Glenn Beck’s latest target/victim Yosi Sergant is a friend of mine, a casual friend, but a friend nonetheless. I know him from the art scene in Los Angeles, a sweet, gentle bike riding vegan, wise, funny, kind, articulate, passionate. It was thrilling to run into him in Washington DC during the Inaugural Week when I saw him at the Manifest Hope Gallery show putting on a gallery event to celebrate the role art played in the Obama campaign.

He subsequently became the communications director for the National Endowment for the Arts. And now because of Beck’s lowbrow loathing and utter hate of all things Obama, Yosi been ask to resign.

So why did Beck go after Yosi? According to a statement released by the NEA, as reported in the Huffington Post:

On August tenth, the National Endowment for the Arts participated in a call with arts organizations to inform them of the president’s call to national service. The White House office of public engagement also participated in the call, which provided information on how the Corporation for National and Community Service can assist groups interested in sponsoring service projects or having their members volunteer on other projects. This call was not a means to promote any legislative agenda and any suggestions to that end are simply false. The NEA regularly does outreach to various organizations to inform of the work we are doing and the resources available to them.

Yosi got artists to participate in the call. According to the Huffington Post, one of the artists on the call recorded the conversation and gave it to Glenn Beck who played the recording as proof that

Your government is trying to trick you, use your tax dollars to change your mind. It’s called propaganda. The people involved in the conference call, including the White House, knew that this was on the fence if not outright illegal.

Yosi is an amazing organizer with an incredible love of art and awareness of art’s ability to influence and cause personal and social change. It is really sad that the NEA keelhauled Yosi. It’s really stunning that an artist felt so threatened by art which can inspire that he taped the conference call and went running to Glenn Beck screaming about propaganda.

And it really sucks that when an elected official shouts the lie "You lie!" during a presidential address, his own party doesn’t ask for his resignation.