Music wars: Classical vs WHO?

"Everyone has the right to think that their music is best, including the teenagers who hurry through Toronto's Bathurst subway station to escape the classical music played through the PA system to deter them from hanging around. But only classical fans and organizations believe that the quality of their music gives it and them a natural entitlement to the lion's share of public funding." - Canon Fire Robert Everett-Green

Now we have a hot issue. Public funding of the arts. I'd like to hear Obama and McCain talk about that as it applies to culture in the Unites States and abroad. Maybe music could again serve as a powerful unifying medium for global politics.

The only problem would be that everything else is likely to take priority, thus leaving the dialogue and decisions up to "WE the People" I doubt we will do any better finding common ground on the arts than we do with religion and politics.

Again, if we even discuss it openly, we should likely prepare for "a whole lot of ugly from a never-ending parade of stupid"

Good music is good music. Performers and audiences alike need to be open minded and inclusionary. Classical or not, the government cannot and should not legislate artistic preferences.

Music in particular is a live and thriving art form, not something relegated to preservation status in a museum. People everywhere should be performing and doing music, not just consuming it from their iPod or CDs, or even records. Perhaps if we all made more music, then we wouldn't have to worry about it so much. Like Nike says: Just Do It!