Read on Twitter
From a thread strand with @clacksee we come to this: where does 'no politics in my fiction' come from?
Glad you asked.
It comes from the CIA.
Glad you asked.
It comes from the CIA.
Here's a nice picture of Louis Armstrong and his wife Lucille at Giza.
As a kid my dad would show this to me and say something like 'don't let anybody tell you that Negroes don't travel'.
But.
This cultural ambassador shtick was kinda/sorta sponsored by (wait for it)...
As a kid my dad would show this to me and say something like 'don't let anybody tell you that Negroes don't travel'.
But.
This cultural ambassador shtick was kinda/sorta sponsored by (wait for it)...
The Congress for Cultural Freedom.
Which was funded by the CIA.
You know what else the CCF did (along with the Farfield Foundation)?
It totally made up what comes out of American creative writing courses and workshops to be an antithesis of Soviet Agitprop and the key message?
Which was funded by the CIA.
You know what else the CCF did (along with the Farfield Foundation)?
It totally made up what comes out of American creative writing courses and workshops to be an antithesis of Soviet Agitprop and the key message?
Art should not be *about* anything, the messages should not be explicit but internal, politics do not belong in art of any kind.
They did this by hoodwinking the greatest intellectuals and artists of the day and pumping a shit ton of money in to the above organisations.
They did this by hoodwinking the greatest intellectuals and artists of the day and pumping a shit ton of money in to the above organisations.
Don't believe me?
Read:
'The Workshops of Empire: Stegner, Engle, and American Creative Writing During the Cold War ' by Eric Bennett and Samuel Cohen
or 'Who Paid The Piper: The CIA and the Cultural Cold War'
This isn't even a secret. The information is right there.
Read:
'The Workshops of Empire: Stegner, Engle, and American Creative Writing During the Cold War ' by Eric Bennett and Samuel Cohen
or 'Who Paid The Piper: The CIA and the Cultural Cold War'
This isn't even a secret. The information is right there.
You don't even need to read the books to get the information.
Just Google
Farfield Foundation
Congress for Cultural Freedom
Iowa Writing Workshop
CIA + Creative Writing
Just Google
Farfield Foundation
Congress for Cultural Freedom
Iowa Writing Workshop
CIA + Creative Writing
So the next time someone says 'keep politics out of my fiction/art/gaming/whatever', know that the statement is a. political and b. created by Cold War politics.
Seriously, don't take my word for it. Look it up.
These terms/maxims came from the CIA and spread from there.
Seriously, don't take my word for it. Look it up.
These terms/maxims came from the CIA and spread from there.
One more citation that someone just pointed me to:
'Finks: How the CIA Tricked The World's Best Writers' by Joel Whitney.
CAVEAT: I have not read this (yet), but summaries and reviews suggest it covers the same topic.
'Finks: How the CIA Tricked The World's Best Writers' by Joel Whitney.
CAVEAT: I have not read this (yet), but summaries and reviews suggest it covers the same topic.
And here's a still from "Three Days of the Condor" where CIA researcher Robert Redford says he doesn't do any field work.
He's innocuous because doesn't do spy stuff, he just reads books.
Well.
Yeah.
He's innocuous because doesn't do spy stuff, he just reads books.
Well.
Yeah.
Last thing: I've had questions like "Why Satchmo? Why African Americans?" when in the US there were race-based artistic exclusion.
Welp.
The Soviets used to beat US up in propaganda, saying their democracy excluded Negroes. "The US can't export freedom because segregation, etc".
Welp.
The Soviets used to beat US up in propaganda, saying their democracy excluded Negroes. "The US can't export freedom because segregation, etc".
It was particularly important to showcase black artists to counter this narrative.
[The scanned page is from 'Who Paid The Piper' (1999) by Frances Saunders.]
[The scanned page is from 'Who Paid The Piper' (1999) by Frances Saunders.]
