Culture wars continue in Australia - the arts under attack
In an age when governments around the world are pump-priming their economies in a vain attempt to prove Keynes was right by splurging money on all sorts of failing businesses in order to avoid recession there is one group of rent-seeking non-producers who would normally expect to be the beneficiary of government largesse that has been conspicuously overlooked - the arts community.
The Yartz community, as it is commonly referred to here in Australia, has been a festering parasite on the wallets of Australian taxpayers for years.
As Andrew Bolt pointed out:
Film Finance Corporation boss Brian Rosen spends $70 million a year of taxpayers’ money on Australian films which barely get watched.
As well as How Baz blew our $80 million and Why only .1 per cent of our films make money.
Now comes a new blow for the Yartz community - arts subjects are being ‘ignored’ in the national curriculum currently being put together and the precious luvvies are up in arms - so they’ve created a lobby group to pressure the government into including the arts in the curriculum.
The Federal Government’s new national curriculum for schools is focused on the basics of education: English, maths, science, history, geography and languages.
The fact is that standards in the above subjects have fallen dramatically in the last couple of decades. One has to applaud the government for taking action.
But a new lobby group says the visual arts, drama, dance and music should also be included.
That’s right. We’ll watch movies, go to the theatre and generally dance and sing our way out of recession, as well as guarantee the future health of the nation.