Money laundering! Money laundering as far as the eye can see!

How?

“Bennett argues that "Paul Engle, the workshop’s second director, a do-it-yourself Cold Warrior" is mostly responsible for molding Iowa's literary legacy. And he did by soliciting funds from the Farfield Foundation, which "was not really a foundation; it was a CIA front that supported cultural operations, mostly in Europe, through an organization called the Congress for Cultural Freedom." That was just the beginning.”

Interesting - thanks!

Probably, because what else are you going to do with all this cocaine money?

But also the CIA ( and also businessmen like Rockefeller) just thought it was good business.

“For two decades after World War II, Iowa prospered on donations from conservative businessmen persuaded by Engle that the program fortified democratic values at home and abroad: It fought Communism. The workshop thrived on checks from places like the Rockefeller Foundation, which gave Iowa $40,000 between 1953 and 1956—good money at the time.”

Did you look this up due to BTB?

The CIA and the State Department funded a lot of modern American artists like Jackson Pollock to counter Soviet's Socialist Realism art.

The idea was to fund art in a diferent style than what the soviets made. The Soviets had a 'socialist realism' style, so the CIA boosted abstract and stylized art, so the Soviets would look dated.

Although it's more likely that the Soviet's stifling, top down system made artistic expression and change difficult, causing them to look dated regardless of what the CIA did.

Good.

Fuck Communism.

Ok boomer

Not sure I understand why that's regulated to boomers. Is it to be assumed that younger generations think communism is good?

That’s quite a logical leap; it’s possible that boomers are particularly susceptible to anti-communist ideology without any implication that younger generations are pro-communist. That said, I believe there is some evidence that Millennials in particular have shifted further left with age.

hur dur

Ah, the wit I expect of a boomer.

Stay mad, breh

Oh yeah, I’m livid “breh” lmao.

Sounds like a page from the Edward Bernays play book.

Tell that to Eastern Europe, see how far it gets you.

https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2019/10/15/european-public-opinion-three-decades-after-the-fall-of-communism/

Sure, read for yourself. It’s a pretty mixed result.

This is my hometown and I've known people involved with the program in various ways over the years, but I never knew this. I will have to plumb this rabbithole a bit.

Hell, during the depression, US government funded art.

Art funding tends to require a political reason.

Oddly enough, no. I saw it linked elsewhere and then I listened to the episode the next day. Just one of those things

Cool!