Recently, Steve Nass and his spokesman got wind that the UW School for workers was putting on an art show. They then went into their extreme partisan frenzy and went there, and after some threats of pulling funding, made them cancel the show.
The University of Wisconsin’s School for Workers was planning on hosting an “Art in Protest” festival on campus next month.
Now it’s been canceled.
One Republican lawmaker in Wisconsin, Representative Steve Nass, who has been a longtime thorn in the university’s side, was unhappy about the exhibit, and his chief of staff, Mike Mikalsen, gave an earful to the director of the School for Workers last week, suggesting that the exhibit could imperil the school’s funding.
So lets look at this a little more closely. <a href='http://foxtrot-echo.blogspot.com/2007/09/rep-nass-puppet-
regime.html’>NO, not this(although someone should), but the realities of this art festival.
“There are people from both sides of the issue who are paying taxes, and the question was whether this was an appropriate activity for the university,” Mikalsen tells The Progressive
Yes there are and we can not spend money here we need the money to pay for the republican lawyers and their redistricting fiasco.
Mikalsen says he also told Olson that some of the protests against Gov. Walker and the Republicans had gotten out of hand, and if something like that happened at the exhibit, “the consequences of that kind of activity would fall on the extension. They would have to own it.”
Does anyone see the irony of Mikalsen trying to stir up emotions and anger against the people who oppose Scott Walker while playing innocent bystander? I know that, he knows that, republican thugs have been causing a majority of the violence. Also, when is the last time a republican lawmaker “owned” anything?
I followed up with Labor Cartoonist and UW School for Workers Adjunct professor Mike Konopacki today and found out some more information.
First off, the publicity that they far right extremist team Nass heaped upon this art show is priceless. Not only do they have a new venue(Goodman Community Center) and a new date (March 9-10).
Michael Duffy, a local graphic artist who was involved with putting together the original event, said plans were finalized Monday afternoon to hold the “Censored Art Show” March 9-10 at the Goodman Community Center, 149 Waubesa St. Space at the center is being rented out by artists who are determined to keep the festival alive.
“It’s just going to be a grassroots, down-and-dirty exhibit at the Goodman Center,” says Duffy. “We’ve invited people to show up Friday morning (March 9) and then we’ll just figure out how to display it on the fly.”
A poster for the arts event asks people to bring their “signs, songs, music, personal expression and outrage!”
So the show must go on, and thanks to the partisan witch hunt, ridiculous threats and hatred of the arts, this event is now more popular then ever. The sunlight shown on this event by the Nassties has only shown us now that people are aware of this event they are interested in it. Thanks to them for this but there are still some loose ends to tie up.
It’s an arts festival designed to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the Wisconsin uprising,” Nass spokesman Mike Mikalsen said last week of “Art in Protest.”
“Well, maybe here in Madison that’s a great thing,” he said. “But there are lots of Republicans and conservatives around the state who are still very angry about that whole thing. We just suggested that now, with all the tensions that still exist, this may not be the appropriate time for this arts festival” to be put on by a publicly funded arm of the UW System.
When Mikalsen, watchdog for the taxpayer, stopped this event, how much “tapayer” money are we talking here? “UW School for Workers gave us seed money of $2000” says Konopacki, “but we were charging a registration fee and raising money with donations to cover that cost, so in the end it might not have cost the School anything”. With Wisconsin facing a $2 billion plus deficit and the illegal redistricting costing taxpayers $1.3 million and counting, it is nice to know that Mike Mikalsen and Steve Nass are working hard to save us a couple hundred dollars.
Finally Mike Konopacki wanted to make one more point. “The threat of violence could be the most laughable of the whole thing. When was the last time you have ever heard of an art riot?”
Well Mr. Konopcki, I have a feeling that there will be one on March 9-10 at the Goodman Community Center showing support.
PS: join their facebook page here.
PSS: Let’s help these watchdogs out! Please email Rep. Steve Nass or Mike Mikalsen anytime you see a liberal doing anything in the public domain. They will immediately dispatched to stop that.
