there is the matter of weapons systems that are dramatically flawed and dysfunction, yet continue to acquire funding. The groups that wrote Reid and Pelosi focused, according to The Hill, on the need to make "steep cuts to the Joint Strike Fighter Program and other futuristic weapons plagued by production delays and cost overruns, with the money saved going to schools, healthcare and other social services." It is now estimated that the Joint Strike Fighter Program could cost as much as $1 trillion.
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/state_of_change/421634/shouldn_t_congress_hold_the_pentagon_to_account?rel=hpbox
A belief in creationism (as per Jindahl) involves a wholesale denial of reality, so we might be appalled, but we shouldn't be surprised at the level of bizarreness of his thought processes.
Louisiana had art and science??
Seriously? New Orleans? One of the birthplaces of jazz? Zydeco? Ring any bells?
Check it out, it's a vitally important part of American culture:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dixieland
But thank goodness, New Orleans is nothing like the rest of Louisiana.
Bobby Jindal is really Alfred E. Neuman with a tan.
It seems to me that if the "people" of Louisiana were truly "outraged" at this Gobernor...they would recall..."The Govenor"
It think him being governor speaks VOLUMES for the electorate that were inspired enough to elect him...Congratulations for being allowed to use THE most appropriate term of those too stupid to evolve and too cowardice to not be feared into supporting people that are completely against their own self interests....RED****S....I get bounced if I use the term.
Hasty generalization. Jindal reflects his Louisiana electorate as much as two-term president George W. Bush reflects upon every American, including HuffPost readers.
Not to mention that he won his election because he was running against the governor who screwed up during hurricane Katrina. An empty seat could have won that election (and probably would have won by a wider margin than Jindal).
Jindal didn't run against "the governor who screwed up during Hurricane Katrina." She chose not to run again. He had several weak opponents so it was easy for him to stride right in. A lot of progressive people were fooled by him and regret voting for him; he's been a disaster for Louisiana.
Gov. Blanco was demonized by the Bush administration, which blew the response to Katrina far more than Gov. Blanco did; her on-camera performance belied her actual response. Read three good books on the subject, by Brinkley, Von Heerden and Horne. All three laid the blame at Ray Nagin's and GW Bush's feet, not Gov. Blanco's feet.
I live here; I know what happened. The destruction of 80% of a major American city was more than any governor, even Jindal, could have handled. Only the federal government had the resources to help us get back on our feet and it failed miserably, and deliberately.
It does speak volumes about the devastation of New Orleans, a Democratic city, and the distribution of its citizens to other cities in other states.
Let's not mince words here, though. We are not cowards and we are not anti-evolution freaks. He is. And so are his major contributors, the Christian far right. Jindal is a pawn of the Republican party and as such will do anything he can to contradict Obama's policies in hopes that Republicans around the country remember him in 2012.
Why not get behind the arts instead of laying out generalizations about the people here?
Bobby J. is a PAWN! Plain and simple. The UnSeen hand of the Republican Party has annointed him the next leader of the Party. He will do and say what the UnSeen hand tells him to do. He doesn't believe half the Mess he saves. He is a follower!
Who really isn't for something like Volcano Montoring that can save peoples lives. The UnSeen hand has used the kind of tactics in the past. Trying to belittle any issue that Liberals take up as outside the mainstream. When in fact most of the liberal issues are mainstream Populist issues. They just are consistent with there rhetoric. They will continue to beat something until it is burned into their followers conscience.
http://www.hallstyle.blogspot.com
If people want to fund the arts, they can do so with their own money. If these people were dependent on Government grants, they were not doing a real-productive job anyway.
Have you actually read the article? It quotes rate-of-return figures on state investment in the arts as $5.86 for every $1 invested. That is an exceptionally impressive figure for any investment, meaning that far more people have ongoing employment/successful businesses in the arts than could possibly be supported by the amount invested, even at the lowest possible rate of subsistence, which of course would be unemployment benefits.
State investment to underpin or boost a particular economic sector is entirely normal in many areas, from providing tax-breaks to inward-investing companies through to grants for activities which in turn will provide spin-off profits. So an entirely economic argument can be made for state investment in the arts.
Add to that the fact that EVERY report ever produced on education, innovation and inventiveness shows that students who have an arts/humanities education are more likely to think laterally, make intellectual connections and think creatively in all other areas of activity, including business and manufacturing. Arts and humanities provide a specific form of intellectual training which can then be applied in other areas. No successful society has ever existed, in any time or place, which did not have a thriving arts/humanities educational system.
So, if the arts give a good rate of return, they should have no trouble finding private funding, right ?
Okay, same rule applies to everywhere ELSE in the economy where the government either funds or offers tax breaks to a corporation!
Oh, wait........ If we do that we will find our economy suddenly collapsing!!!
The fact of the matter is that the arts are one area where we SHOULD be helping out!
Really? So government funded jobs are not productive? Are the police productive? Teachers? National lab researchers? NASA? The Smithsonian? Public universities? The military? Am I a waste because I have a fellowship from the National Science Foundation?
Just because the money comes from the government doesn't mean that it's a waste and can't be used for productive purposes. Funding the arts is just as important as funding cancer research through NIH or energy research through DOE or military research through DOD. Art is a part of the human soul and the government has a responsibility to keep that soul alive in the American tradition. Here in the US we have spawned many art forms and those artists deserve our respect.
And don't even try to bring up the recession because history has shown that funding artists actually helps during economic downturns. It was done during the Great Depression and the US has been left with some extremely important art and music because of it.
No, none of these are productive.
But that is not the point of the military or the police. These entities represent a net cost for us. We don't do any analysis of returns expected when we decide to "invest" in a military or a police force. We know that it represents a net cost for us.
The rest aren't.
Cancer or energy research need not be Government funded either. Basically, if something is worth funding, some private individual will fund it. Your NSF grant will be funded by a private donor if you are doing some useful research.
...art is more important than worthless petulant religions. It can be true inspiration and grow the creative mind within the human animal. If we can give tax breaks to mega churches that have a revenue of millions. We can support art.
Obama should break with tradition and TAX ALL CHURCHES. There's no reasonable arguement to not taxing the churches. I'd rather see art anyday than step one foot inside a fricking church.
can we apply the same logic to military contractors?
EXACTLY!
Didn't Cheney already do that?
Bobby J's a REPUBLICAN REACTIONARY whose political ambitions are his 100% interest
and governing well is about .000001% of interest to Jindal.
Republicans reap what they sow.
They don't want to govern.
Republicans hold office only as a stepping stone, not to be a statesman on behalf of voters.
Republicans PROVED they are SUCCESSFUL AT FAILURE.
It is unrealistic to expect some people to appreciate the more cultured things in life like science and art.
I have no clue why the Government needs to be in the business of funding arts. We shouldn't fund people's hobbies. If the art is good and people want it, they will pay.
Should the Government pay for my rounds of Golf too?
Since they already ARE paying for your rounds of golf, in the form of subsidies that they provide both to the golf course, AND to the people who are members of the country club..... Sure, why not?
Show me the public golf course that need subsidies and we'll talk.
BTW, I haven't played a city golf course in 20 years, they are all crappy.
Yo VikingRepublican, the Government isn't funding fingerpainting and cross-stitching. Your understanding of "Arts" seems to rival that of a first-grader. Stick to your golf.
"the Government isn't funding fingerpainting and cross-stitching"
Actually yes they are . . .
The republicants would love to pull the plug on NPR too. Art/Music/Culture - that's all for the "libs." Real red-blooded Americans listen to Rush for entertainment.
Because it supports l44,000 jobs in the state of Louisiana. Could that be a good reason???
A job which does not produce more value than it consumes is not a real job. If it produces value, then these jobs won't go anywhere. The market will support them.
The fact is, many cities have public golf courses, usually funded under the Parks Department. You, I assume, have never played on one, preferring to belong to an "exclusive" [code word] golf club.
This is nuts. Republicans care about nothing but power. Swindal/Jindal is thinking about 2012 and not the people in his state.
He's never cared about people, it's always been about numbers and saying "oh what a good boy am I" for the Republican administrations he worked for.
He hates medical care for people too.
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