Yosi Sergant And The Art Of Right Wing Hysteria
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It was late September 2009, and Yosi Sergant was sitting in Washington National Airport, waiting for his flight. His sister Shira was about to give birth to a baby girl, and he was flying home to Los Angeles to be there for it. He wore a turtleneck and a fedora. He looked nothing like a government employee, and in fact, he no longer was one.
He noticed that people were looking at him. And then looking up, behind him, and then back at him.
Yosi turned around, and there, on all the television screens, was Lou Dobbs, and in a box, was a photo of Yosi. Underneath the photo were the words, "Left-Wing Propagandist."
All Yosi could do was marvel at what a strange year it had been. He'd gone from working as a publicist and living in Echo Park, to working in the White House, to working as director of communications for the National Endowment of the Arts, to being unemployed. His tenure at the NEA was cut short by a seemingly mundane conference call that somehow became a national scandal stirred up by Andrew Breitbart, Glenn Beck, and one of his old bosses. It was a lesson that in politics, being right is no substitute for looking like you're right.
I had lunch with Yosi, a close friend of mine, last Saturday at Flore, a cramped Vegan restaurant in Silver Lake where there's always some shrieking blender going off. I'd been trying to interview him for months, and he had finally agreed, albeit a bit reluctantly. He hasn't given an on-the-record interview since his resignation from the National Endowment of the Arts. The fact that we're friends doesn't ease his fear.
"Don't get me in trouble," he kept saying.
Yosi can be forgiven for being suspicious of the media. He's seen how they can take what you say, disassemble it, throw most of it away, and reassemble it into something completely different. He's not paranoid. Just a little shell-shocked.
The Hope Poster
A couple months before Barack Obama launched his campaign for president, Yosi got a call from his friend, David Washington.
"Obama's gonna run for president," said Washington, "Are you in?"
"Yes," replied Yosi.
And with that, Washington hung up.
"We were bringing the toolset of marketing and advertising that we knew to the table," said Yosi.
Obama came to Los Angeles 10 days after he announced his candidacy. There wasn't yet a campaign team in Los Angeles. So O08 helped out, co-producing an event in Inglewood where Obama spoke. They provided the entertainment, got some celebrities to show up, and handed out buttons that Yosi had comissioned. The group was an early example of grassroots activists operating outside the campaign.
In October 2007, Yosi, who was working as a publicist for Evolutionary Media Group, produced an Adidas event with the artist Shephard Fairey, and they got to talking.
"You should make a poster for Obama," said Yosi.
"I was thinking about that," replied Shephard.
The next morning, Yosi got an email from him. Attached was what would become perhaps the most iconic and memorable advocacy art since the Uncle Sam poster. Below the drawing was the word 'progress.'
(It was later revealed that Fairey's illustration was copied from a photograph by Mannie Garcia. The Associated Press claimed that it owned the rights to that photo, while Fairey argued that the poster was covered under the Fair Use provision in copyright law. Fairey and the AP are suing each other. Fairey is also under criminal investigation for lying about which photograph he used, and for deleting evidence relating to the lawsuit.)
Yosi knew right away that image would make an impact. He had two suggestions: remove the 'Obey' logo, and change 'Progress' to 'Hope.'
"Progress is a weighted liberal word," he told me. "And hope has no party associated with it."
It was Yosi who masterminded the poster's spread. He identified young, politically active people in primary states, and made sure they got posters. Every Democratic college representative got a poster. Every local campaign office got a box of them. Anyone he knew in L.A. flying to an early primary state got a box. It was a lot of work.
"Without fail, people put them underneath their bed as a collector's item, or on a wall in an apartment. So I'd tell them, here's what you need to do, take a certain number of them as bait, use a certain number of them and hand them to somebody that knows the local coffee shops. I would send them buttons, stickers, spoke cards."
Yosi gave the image the standard PR-treatment - he got it onto TV shows and into magazines. He got celebrities to wear the T-shirt.
"It was a meme that was created. A lot of people just think that it magically spread. And it did, in many ways. But there was a lot of work that went underneath it."
202
It was the Thursday after inauguration weekend, and Yosi had just returned to Los Angeles. He had spent the last few months in Washington, D.C. putting on Manifest Hope, a three-day event during inauguration weekend showcasing Obama-themed art. It was the hippest place to be. Michael Stipe, Rosario Dawson, and Arnold Schwarzenegger all made appearances. Santogold, Moby, and De La Soul played the closing night's party.
Back in Los Angeles, Yosi was thinking, "what now? Am I gonna go back to hawking Adidas products?"
He went to filmmaker Jesse Dylan's office for a meeting. Jesse had directed the Yes We Can video, and he and Yosi were talking about maybe collaborating on something, when Yosi's Blackberry rang.
He looked down at the phone. The display said only, "202." Which is what your phone says when it's the White House calling.
"Hello?"
"Are you ready to come serve your country?" asked David Washington.
"Uh... yeah..." said Yosi.
And David hung up.
Yosi called back.
"Are you serious?"
"Yeah. You start Monday. Pack your shit."
And so Yosi Sergant, who'd gotten kicked out of high school for spray painting graffiti on campus, shaved his beard, took out his earrings, packed his only suit, and flew to D.C. to work for the White House.
Hipster in Chief
The Office of Public Engagement is in the White House Executive Building. It's the first office after you go through security. In its previous incarnation, the Office of Public Liaison, it had four people working in it. The head had been Karl Rove.
"I don't know this for a fact," said Yosi, "but I believe it was one person who dealt with Christians, and one who dealt with Conservatives. In our office there were 28 people."
The new head was Valerie Jarrett. For a time, when a new administration takes office, it works off of the budget of the last administration. Which is why Yosi was working for free.
He slept on David Washington's couch. He wore the same suit pants every day, switching out ties and jackets. And he worked very hard. He would show up to work at 7 a.m., and sometimes wouldn't be in bed until 4 a.m. He was doing outreach to youth groups, art groups, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.
One day, it was H1N1. The next day, credit card reform. The learning curve was steep. He had to learn when to deal with cabinet affairs and when to deal with legislative affairs. Who was important to various issues, not just in D.C. but all over the country.
It was also a lot of fun. He went bowling in the White House. He took walks in the rose garden, watched as Marine One took off. He even got a little press -- The Washington Post referred to Yosi as the White House's Hipster in Chief.
Still, Yosi couldn't shake that nagging feeling that he was in over his head.
"I felt the same way I felt during high school. I felt like sooner or later they were gonna figure me out. Sooner or later they were going to realize that I don't know politics."
And in a way, he was right.
The Conference Call
You can only work in the White House for free for four months, and Yosi's time was almost up. He was busy tying up loose ends, and training his successor, Kal Penn, of Harold and Kumar fame. When he was called to the West Wing for a meeting, he thought it was to say goodbye.
At the meeting he was offered two jobs. One with the White House, and another that offered much more pay, much more responsibility, and much more prestige: Director of Communications for the National Endowment of the Arts.
The NEA was created in 1965, and became a whipping boy for conservatives when Reagan took office in 1981. For the next 20 years, Republicans harped on the NEA. From Robert Mapplethorpe to a photograph known as Piss Christ, the NEA was the Bull Run of the culture war. It an easy target to pick on, one that few people saw the point in defending.
At the time, the NEA's biggest initiative was The Big Read, which promotes literacy.
"Which I think is fantastic," said Yosi, adding, "as an education department program. If that's our primary investment as a nation in developing arts, we have a lot of growth to do. I came into a department that was funding opera on military bases."
Obama's pick to run the department was Rocco Landesman, a Broadway theater producer, but he had yet to be confirmed by the Senate. The idea was that Yosi would help pave the way for the new director's arrival.
But that left Yosi without a boss. And without anyone to train him. The last director of communications was a Republican, and she had long since moved back to Arizona.
"So I started working on things that I knew were happening, that I thought would be safe... and I was wrong."
To understand the conference call that got Yosi into so much trouble, you have to start with H.R. 1388, otherwise known as the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, a shockingly bipartisan piece of legislation (it passed 79-12 in the Senate) that was the largest expansion of government-backed service programs since the Kennedy Administration. It tripled the size of AmeriCorps, expanded Teach for America, and created Serve.gov. It specifically singled out five areas to expand volunteerism: veterans affairs, education, health, clean energy, and opportunity.
The initiative was about encouraging everyone to volunteer. Doctors, plumbers, and especially artists- art even has its own section on Serve.gov.
There were many conference calls set up, involving Yosi, the Office of Public Engagement, United We Serve, and a group of people the administration was trying to reach - artists, filmmakers, marketers, and journalists. Even some Republicans were invited.
The August 10 conference call was led by Mike Skolnik, Russell Simmons' political director. In his introduction, which sounds like some bureaucrat's interpretation of the The Tipping Point, he said, "All of us who are on this phone call were selected for a reason, and you are the ones that lead by example in your communities. You are the thought leaders. You are the ones that, if you create a piece of art or promote a piece of art or create a campaign for a company, and tell our country and our young people sort of what do and what to be in to; and what's cool and what's not cool."
Some of these "thought leaders" were Yosi's friends from LA, including Chris Holmes, a musician / DJ / club promoter; Bim Ayandele, a marketer who'd worked on O08; and a man named Patrick Courrielche, an old employer of Yosi's.
The call lasted almost an hour. After Skolnik's introduction, Buffy Wicks, from the Office of Public Engagement, spoke about trying to channel the excitement and involvement people had during the Obama campaign into volunteering throughout different communities.
It wasn't until a half hour into the call when Yosi spoke: "What we're asking is for you to take an action. What it looks like is completely up to you. We want you in the fight.... I would encourage you to something, whether it's health care, education, the environment, you know, there's four key areas that the corporation has identified as the areas of service."
"There wasn't any one political agenda," Yosi told me. "When I referred to health care, it would be like, make a poster for a blood drive. I wasn't saying make a poster for the public option."
Anatomy of a Take-Down
Patrick Courrielche ran a PR firm called Inform Ventures. He had donated money to both Hillary Clinton and John McCain in early 2008. And he was recording the conference call from the very beginning.
"I believe," Yosi said, "that what he believed I was doing, he was seeing the dark possibilities of what might have been."
On August 25, Andrew Breitbart's site, Big Hollyood, posted a 2000-word article by Courrielche about the call. Most of it is pretty benign, until the second-to-last paragraph, where he quotes Yosi directly, although he doesn't name him:
"This is just the beginning. This is the first telephone call of a brand new conversation. We are just now learning how to really bring this community together to speak with the government. What that looks like legally... bare with us as we learn the language so that we can speak to each other safely..."
Is the hair on your arms standing up yet?
There were two problems with the piece. The first, as Ben Davis at artnet pointed out, was that what Courrielche had cut out with ellipsis was pretty important. After "legally," Yosi had said, "we're still trying to figure our the laws of putting government Web sites on Facebook and the use of Twitter." He was not, in fact, talking about starting a propaganda wing of the federal government.
The second problem was that the legislation that created the NEA allows for the very thing that Courrielce objected to. Buried in the bill, a section reads, "The Chairperson shall correlate the programs of the National Endowment for the Arts insofar as practicable, with existing Federal programs and with those undertaken by other public agencies or private groups..."
Over the course of the next month, the media would consistently overlook these two holes in the case against Yosi. Even Mother Jones would concede, "Sargent may have crossed the line." (The media would also consistently misspell his last name.)
A week later Alex Beam, writing in the Boston Globe, took it a step further, writing, "The taxpayer-funded NEA is trying to recruit sympathetic artists to push the Obama agenda?" The brief mentions of health care and the environment were taken to mean the president's proposed legislation.
That night, Glenn Beck began a segment on his show, looking like he'd just witnessed the rape of a small child, by talking about Josph Goebbels. Beck then said, "I'm going to show you the beginning of something that should scare the living daylights out of you. It is propaganda in America. The National Endowment for the Arts is now holding conference calls."
It was Beck who turned Yosi into the central character of the story. He played the "brand-new conversation" clip not once, not twice, but three times. Courrielche came on, acting the brave hero, risking the ire of the art community by speaking truth to power. He admitted that the NEA wasn't actually paying for artwork about issues, but he let Beck imply a nefarious subtext.
That same day, a reporter for the right-leaning Washington Times called Yosi and asked if the invitation to the conference call had come from the NEA. Yosi said that it hadn't. But Courrielche's invitation had been e-mailed to him from Yosi, who had simply copy / pasted the text from a United We Serve e-mail. The result was that Yosi looked like he was involved in a cover-up. The Washington Times called it "Official Dishonesty."
Yosi knew he'd made a mistake. The next day, he called the White House to ask if he should resign. He was told no.
"They did not think that what I did merited the response of the media."
Nevertheless, Yosi was reassigned. On September 10, the NEA released a statement, defending the conference call, and announcing that Yosi was still with the NEA, but was no longer the Communications Director. He continued to work on the website and newsletter, but was no longer a part of strategic decisions.
"Internally, I was frozen out."
More than anything, it was the optics that were bad. A guy who had spent a year helping to make and distribute advocacy art, which some would call propaganda, now stood accused of being a propagandist. When bloggers like Glenn Reynolds wrote about the story, they inevitably included a photo of Yosi standing in front of the Hope poster. Like most stories the media gets wrong, it made a certain amount of sense if you only read the headline, or if you only caught a few minutes of Fox News in passing.
Yosi's reassignment didn't make the "scandal" go away. George Will wrote about it in his Washington Post column on September 17, connecting all the quarter-truths and insinuations:
This is just the beginning," Yosi Sergant told participants in an Aug. 10 conference call that seems to have been organized by the National Endowment for the Arts and certainly was joined by a functionary from the White House Office of Public Engagement. The call was the beginning of the end of Sergant's short tenure as NEA flack -- he has been reassigned. The call also was the beginning of a small scandal that illuminates something gargantuan -- the Obama administration's incontinent lust to politicize everything.
By now, Yosi was almost starting to believe what people were saying about him.
"I was ashamed and embarrassed," said Yosi. "I felt that I had let down the people who had faith enough in me to give me the responsibility to do my job. My job was to present the chairman in a positive light."
Chairman Rocco Landseman was confirmed by the Senate on August 7. He'd been on the job for less than three weeks when Fox News started saying Yosi's name.
"He did not want to be tied to the scandal," Yosi told me, "It was a mess I made. Why would he speak up on my behalf?"
On September 22, the chairman issued a statement, organized into six "facts," saying that the Director of Communications (eerily unnamed, as if he was some sort of non-person) acted "unilaterally and without approval," even though it defends the conference call: "This call was not a means to promote any legislative agenda and any suggestions to that end are simply false."
It went on to say, "Some of the language used by the former NEA Director of Communications was, unfortunately, not appropriate and did not reflect the position of the NEA. This employee has been relieved of his duties as director of communications."
In other words, Yosi hadn't done anything wrong, but had used some wrong words, and for that he was being demoted.
Two days later, the NEA released another short statement: "This afternoon Yosi Sergant submitted his resignation from the National Endowment for the Arts. His resignation has been accepted and is effective immediately."
The Next Big Thing
After his niece was born, Yosi returned to D.C. Winter had set in, and the city was covered in snow.
"I went through this kind of mourning period, where I ate a lot of pasta in bed. Nursing my wounds. I went from the one netlix plan to the five netflix plan."
Once again, he was faced with the question, what am I gonna do now?
One of Yosi's lasting regrets from 2008 was not doing enough for Proposition 8, the measure in California that banned Gay Marriage. So he got together with his friend Apple Via and his old employer at Evolutionary Media Group Jennifer Gross, who had worked with him on Manifest Hope. Together, they cooked up Manifest Equality, an art show that will promote Gay and Lesbian equality. The show will take place in Los Angeles in early March.
Yosi has done as much as anyone to show that art can make an impact, that it can be a powerful tool in the activist's arsenal.
"I did this work from the outside before, I'll do it again."
Home
"Didn't it piss you off that no one spoke up for you?" I asked Yosi.
"No, I got it," he said.
"Really?" I asked incredulously, "cause you spent two years of your life helping this guy become president, and no one came to your defense. I'm pissed. Why aren't you pissed?"
"I wasn't worth defending."
"Really?"
"I don't believe that what I did was wrong," he said, "I believe that what I did came at a time when all the focus was on health care reform, and that that's where they needed to put their time and energy... could they have stood up for me if they wanted to? Sure. Am I worth the political capital? They had just lost Van Jones."
"You must have thought, there's got to be a chance that someone's gonna stick up for me."
"No."
"You must have been hoping for that, right?"
"I knew they wouldn't."
"People here [in LA] were pissed that they didn't stick up for you."
"I know that. I know that."
He paused, lost in thought. "I think they made a bad decision to put me in a job without giving me any kind of guidance, not providing me with any kind of mentorship. That was a bad decision. I'd never worked in government before. Where's the handbook? Maybe they made assumptions that at this level, you'd better be that good."
"It does seem like a very honest mistake."
"My big disappointment is that I know I could have done an amazing job at that agency."
Hearing how little spite Yosi had for the administration, I had two thoughts. My first was, he's still thinking like a government employee, afraid to badmouth Obama. My second thought was, maybe he's just happy to be back home.
Yosi missed LA. He missed the sunshine, the vegan restaurants, the way people here dress.
"In D.C., if you go somewhere with more than four people, everyone wears a tie. Even the democrats wear suits and ties all day long."
He missed his family, and he missed his friends. And he didn't tell me this, but I'd bet that he missed being able to say whatever the hell he wanted to.
Fascinating interview!
Courrielche just got owned.
http://bit.ly/9cnCYC
What a piece of garbage article. What the hell does this guy do besides draw pictures and whine to his friends about all the bad 'right-wing hysteria'? Now he's promoting gay marriage? What the fuck? Do any of these people work for a living?
The bitching in this piece is really embarrassing. The audacity to write that this kid was some hero who was lied about and thrown under the bus should make anyone's stomach turn, and the fact that it comes from some crony of his? Does ANYONE believe this bullshit?
What you've essentially got, is a pack of liberals, writing propaganda for their propagandist friend. Yosi sounds like he needs to take the tampon out of his ass and find a real job. No more netflix, baby.
i mean really? That hack illegally (California Penal Code 633.5 - http://bit.ly/15UgTW) tape recorded a telephone call, chopped it up and spit it out... read the rest of his writing on that crap site... hes a Global Warming denier... he is paid by the same guy who paid that other guy who just got arrested in New Orleans for dressing up like a telephone repair man and going into the Senators office.... you know the pimp Acorn guy...
Yosi was clearly in over his head at the NEA, but lets not forget who is whipping up the noise around this... just another wingnut.
Under what statute was it determined that he 'misused' the NEA?
This article is hogwash hackery. The truth is here:
http://bit.ly/bBaKpt
I'm glad that the author disclosed his personal relationship. But what a kid-gloves interview!
I think Yosi's (and Obama's) problem is they're accustomed to living within a bubble of like-minded people. Even the journalists they choose to speak to treat them like friends (which, in this case, they are). When they finally face a little adversity or hard questioning, they're totally unprepared.
For all their expressed embrace of "diversity," people on the left tend only to listen to and talk among themselves (as this article so aptly illustrates). Perhaps they should get out more, meet some people from the other side of the Great Cultural Divide in this country. Nah, that won't happen.
This whole issue is such a farce. It's amazing how angry and indignant certain right-wingers can make themselves just because they feel they should be. And after they get angry, there's no stopping them, certainly not with weak weapons like logic and reason. They're just going to keep fighting.
Anyone remember the Norse beserkers from back in the day? The parallels are unsettling and darkly amusing to watch.
First off, Yosi, you look like the typical beta liberal male. Kinda girly. I wouldn't expect less. Second, you blame the right wing for you getting caught with your hand in the cookie jar? You're so full of sh!t. From a liberal I wouldn't expect less either. You and your little brown shirts were caught, trying to use my tax dollars to propagandize Obama. We're going to keep shutting you and your friends down at every turn. The left is a dying breed and no one in this country is buying your Hope and Change. It was all a farce.
"Those old models of reporting are obviously not how news operates in these changing times."
So call it an essay or a memoir, but it's not news.
I think the blame for Yosi's treatment by the NEA is misplaced. This conference call was an offshoot of a concerted effort by the White House Office of Public Engagement to organize grass-roots support for the President's political agenda. I posted about this on my blog back in September:
http://www.verumserum.com/?p=8627
I think Sergant was unfairly singled out by (primarily) conservative media, but the ultimate blame rests with senior White House staff who tip-toed their way around anti-lobbying laws in order to encourage support from the arts community and other activist organizations. Sergant was only acting on an initiative started by those who had put him into this job to begin with.
For them to not defend him or accept any responsibility for this is inexcusable.
This was a minor mistake by a newcomer to Washington DC, and then used as a political football by enemies of the current administration who care less about what Sergant said than the mileage they could get out of it. The story is also an important reminder that it wasn't Glenn Beck who started all this, but a man named Patrick Courrielche, a friendly colleague who was invited to join the conference call and participate in what could have been a positive government project, but instead chose to record it without anyone's knowledge. What did he reveal? Nothing of any lasting importance, except about himself.
No doubt he'll remain a hero to the right for as long as he's useful to them, but that kind of betrayal is breathtaking from any direction. Was Yosi Sergant a true villian who needed to be crushed? Of course not. All Courrielche has got to show for his own ruined reputation is the firing/resignation of a young man who's biggest mistake was thinking him worthy of trust.
The government is not supposed to be telling
artist to "take action," and no offense if you think
that he wanted people to make posters for a blood
drive you are dreaming.
Too bad he didn't have some kind of life tenure, right?
I agree, too bad he wasn't a CEO for a finance firm. Then he would have gotten a bonus for screwing up.
thank you all for reading and for your comments. i would urge anyone who thinks the NEA was pushing the Obama agenda to listen to the call or read the transcript. surely my objectivity has no effect on that.
I'm acquainted with Yosi going back several years and admire him tremendously. I chanced to bump into him in Little Tokyo after an event a couple months ago and though I was itching to get his side of what happened, out of respect I refrained. Thank you for this tremendously enlightening article.
Other commenters can and will triumphantly bring the know-it-all sarcasm and outrage to bear. I just bring an increased appreciation for Yosi and his earnest attempt to be of service to the administration and the country.
Let's put this into historical context- EVERY administration encourages Americans to take part in volunteerism. It's nothing new. In fact, The NEA supported President Bush's “Thousand Points of Light” volunteerism campaign during the last campaign. Where was the rage then? Don't kid yourselves... this is a political attach and nothing less.
I've read the transcripts (look them up online, easy to find)... there is NOTHING in there that deserved this kind of a reaction... if you are LOOKING for something to be mad at, you still have to stretch into the realm of possibilities...
Yosi fell victim to his over-zealousness, idealistic and naive views of politics-- not even public service and volunteerism is a non-partisan issue any more.
Great article. It read like one of those behind the scenes Frontline documentaries in which much of the truth is laid bare. I find it the height of irony that the Right Wing propaganda machine embodied in Fox News projects their own activities onto an innocent Yosi. Well, I guess not completely 'innocent' -- he helped bring Obama to the presidency, and that is a 'crime' by any Right Wing standard and worthy of vendetta. Let's not kid ourselves, because that is what this was all about. The Right Wing settling a score.
I am glad to hear another perspective on the story. Though Yosi should have known better. He was from California right? DC isn't all that different, ha. A conservative in Hollywood is chewed up and spit out for who they are just like Yosi was spit out of DC. And if what he says is true, he was a tool that was used up and discarded. Unfortunately, that is the nature of the beast. And, by the way, all artists are propagandists for what they actually believe in their heart whether you lie about it or not it is still there. What you agree to do with your art tells everyone what actually matters to you. Be prepared that others might not like it, as a conservative artist I get that. Seems like Yosi gets it now too. PS. I severely dislike the NEA.
I met Yosi during the weeks before the California primary.
It was one of those things, I put on my MySpace (when that was still cool) that we needed volunteers in East LA. A friend who knew Yosi saw my post, put us in contact and pretty soon we were rolling out plans for Obama Latino voter outreach not only in Los Angeles, but in the Southwest – Texas to be exact.
So, I was one of those young, politically active people you mention in your article. When my crew and I left to San Antonio we had boxes of posters in English AND Spanish and we knew how to use them. It was magical. The ability to inspire youth civic engagement on the ground through art was a huge part of the entire movement.
When we heard the news of Van Jones and Yosi, it was like everything was falling apart.
This piece is amazing in that it FINALLY gives us the back story that we all needed.
I don’t think that it matters that the author is friends with Yosi and actually it’s a waste of time to question his objectivity. Those old models of reporting are obviously not how news operates in these changing times. I would rather rear or hear a story from someone that can convey some passion and behind the scenes knowledge, than the other garbage that’s been posted all over the internet that obviously lacks the finer details of the story.
Sorry about the duplicated comment.
Yosi is of the generation of kids who were coddled all their lives; who were told that everyone is always a winner; who believe that there are always do-overs; whose self-esteem was always cherished; whose playing field was so level that nobody ever lost; who never learned by being allowed to fail...
This is what happens when these kids become adults and go into the working world. They have no clue as to how life really works; how to deal with adversity; how to get by on merit rather than patronage or charm or friends "in the biz".
I will say this for him, though. He lost this one, but he lost graciously.
Yosi is of the generation of kids who were coddled all their lives; who were told that everyone is always a winner; who believe that there are always do-overs; whose self-esteem was always cherished; whose playing field was so level that nobody ever lost; who never learned by being allowed to fail...
This is a perfect case study of what happens when these kids become adults and go into the working world. They have no clue as to how life really works; how to deal with adversity; how to get by on merit rather than patronage or charm or friends "in the biz".
I will say this for him, though. He lost this one, but he lost graciously. He didn't learn that from Rahm Emanual.
The NEA shouldn't be involved in pushing any administration's agenda. This article also glosses over the Serve America Act and the expansion of a horribly inept agency, the Corporation for National and Community Service. Would you rather have the poorest children in our country taught by well compensated and licensed educators or slumming, elitist, 23 year old Americorps members who will be gone in 10 months?
"Piss Christ" isn't a sculpture, it's a photograph by Andres Serrano.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Piss_Christ_by_Serrano_Andres_(1987).jpg
Welcome to the big leagues kid. Just be glad you got out when you did without any bigger battle scars.
Politics isn't a prom dance, it's a back alley no holds barred fight for every inch of power you can grab. Just remember, if they'll do it with you (your former employer, ouch!), they'll do it to you.
At least Yosi seems to have the right perspective. It's nothing personal. He made a mistake, and at the level he was playing at, there isn't much margin for error.
If nothing else, he should have the PR sense to know that being a propagandist for Obama is marketable in the arts community. This article is a great step in the right direction. Paint yourself a martyr and let this catapult you to your next adventure in life.
Fact: All your friends are hipsters.
this was an interesting and rather personal peek into life on the inside of politics. i sometimes forget there are real people involved...
Thank you for writing this piece. People need to hear the whole story, even if they choose to continue to believe the versions doled out by specific interests. It's unfortunate that specific meanings were attached to phrases that were open to interpretation.
I have a lot of respect for Yosi and the movements that he put his passion into. He stood up to the challenge when he was asked to. He fought for something he believed in. There are others who are scared to fail and complain about how nothing changes. Yosi will never be one of those people.
"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those timid spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat." - Theodore Roosevelt
Would've been a better story if not done by a close personal friend. How are readers supposed to know if this is any more the "truth" than all the media hoopla that resulted in his dismissal?
Sloppy guys like him get kicked out of DC quickly. He misused the NEA. We can't have slobs like him in important positions.
Oh, and Shepard Fairey sued the AP first--NOT the other way around. So now he must really be regretting that, considering he's under criminal investigation and all!
Idiots.
No handbook? I think this guy needs to grow up and live in the real world. He can whine about the media all he wants, but he screwed up. No wonder the administration didn't defend him. He's a white boy, and thus, thinks his caca doesn't stink.
Cry me a river.
"There wasn't any one political agenda" - sure, not any particular agenda, just a predictable amalgam of pro-government agendas.
Did this tool really think he wasn't engaged in politics, or does he think we're idiots?
A state-sponsored propagandist taken down in a completely civil, peaceful, and public process of citizens making their complaints heard. What an atrocity against enlightened governance... Damn rubes don't know what's best for them!
Too bad he didn't have some kind of life tenure, right?
Beautiful piece. Thanks for telling the real story.
Depressing, maddening piece. Our system just doesn't have room for decency or any real diversity of thought. The wolves are always waiting right outside the door to chew you up. Yosi was like an appetizer.
What a great story about the Right Wing Noise Machine and its victims. Makes me crazy. Obama doesn't come off looking that great either.