Different Drum

Yes, and I ain't saying [it] ain't prettyAll I'm saying is I'm not readyFor any person, place, or thingTo try and pull the reins in on me
I’ve now been on Facebook longer than any job I’ve ever had…and it’s beginning to feel like a job. Every day it becomes more and more of a struggle to go in. Much of the difficulty comes from Facebook’s recidivist bad behavior of course.  This!
And this!
It beggars belief to hear people say that Facebook is not for politics when we have documented evidence that Facebook played a large and corrosive role in the 2016 election and seems wittingly or unwittingly on course for doing the same in the election of 2020. In addition to the  writ large political rats’ nest Facebook has become, it is also an almost daily source of personal disagreements, disappointments, and disillusionments…which as a humanist I’m generally inclined to embrace and fold into my worldview that existence is a human comedy. But every once in a while the comedy takes a tragic turn and it’s a little difficult to laugh it off. And so it was on December 8, 2019, when I posted the following news item on the Linda Ronstadt Collective, a Facebook page dedicated to Linda. 
I had been more than a passive member for many years, having contributed a few of my Ronstadt themed blog posts to general acclaim. The reactions to my Variety news item posting were also largely positive…at first. Within minutes I had received Facebook alerts that many people were reacting to it with a heady mix of “likes” and “loves”. Sometime after posting I went back to the page to read some of the commentary the post had attracted. By and large, it was of the "You go, girl” variety…the girl of course being Linda Ronstadt. Somewhere down thread, however, there was the inevitable dissenting voice, which echoed the outrage directed at the Dixie Chicks that they shut up and sing. I then left Facebook for most of the rest of the day to live Dan in Real Life. When  I came back at day’s end to check in to see how things were going on Facebook, I found that my original post and all accompanying reactions had been deleted. There was a related post where someone had asked what had happened to my earlier post. Reading through the thread that followed that comment, I learned that in my blissful absence the page had erupted into what used to be called a flame war between those who approved of what Linda Ronstadt had said to Mike Pompeo about Donald Trump and those who either disapproved of what she said or disapproved of having the peace and tranquility of the Linda Ronstadt Collective disrupted by nasty politics. I wanted to add my two cents to that discussion, but found that the administrators had locked comments on the subject. So I turned my two cents into a new post in which I argued reasonably (you’ll have to take my word for this since the post no longer exists) that:Linda Ronstadt was more than a collection of songs and pictures and object of fan adoration…she was a fully evolved human being with multiple aspects to her personhoodGiven her medical condition and the circumstances surrounding her comment, if she chose to use what few words she had left to her in that venue to make that statement, it was obviously important to her and should be valuable news to those who admire herIf anyone disapproved of the politics of her statement that disapproval should be directed at Linda herself and not at those who merely approved of what she said The next morning I awoke to find that I had been thrown out of the Linda Ronstadt Collective. This was not the first time I had been thrown out of a social media site over politics*, but though I was able to laugh off the earlier instance, this one stung. It stung because over the years I had derived great pleasure from a page dedicated to a person I truly adore. It stung because it arose out the same myopic view of politics that spawned the Good Germans I had blogged about passionately. And it stung because the ban came without warning and was, I believe, totally unfair. Fairness is a greatly under-appreciated human value. Upon reflection, I realized that the administrators of the Linda Ronstadt Collective didn’t value fairness as much as they valued power. In this they are much like those who run Facebook…they have the power over the lives of others, but they are powerless to be fair. So with that I am announcing my imminent departure from Facebook. 




* My previous expulsion: