Does the U.S. need a ministry of culture?

Before the entire enterprise is a private club?

In short, yes we do to counter balance a whole lotta bad taste.

more government is always the answer to every problem. i cant wait for the government to tell me what art i should enjoy.

The U.S. needs culture, first. Then we can get a ministry overseeing it.

No sense in putting cart before horse.

And it's worth the larger deficits/debt, higher taxes and new enforcement agencies too.

heard a funny thing on that

Canada : the had the opportunity to get

French Food

English Culture

and American Technology

instead they got

English food

American Cultre

and French Technology

:D

And towards that end, it wouldn't hurt to put music and art education back in our schools.

American music culture was pretty good back when our forebearers invented jazz and rock 'n roll. Then, music education began disappearing from our schools during the '80s...

Best,

Geoff

Neither more government nor less government is always the answer.

In this case, though, I think we're talking -- at least in part -- about trust busting.

Trust busting wasn't a bad idea when Teddy Roosevelt and William Howard Taft broke monopolies and helped set the stage for the greatest economic growth in US history.

Freedom from a stranglehold is a good thing, whether the death grip is caused by monopolies or by over-regulation from the government.

If we can somehow prevail over the rigid political thinking that dominates our current times, then what do we think is the best answer here?

Best,

Geoff

They will when such classes yield soldiers and Playboy models.

Did you ever SEE any of the garbage put out by the Ministries of Culture in the Soviet Union, China or pre-war Germany???

.....yea, we really need that.....

Something the gentleman featured in the linked article is discussing is that with increasing copyright terms and corporate players making access to cultural artifacts more restricted, teachers have a hard time coming up with materials to place in the curriculum.

Not that the school districts are encouraging an arts curriculum, but that's another can o' worms...:poke:

More than a ministry of culture, we need an effective lobbying group that represents the interests of media & cultural consumers. We also need a lobbying group to represent smaller, independent content creators.

The first priority should be to roll back intellectual property laws so that they protect the interests of creators, but do not allow mega-corporations to control intellectual property that should be (and would be, under older laws) in the public domain or restrict legitimate use of content. Another priority should be to strengthen, clarify and codify fair use guidelines so that they are less subjective.

Also, there should be a way to level the playing field so that corporations can't bully people by threatening them with expensive lawsuits that are not based on a legitimate application of the law. Perhaps there should be an equivalent of a publicly funded public defender type system for intellectual property lawsuits, so that the application of law, not one side's financial resources, determines who wins. Another option is something akin to anti-SLAP laws to criminalize using lawsuits to prevent lawful use of intellectual property.

I'll do it. I'll only get paid if I am successful in eliminating pay to play in the live music business. It is the ruination of our beloved occupations...I could run for President on that platform (prez of the local musician's union, that is...)!

I don't think you can influence culture from the top down. Start small by getting individual people to want more. A "ministry of culture" would do whatever they would do, while the mass entertainment industry would carry on unaffected.

Any such proposal would only cause a food fight in Congress and we don't need any more excuses for that.

We do have the National Endowment For the Arts but republicans make sure its way underfunded. Wouldn't want nobody to get no culcha, it might strat a culcha war...

While the other side makes sure my hard earned dollars are wasted on other crap I hate.

Don