Comments on: When Your Benefactor is a Fascist

By: Joseph Holbrooke

Joseph Holbrooke — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 16:55:04 +0000

David, despite gloomy emotions all the data shows that things are going extraordinarily well for our species. Huge challenges, bright future. You might want to check out Has Rosling: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpKbO6O3O3M What is truly amazing is that rich liberals like me and you can choose to commit our lives to helping others and improving the world if we want.

By: david f

david f — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 01:03:29 +0000

Oh dear… flame war all over new music land…

I’m moved from my usual lurking to make a few observations:

> While it’s true that fascism and libertarianism are pretty far apart on the ideological spectrum, the realistic effect of being a libertarian in contemporary American politics would have the effect of enabling the fascist fringe. If you are espousing the evils of government while also dismantling the social safety net and relaxing gun regulations and police/FBI/security funding, how long do you think it would take the apocalyptic crazies to run amok? Our history has a wide streak of xenophobic Know Nothingism which is (sort of) kept in check by government and our impossibly well-crafted Bill of Rights. Being a Libertarian means being a Corporatist means we’ll do anything to make money which (in my opinion) makes fascism a much more likely scenario…

> It’s a dangerous game to lay blame on organizations for their donors’ actions. However, this is a very high-profile situation. I guess I’m not really opposed to Lincoln Center/NYCO taking this wannabe despot’s cash. However, I think renaming the theater for him is a step beyond the pale. What better symbol of our country’s sad decline into plutocracy than the fact that this laudable venue was once dedicated to the people (New York State Theater) but now bears the name of a full-fledged member of the inherited corporatocracy???

By: david toub

david toub — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 00:45:51 +0000

Joseph, I’d be fine with electric cars, solar-powered and wind-powered homes and corporations, etc We don’t need petroleum, and it’s a very limited resource anyway. As a vegetarian, i’m fine without ranching, and paper can be recycled so no one should need decimate the forests in Washington State, etc. Complex future it is, but promising? I think we’re more likely to cause the extinction of our own species than herald in an era of love, kindness and generalized happiness. Homo sapiens is the most brutal, senseless and cruel species on this planet, despite having a relatively large cranium and bipedal ambulation. In other words, people as a whole kinda suck. There are bright spots to be sure, and the arts are extremely important to my own happiness. But we can really do without the petroleum, etc. Most people I know in the Netherlands bike everywhere-not surprisingly, they also have a much lower incidence of obesity (I have yet to see anyone overweight or obese in The Netherlands). And Iceland is using its vast supplies of geothermal energy to do away with oil dependence-there is no reason other countries couldn’t use wind, solar, geothermal etc. that have zero carbon footprints. But then, that would really make the Koch’s, Haliburtons, Cheneys, etc. of the world less money. Bummer.

By: Steve Layton

Steve Layton — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 14:12:16 +0000

I can’t wait until it becomes the Sarah Louise Palin Theater…

By: bgn

bgn — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 11:49:17 +0000

Well, we discussed this pretty thoroughly on Parterre Box, and the general consensus was better the money go to renovating the New York State Theater than to setting up yet another indistinguishable right-wing think tank.

By: Gail

Gail — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 01:45:37 +0000

The NYCO did not profit a bit from the Koch money. The gift was for the theater renovation which is the home of both the NYC ballet as well as NYC Opera. I only wish that David Koch would give $100 million to the NYCO!

By: Joseph Holbrooke

Joseph Holbrooke — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 18:57:56 +0000

If you don’t like petroleum, chemicals, energy, asphalt, natural gas, plastics, fibers, minerals, fertilizers, ranching, paper, and all the related innovations that have helped drag this brutal species of ours out of caves towards a complex but promising future you might try boycotting Koch products. Or you could just stick to name calling.

By: timwyer

timwyer — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 16:49:12 +0000

@4
There has been ample opposition to the Bush administration by the Koch sponsored Cato Institute. Maybe you should do some of your own research instead of relying on NYT articles.
TimW.

By: Paul H. Muller

Paul H. Muller — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 00:13:42 +0000

Perhaps the situation could viewed better as an opportunity. Suppose the Board of the NYCO goes to the Koch brothers and says they are willing to renounce all government funding and operate completely on private donations – to be the showcase for getting government out of the arts. All the Koch brothers have to do is get their rich friends to kick in – or put Koch money where the Koch mouth is – and provide all the needed funds for every complete season going forward.

So what eventuates is an arts organization that operates without any government help. Maybe it would be the best musical thing ever – develop a little competition with the Met and maybe private capitalist money will give NYCO a solid artistic life. Just as the libertarians claim.

There would be a lot of rich guy interference about what gets performed and it turns into a joke.

Might be worth finding out what would actually happen. I’d like to see the mega-rich actually create something of beauty instead of complaining about how badly the government does it.

By: George Grella

George Grella — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 23:53:25 +0000

Jerry, I advise you to drop the theory. What’s the point? Tendentious arguments make those who declaim them look bad.

The issue is worth arguing; City Opera, IMO, is a worthy establishment, and their survival depended directly and indirectly on Koch money, for whom the theater is now named. It’s worth talking about because it’s important, complex and there is NO ANSWER to it. Artists and institutions rely on patronage, and the fortunes that make patronage possibly are invariably tainted or even execrable. Write about that.

The political labels in this convo represent typical American political ignorance, as well as the desire to toss labels around as insults, without meaning. Depending on Wikipedia definitions is FAIL. Koch is not a fascist, nor a libertarian. Obama is not a socialist nor a corporatist. Plus, Obama doesn’t belong here. Koch is a plutocrat who spends money to both advance his own material gain at the general expense of society, i.e. something close to a businessman (and businessmen are not capitalists or libertarians, they abhor competition and love regulations that protect them from it). He also favors the opera, to some extent. And that he seeks to rationalize global warming as possibly a benefit, or at least a non-catastrophe, might indicate that his conscience perhaps nags.

I’ve been in the theater numerous times with press tickets and enjoyed the improved sound and the comfortable seats. And I’m grateful that City Opera has a home. And I feel it’s temporary, because global warming will not destroy the earth, just ourselves and our institutions. David Koch is helping both things happen. What does that make him?