Rightwing hobbies

So we got ourselves a rightwing minority goverment in the Netherlands a while back, who now rule with support of the racists aka Geert Willders and his “Freedom Party”. Wilders thanks his success by pandering to the worst prejudices of the socalled common man, while the government thanks its succes to pandering to Wilders. Which explains why while the government tries to sell us on how Maturely they are trying to handle the Very Serious Task of getting Holland’s finances back in order in the wake of the bankers’ crisis, the sort of measures they come up with is to slash the culture budget. As the picture on top shows, the total amount of money the government spents each year on culture is roughly 450 million euros: a lot of money, but nothing compared to the 7,6 billion euros it would cost to buy the F-35. So why is that sacrosant when cutting the cultural budget is only penny ante stuff?

Because stopping money being “wasted” on opera, theatre and other “leftwing hobbies” as Wilders put it, is a goal in itself for this government. It keeps Wilders and its voters happy, can be spun as showing how serious the government takes the budget deficits and pisses off the leftwing opposition. Who cares that it doesn’t help achieve its nominal goal as long as white elephants like the F-35 are kept fully funded but does destroy a lot of cultural capital?

Pure pandering. And to add insult to injury, not only are the budgets slashed, the value added tax paided on art and other cultural products will be upped as well, from six to nineteen percent. Except on porn. Because wanking is a rightwing hobby…