Susan's Remarks
Hi Susan - I’ve been requested to remove my comments here from my FaceBook page :)
November 24, 2017
"Susan gave us a bad review(1 star) not frm bad experience in attending a concert but on a story I shared on FB frm a patron that criticize Roy Moore." H.W.
So I went to the An die Musik page and found the truthexam.com piece with a quote by Alabama governor Kay Ivey:
“I believe in the Republican Party, what we stand for, and most important, we need to have a Republican in the United States Senate to vote on things like the Supreme Court justices, other appointments the Senate has to confirm and make major decisions,” Ivey said. “So that’s what I plan to do, vote for Republican nominee Roy Moore.”
Red flags went off right away because as I’ve discovered, most sites like truthexam.com that proclaim to represent “THEE Truth,” actually represent only their interpretation of the truth, which is only part of the overall picture.
That being said, While Ivey’s remarks show her Republican leanings, they are not those of an extremist. Extremism is the basis of Orwell’s essay, “Notes On Nationalism.”
"By ‘nationalism’ I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions of people can be confidently labelled ‘good’ or ‘bad’. But secondly — and this is much more important — I mean the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognising no other duty than that of advancing its interests. Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism."
We see this extremist behavior everyday on FB, with progressive-liberals claiming that Republicans are stupid morons, and neoconservatives claiming that Democrats are moronically stupid.
One doesn’t have to be a Freud to understand the dynamic that’s going on here, and why such a high degree of animosity now exists in the nation.
And here’s where truthexam.com comes in. EVERYTHING on the site is critical of Trump or Republicans. There is no objective reporting about any of the problems we as a nation all face together, or any proposed solutions that will benefit ALL Americans. This profound bias is also identical to what Orwell wrote about.
The thing is, both sides are equally guilty, are equally at fault. Our inability to recognize this and instead instead choose up sides and struggle against each other is another thing Orwell wrote about. That’s why social problems just go on and on.
The term I see for this is “confirmation bias.” We see what we only want to see and filter out the rest, which is another thing Orwell covered in Notes On Nationalism: “The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.”
Because of this bias - ignoring the fact that both sides use propaganda and distort information - what happened was that an overt and obvious lie was posted on An die Musik’s FB Page, two in fact:
“Alabama Governor Says She’d Rather Have A Child Molester In The Senate Than A Democrat.”
1) Governor Ivey never said any such thing.
2) Moore has never been convicted of such a crime. It’s all allegations.
While Moore might indeed end up being convicted of some crime, this second aspect butts head on with one of the most cherished principles of freedom in Democracy, that people are PRESUMED INNOCENT until PROVED GUILTY.
What’s represented on An die Musik’s FB page is the kind of “logic” that the Nazis used against the Jews, inferring that they are inferior: or with the KKK saying that blacks are stupid and lazy. In fact, one of the easiest ways to spot a fascist is to look at what they say about others. The real “Progressives” I know work at building all people up without prejudice.
So there are not one but two issues here. If we want “progress,” both have to be dealt with equally, with no bias.
In a society that promotes genuine Progressivism and tolerance, while there will be disagreements, all are treated as equal human beings with with the right to their own views, which is what being a true Democracy is all about. It is the promotion of genuine Tolerance with no excuses that allows this to happen.
However, and this is another thing Orwell writes about: systems of thought - no matter how “truthful” they claim to be, if they habitually lie about and denounce others to make them appear to be inferior - then they are totalitarian.
While I can’t comment on Susan’s direct remarks as I haven’t been able to find them, I feel it’s against this backdrop that they need to be evaluated.
"All left-wing parties in the highly industrialized countries are at bottom a sham, because they make it their business to fight against something which they do not really wish to destroy." - George Orwell (Rudyard Kipling, 1942)
In this case, it’s intolerance.
November 24, 2017
"Susan gave us a bad review(1 star) not frm bad experience in attending a concert but on a story I shared on FB frm a patron that criticize Roy Moore." H.W.
So I went to the An die Musik page and found the truthexam.com piece with a quote by Alabama governor Kay Ivey:
“I believe in the Republican Party, what we stand for, and most important, we need to have a Republican in the United States Senate to vote on things like the Supreme Court justices, other appointments the Senate has to confirm and make major decisions,” Ivey said. “So that’s what I plan to do, vote for Republican nominee Roy Moore.”
Red flags went off right away because as I’ve discovered, most sites like truthexam.com that proclaim to represent “THEE Truth,” actually represent only their interpretation of the truth, which is only part of the overall picture.
That being said, While Ivey’s remarks show her Republican leanings, they are not those of an extremist. Extremism is the basis of Orwell’s essay, “Notes On Nationalism.”
"By ‘nationalism’ I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions of people can be confidently labelled ‘good’ or ‘bad’. But secondly — and this is much more important — I mean the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognising no other duty than that of advancing its interests. Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism."
We see this extremist behavior everyday on FB, with progressive-liberals claiming that Republicans are stupid morons, and neoconservatives claiming that Democrats are moronically stupid.
One doesn’t have to be a Freud to understand the dynamic that’s going on here, and why such a high degree of animosity now exists in the nation.
And here’s where truthexam.com comes in. EVERYTHING on the site is critical of Trump or Republicans. There is no objective reporting about any of the problems we as a nation all face together, or any proposed solutions that will benefit ALL Americans. This profound bias is also identical to what Orwell wrote about.
The thing is, both sides are equally guilty, are equally at fault. Our inability to recognize this and instead instead choose up sides and struggle against each other is another thing Orwell wrote about. That’s why social problems just go on and on.
The term I see for this is “confirmation bias.” We see what we only want to see and filter out the rest, which is another thing Orwell covered in Notes On Nationalism: “The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.”
Because of this bias - ignoring the fact that both sides use propaganda and distort information - what happened was that an overt and obvious lie was posted on An die Musik’s FB Page, two in fact:
“Alabama Governor Says She’d Rather Have A Child Molester In The Senate Than A Democrat.”
1) Governor Ivey never said any such thing.
2) Moore has never been convicted of such a crime. It’s all allegations.
While Moore might indeed end up being convicted of some crime, this second aspect butts head on with one of the most cherished principles of freedom in Democracy, that people are PRESUMED INNOCENT until PROVED GUILTY.
What’s represented on An die Musik’s FB page is the kind of “logic” that the Nazis used against the Jews, inferring that they are inferior: or with the KKK saying that blacks are stupid and lazy. In fact, one of the easiest ways to spot a fascist is to look at what they say about others. The real “Progressives” I know work at building all people up without prejudice.
So there are not one but two issues here. If we want “progress,” both have to be dealt with equally, with no bias.
In a society that promotes genuine Progressivism and tolerance, while there will be disagreements, all are treated as equal human beings with with the right to their own views, which is what being a true Democracy is all about. It is the promotion of genuine Tolerance with no excuses that allows this to happen.
However, and this is another thing Orwell writes about: systems of thought - no matter how “truthful” they claim to be, if they habitually lie about and denounce others to make them appear to be inferior - then they are totalitarian.
While I can’t comment on Susan’s direct remarks as I haven’t been able to find them, I feel it’s against this backdrop that they need to be evaluated.
"All left-wing parties in the highly industrialized countries are at bottom a sham, because they make it their business to fight against something which they do not really wish to destroy." - George Orwell (Rudyard Kipling, 1942)
In this case, it’s intolerance.
ADDENDUM
November 25, 2017
Hi Vicki - the brouhaha started when someone criticized a concert at An die Musik, saying essentially it was a less-then-honest political hit piece. I wasn't even aware of this until the person who runs An die Musik brought it to my attention, asking if I knew the person who made the criticism.
Well obviously, he’d seen her “liking” my posts on FB that dealt with current examples of what Orwell referred to as the Intellectual Dishonesty of leftist politics, so the question of whether I knew her or not was moot.
I told him I’d take a looksee, which I did, and then posted what I observed.
There was no blame or anything, but apparently he didn’t like what he saw, which is why I was requested to remove it.
Fine. The person in question, while having a profoundly biased opinion of conservatives, is not “evil.”
What was interesting was the phone call I received asking me to remove my post. It started with condemning Roy Moore, and how important it was to standup to someone like that, to which I agreed. However I added that in order to have a society that was truly “progressive,” all forms of bigotry and intolerance had to be stood up to.
He seemed frustrated and said I needed to “rethink” my position :)
Then he went on with a series of comments saying that conservatives don’t support jazz.
Well no wonder: How can you expect to attract anyone to your cause when you constantly berate them as being stupid morons? As I say, for all the self-declared intellectual and moral superiority, modern progressives can’t seem to figure this out.
When I said that Beverly supported jazz, he said it was only because she supported me.
I admit that I introduced her to more contemporary stylings, but the fact of the matter is, Bev already had jazz in her record collection and could converse about Armstrong, Ellington, Ella, and others. Not only that, she also had country, pop and rock artists too - or to put it another way, she wasn’t a snob.
Besides that, especially through my big band work, I know scads of conservatives who love jazz too.
This just goes to reinforce the whole business of what Orwell was writing about, that rather then being tolerant as genuine Progressivism was intended to be, many modern “progressives” are exceeding narrow-minded and intolerant.
November 25, 2017
Hi Vicki - the brouhaha started when someone criticized a concert at An die Musik, saying essentially it was a less-then-honest political hit piece. I wasn't even aware of this until the person who runs An die Musik brought it to my attention, asking if I knew the person who made the criticism.
Well obviously, he’d seen her “liking” my posts on FB that dealt with current examples of what Orwell referred to as the Intellectual Dishonesty of leftist politics, so the question of whether I knew her or not was moot.
I told him I’d take a looksee, which I did, and then posted what I observed.
There was no blame or anything, but apparently he didn’t like what he saw, which is why I was requested to remove it.
Fine. The person in question, while having a profoundly biased opinion of conservatives, is not “evil.”
What was interesting was the phone call I received asking me to remove my post. It started with condemning Roy Moore, and how important it was to standup to someone like that, to which I agreed. However I added that in order to have a society that was truly “progressive,” all forms of bigotry and intolerance had to be stood up to.
He seemed frustrated and said I needed to “rethink” my position :)
Then he went on with a series of comments saying that conservatives don’t support jazz.
Well no wonder: How can you expect to attract anyone to your cause when you constantly berate them as being stupid morons? As I say, for all the self-declared intellectual and moral superiority, modern progressives can’t seem to figure this out.
When I said that Beverly supported jazz, he said it was only because she supported me.
I admit that I introduced her to more contemporary stylings, but the fact of the matter is, Bev already had jazz in her record collection and could converse about Armstrong, Ellington, Ella, and others. Not only that, she also had country, pop and rock artists too - or to put it another way, she wasn’t a snob.
Besides that, especially through my big band work, I know scads of conservatives who love jazz too.
This just goes to reinforce the whole business of what Orwell was writing about, that rather then being tolerant as genuine Progressivism was intended to be, many modern “progressives” are exceeding narrow-minded and intolerant.