<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><HTML><FONT COLOR="#000000" FACE="Geneva" FAMILY="SANSSERIF" SIZE="2">You're not "wrong," but our economy is way beyond this. When you have a 1,000 people laid off here and 500 there, and they don't have the money to spend locally anymore, and other businesses start closing, everyone hurts and priorities have to be set. The arts are my greatest love; yesterday I told a friend who wants to see Ma Rainey at Beck that the ticket price is just to steep for me to go with her. It breaks my heart, but food comes first. Caring doesn't pruduce resources, and where we are at after a long 8 years of insanely profligate government spending on things that don't benefit the economy is an economy unlikely to be able to recover on its own and definitely not able to recover on the earnest goodwill of its overwhelmed and strapped working citizens whose wages have gone down and whose jobs are vanishing.<BR>
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We should NEVER be sitting by and letting government make poor decisions, but we have done that in recent years. Maybe it's time for us now to tell our representatives more forcefully where we would like our money spent. And we need to remember that "government" in this country is not the malevolent outside force that some on the ultra-right have been trying to convince people it is: it is US. And if WE decide that keeping the arts alive (and it really is going to be life and death for the next few years) is important, we should tell our represenatives that. And to be consistent, those who say "government out of arts' should also be supporting the repeal of state and county support for the arts. Would you be willing to support the loss of the arts groups that would follow? Remember, individual and corporate support for the arts are also vanishing because the money isn't there and that almost no arts groups are entirly self-sustaining. Obviously, some people WOULD choose that; they feel that a flourishing local arts scene is not that important. But right now, the citizens of this region cannot take on the burden of keeping any significant part of it alive, which was not its entire burden to bear in flusher times.<BR>
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In a message dated 2/2/09 1:09:40 AM, alpinepro@msn.com writes:<BR>
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<BLOCKQUOTE CITE STYLE="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px" TYPE="CITE"></FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" FACE="Geneva" FAMILY="SANSSERIF" SIZE="2">To keep it simple, most businesses (and people) would do just fine just by doing the right thing because its the right thing to do. As this pertains to the Arts, just support them if you really care. See a play, see a film, by some art when you can. When the people who all love The Arts do this on a regular basis the government won't be of any question because they wont be a "producer". Thats who we become when we spend our money on The Arts, producers. Dont lets a single "producer" control the show.<BR>
That my POV. Am I wrong? When has any time of trial got better when people sat by and allowed the few made policy without hearing the minds and hearts of the many.<BR>
If the lovers of The Arts are many, lets support them in action.<BR>
Don't let the government beat us to the box office.<BR>
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