Taxpayer-Funded Propaganda: The ABC's of the NEA Conference Call

Today, Big Hollywood released a full audio recording and transcript of the NEA conference call. A full review of the call reveals several new and more troubling aspects to what transpired on the August 10^th phone call. What is inescapable is that the origin of the call reaches into the highest offices of the White House. It is clear, from the transcript, that the call was orchestrated by the Office of Public Engagement, whose Director, Valerie Jarrett, is among the closest advisors to President and First Lady Obama. It is also apparent that Ms. Jarrett’s office directed the involvement of the National Endowment for the Arts and the Corporation for National and Community Service, two independent federal agencies. (This is important, as neither is officially part of the executive branch.)

At the very beginning of the call, the general ‘moderator’ of the call, Michael Skolnik, political director for Hip-Hop mogul Russell Simmons, explains the genesis of the call:

I have been asked by people in the White House and folks in the NEA about a month ago in a conversation that was had. We had the idea that I would help bring together the independent artists community around the country.

This is important, because in the immediate aftermath of the breaking story, the NEA has tried to state that a ‘third party’ organized the call. This clearly isn’t true. The e-mail invitation to the call was sent from Mr. Sargent’s government-provided NEA e-mail address. In addition, as the transcript reveals, Mr. Sloknik was “asked” by the White House and NEA to organize the call.

Mr. Skolnik goes on to comment to the participants:

…about the role that we played during the campaign for President and also during his first 200 some odd days of his presidency and the President has a very clear arts agenda and has been very supportive of using art and supporting art in creative ways to talk about some of the issues that we face here in our country and also to engage people.

Throughout the call, the speakers, all public officials, except Mr. Skolnik, make references to the campaign work done by call participants. The call is conducted with the presumption that all participants were active supporters during the Presidential campaign. This is troubling since the call was organized by a non-partisan government agency.

Especially since Mr. Skolnik goes on to comment:

And I think all of us who are on this phone call were selected for a reason…You are the ones that, if you create a piece of art or create a campaign for a company, and tell our country and our young people sort of what to do and what to be in to; and what’s cool what’s not cool.

He then adds:

…the goal of this phone call [instigated at the request of the White House and NEA] is to get involved in things that we’re passionate about as we did during the campaign but continue to get involved in those things, to support the President’s initiatives…”

If the call ended here, it would be troubling enough. To recap quickly, there were 21 different artist organizations on the call, all of whom, it seems, were active in the Obama presidential campaign. Sixteen of the organizations had recently–within the previous 150 days–received grants from the NEA. To sum up, the White House and NEA had organized a call of 21 artistic groups who had been active in the presidential campaign, most of whom had recently received federal support, to explore ways they could become involved in supporting the President’s agenda.

The most troubling aspect of the call came with the introduction of Buffy Wicks, with the White House Office of Public Engagement. Ms. Wicks is a long-time progressive activist. Prior to working for the Obama campaign, she was political director for WakeUpWalmart and a lobbyist for the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. Both of these organizations funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to ACORN, to help support their organizing and protest campaigns. Ms. Wicks also worked on the Howard Dean campaign in 2004 and was a legislative aide to Rep. Bob Filner, one of only 75 Congressmen to vote in favor of ACORN continuing to receive federal funds. Ms. Wicks is also the lead White House official on United We Serve, the parent organization of the Serve.Gov web portal.

She described her White House role at the Office of Public Engagement:

We have about 20 folks and we work under Valerie Jarrett, she’s one of our fantastic leaders, and Tina Chen.

It is sometimes hard for outsiders to navigate the DC nomenclature. Here’s a quick synopsis: Ms. Wick’s mention of Valerie Jarrett indicates to all participants on the call that this discussion has Ms. Jarrett’s stamp of approval. As one of the more important advisors to President Obama, the message to call participants cannot be more clear.

Ms. Wick begins her discussion–again on a call organized by the non-partisan NEA and the White House with a shout-out to the recently-concluded campaign:

I, first of all, want to thank everyone for being on the call and really just a deep, deep appreciation for all the work you all put into the campaign for the two plus years we all worked together…And, you know, we won and that’s exciting, and now we have to take all that energy and make it really meaningful.

Ms. Wicks main focus, however, is on the Serve.Gov portal, and the United We Serve program. They are leading initiatives of the Obama Administration to promote ‘national service.’ As Dana Loesch has reported at Big Government, the Serve.Gov portal funnels volunteers to programs supported by ACORN and other leftist organizations. Ms. Wicks seems to acknowledge this by noting during the call (emphasis added):

We wanted to connect folks with local non-profit organizations in their community. We wanted them to connect with local city council members or local elected officials. We wanted to connect them to federal agencies, with labor unions, progressive groups, face groups, women’s groups, you name it. [you name it, as long as it is part of the center-left movement.]

Throughout her time on the call, Ms. Wicks lays out the vision for the President’s ‘national service’ initiative. Remember, this is a government-sponsored initiative, complete with non-partisan federal agency oversight and taxpayer-funded web resources. There are three main problems with the vision articulated by Ms. Wicks. To summarize:

1. The volunteer initiative are focused on only four areas, as explained by Ms. Wicks:

One is health care. Obviously, that is a big issue…Second was energy and environment…Third was education…and then the fourth category was community renewal.

Americans coming to the Serve.Gov portal would be steered into one of these four areas. Repeatedly throughout the call, it is mentioned that these are the four categories for the national service campaign. Americans who responded to the President’s call to volunteer would be ‘nudged’ into one of these areas. Each of these has an obvious political component towards the President’s legislative initiatives.

2. The initiative seems to mimic a campaign operation. As explained by Ms. Wicks:

And then another tool we’ve been working on is on the ground presence. We obviously don’t have the kind of field staff that we were used to in terms of producing events and encouraging local contacts, but we’re partnering with national organizations, local affiliates across the country and with Americorps members, we have been able to generate this sort of on-the-ground enthusiasm…

This is really close to propaganda. It is hard to see why a focus of a ‘national service’ initiative should actively concern itself with an ability to mobilize large numbers of grass-roots activists for individual events. It is interesting that Ms. Wicks sees this as something to make up for their lack of the large ‘field staff’ that you would have in a presidential campaign.

3. The initiative seems not only focused on very specific issue areas, but, as noted above, the possible channels for ‘volunteering’ have a strong leftist bent. As Ms. Wicks explained, their strategy is to match up volunteers with either government agencies, elected officials, labor unions or progressive groups. Not only are they restricting the issues promoted at the government-operated Serve.Gov, they are restricting the manners in which one can engage those issues.

When Ms. Wicks is finished with her call, she turns the call over to Nell Abernathy, Director of Outreach of the Corporation of National and Community Service, the independent agency that is the parent of the President’s “United We Serve” initiative. In starting her remarks, this official from an independent, non-partisan federal agency describes her role as follows:

This will sound very familiar to many of you, we’ve basically been working to do this using the same tools we found so successful in the campaign,

She went on to note:

So our primary goal here is to ask those people and arm them with the skills and tools they need to really do what they’re already doing but do it as effectively as possible…

After a bit more rhetoric, Ms. Abernathy turns the call over to Mr. Sargent, but states that she will stay on the call until the end. Mr. Sargent procedes to urge the artists to engage on the President’s initiatives:

This is all being sorted out. We are participating in history as its being made. So bear with us as we learn the language so that we can speak with each other safely and we can really work together to move the needle and get stuff done.

When Mr. Sargent is finished, he turns the call back over to Mr. Skolnik. After closing remarks, there follows a period of Q & A. One of the callers asks about the relationship between Serve.Gov, the government-run portal for national service and Organizing for America, the Obama campaign arm now housed at the DNC. Ms. Abernathy, a public official with the independent federal agency, the Corporation for National and Community Service interjects herself into the question. It is worth reviewing her extended remarks:

Yeah, I can address that a little bit, and the reason only a little bit is largely because of my role at a federal agency, I’m precluded from going too far down the specific steps what people can do to advocate…We use the techniques, organizing strategies, because basically they’re both run by people from the campaign…So, if you’re interested in getting involved with OFA that’s run through the DNC now, I could probably put you in – I could help you with who to contact. I could get that information to Michael [Skolnik] and he could get it out.

Mr. Skolnik immediately follows up by noting that:

Well, I can speak to that because fortunately, or unfortunately, I don’t work for the government…

Mr. Skolnik then speaks of very political matters. Ms. Abernathy, who is clearly still on the call, doesn’t stop him, in spite of the fact that she is a government official and that government entities organized the call.

Throughout the call, the government officials hint strongly to the artists–most of whom are federal grant recipients–that they are needed to promote the Administration’s national service initiatives. There is a lot of rich detail in the full audio recording, but the basic facts are simple–and troubling. To summarize:

The White House and NEA organized a call of former Obama campaign supporters from the art community, most of whom recently have received federal funding.

1. These artists are reminded of the great work they did during the campaign and urged to do similar work to promote the President’s agenda.
2. They are also asked to support the President’s initiative for ‘national service.’ They are told that their art can inspire people to participate.
3. The ‘national service’ agenda will funnel people into four critical areas: health care, environment, education and community renewal
4. The organizations recommended to those wishing to volunteer will be government agencies, politicians, labor unions and progressive groups

Within two days of the conference call, all 21 artistic organizations participating released statements endorsing the President’s health care reform initiative.

The lead White House official heading up the effort is a long-time leftist activist, with deep ties to ACORN and a major labor union.