{"id":1167,"date":"2004-07-17T19:32:00","date_gmt":"2004-07-17T19:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/?p=1167"},"modified":"2018-08-13T11:22:59","modified_gmt":"2018-08-13T16:22:59","slug":"1167","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/2004\/07\/17\/1167\/","title":{"rendered":"The One I Turn To For Sociopolitical Insight"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sir Reginald Dwight<\/a>:<\/p>\n

“There’s an atmosphere of fear in America right now that is deadly. Everyone is too career-conscious,” he told New York magazine, Interview.<\/p>\n

…<\/center><\/p>\n

“There was a moment about a year ago when you couldn’t say a word about anything in this country for fear of your career being shot down by people saying you are un-American,” he told the magazine.<\/p>\n

The singer said things were different in the 1960s.<\/p>\n

“People like Bob Dylan, Nina Simone, The Beatles and Pete Seeger were constantly writing and talking about what was going on.<\/p>\n

“That’s not happening now. As of this spring, there have been virtually no anti-war concerts – or anti-war songs that catch on, for that matter,” he said.<\/p>\n

…<\/center><\/p>\n

“On the one hand, you have someone like Toby Keith, who has come out and been very supportive of the Bush administration and the war in Iraq – which is OK because America is a democracy and Toby Keith is entitled to say what he thinks and feels.<\/p>\n

“But, on the other hand, the Dixie Chicks got shot down in flames last year for criticising the president. They were treated like they were being un-American, when in fact they have every right to say whatever they want about him because he’s freely elected, and therefore accountable.” <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Elton John seems a little confused about the difference between the right to free speech<\/i>, which exists, and the right to be loved, lauded, and underwritten by government grants when speaking in ways that people don’t approve<\/i>, which exists only in his fevered flashbacks of 1960s utopian dreams.<\/p>\n

Unintentionally ironically, undoubtedly, he voiced these concerns in New York City and was not immediately shot by government speech code enforcement officials.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sir Reginald Dwight: “There’s an atmosphere of fear in America right now that is deadly. Everyone is too career-conscious,” he told New York magazine, Interview. … “There was a moment about a year ago when you couldn’t say a word about anything in this country for fear of your career being shot down by people […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3334,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3334"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1167"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23061,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1167\/revisions\/23061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}