Posts Tagged → CHQ
Chautauqua Institution’s Destruction
Chautauqua Institution was once a fine place to visit, many years ago.
It was safe, quiet, full of interesting people reading books or lecturing about the most recent book they had written. The on-site opera and orchestra provided just about everyone with any artistic taste with something.
Decades later, it has been completely taken over by the same people who have targeted every other American institution for capture and control, or destruction.
Chautauqua is now a summertime parade of communists, bigots, America haters, partisan political activists. Each speaker is treated to lavish welcome ceremonies as if they are the most gifted thinker on Planet Earth, when in fact they are the meanest, most close-minded political street brawlers in America.
The place reeks of radical, angry politics everywhere you turn. The air is poisonous with hate and tension, but always sold as love and open-mindedness.
I think the institution is still physically safe, for now, but my own kids have this sense that all is not well there. They have grown up going there every summer, and they report back feeling that same tension that anyone with different views feels there now. Unwelcome.
The last time I was there, or one of the last times, I sat at the Amp for a lecture by Donna Brazile. Of course she was presented as some kind of open-minded Deep Thinker, when in fact she is a narrowly partisan fighter and proven liar. Brazile helped fix Hillary’s illegal cheating “win” over Bernie Sanders in the Democrat primary.
When Brazile spoke that day, the entire Amp was a cheering section for the lady. There used to be rules against cheering or clapping for speakers, but the hyper partisan activists who now populate and run Chautauqua observe the same kind of rules on decorum as they do the laws they disdain for border security and illegal aliens living in “sanctuary” cities. That is, they make the rules as they go.
Having just received some emails from one of the Chautauqua administrators, I had to write this. The guy is either a huge liar, or a huge fool. To assert that Chautauqua Institution is anything but a far-left training camp and summertime re-education society is to deny the obvious reality as reflected in the speakers they invite, the speakers they DISINVITE, and all of the other far-Left programming there.
The CHQ administrators purposefully exclude alternative views they disagree with, even though CHQ is supposed to be all about alternative views. “Dissent” and “dialogue” is only acceptable from those who agree with the CHQ administrators and their partisan, liberal guest voices. This means that Chautauqua is an artificial, fabricated environment. Reality is concealed. Stealth is their way.
I understand the mindset of Liberals. I grew up with them. Liberals are very close-minded and very, very uncomfortable sharing any kind of space – physical, emotional, or intellectual – with anyone else. Let’s face it, Liberals are the very angry, hate-filled bigots they always said they were against. Chautauqua now perfectly represents that hateful culture, and the people now drawn to it and most happy there are like-minded tyrants and control freaks. Zero tolerance for opposing views.
And no, CHQ’s in-house “conservative” David Brooks is not a conservative. He is a RINO Republican, a moderate, which means he is pretty much a liberal. But he is there so the institution can falsely claim to cover all philosophical corners.
Please, spare us the visibly false claims and the pretensions to openness. Like the Boy Scouts of America, the education profession, academia, the media, Disney, and almost all other once-great institutions, Chautauqua Institution has been overthrown and captured by bigoted political partisans, who have now bent the place to their warped purposes.
Everyone have a nice summer. It won’t be at CHQ for me. The Chautauqua of my youth has been destroyed.
Chautauqua’s shame
Chautauqua Institution was once an intellectual’s dream destination: Opera company, symphony orchestra, book stores, authors and noted speakers every day for the summer. Gated and safe. Nice people. Beautiful homes next to quaint Victorian gingerbread boxes, all adhering to a commonly held design ideal. Chautauqua Lake, at 32,000 acres a real big body of water to fish, swim, boat, and otherwise enjoy.
Chautauqua was also a unique symbol of community building, and education. The institution spawned The Chautauqua Movement, which was big from the 1890s through the 1930s, with places like Mount Gretna in Central Pennsylvania dedicated to comfy living, higher entertainment, tolerance, and learning.
Now, Chautauqua Institution is the antithesis of its founding ideals and original mission. Overthrown, captured, and jealously guarded by political extremists, its summer programming is now carefully groomed to exclude dissent and include well known jihadists. It’s pretty much extreme political indoctrination 24/7 there.
And yes, you read that above correctly. Chautauqua Instituion is now so tolerant of intolerance, the place regularly hosts pro-Jihad, pro-Sharia Law advocates (think of the people behind Jim Foley and Steve Sotloff having their heads sawn off while on their knees), who lie lie lie to adoring audiences, who in turn shout down questioners asking the right questions for the liars during the appointed Q&A periods.
I myself have been nastily hissed at and yelled at there, for clapping in support of a speaker or statement I like, while the endless sea of extremists in the audience uproariously cheered on their favored speaker.
The place is now ruthlessly run by intolerant, close-minded control freaks, serving up anti-Americanism by the bucketful, pro-Jihad by the boatload, and dissent-crushing manipulation by the truckload.
How sad. How utterly shameful.
Farewell, fair maiden of Chautauqua Lake’s shores. We once knew ye.