Freedom Of Speech – A Joke and a Joker

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The “Joke” is today, Wednesday, March 9, 2011, Times-Standard's Editorial and the “Joker” is the person that wrote it. 

The real JOKE is about our so-called “FREE SPEECH and FREE PRESS in this Editorial, “Tainting the message,” is the picture of Sheriff Mike Downey ordering the “media,” an unnamed Times-Standard reporter and photographer to leave the room BEFORE effecting the arrests. Apparently, they (I would guess Donna Tam and Josh Jackson) just tucked their tails between their legs and cleared out without a whimper. 

(I might point out that evidence of a totalitarian police state is that they do everything in secret. Additionally, I don't know why the Sheriff would exclude the local press. They take whatever the police say at face value and publish as if it was the truth anyway.)

This Editorial is about the protest demonstration before the County Board of Supervisor as reported in the Times-Standards front page article: "Richardson Grove protesters arrested for disrupting supervisors' meeting." First a comment about the picture on the front page of the paper, it looks staged and almost farcical. Therein lies the “joke.” I don't think that exactly was the point these “demonstrators” were trying to make. Once again the police make a big production out of arresting and removing six obviously peaceful people from a public building.

“Tainting the message” by “HOW” you say it is just a nice way of blaming the messenger AGAIN! Unfortunately, by their own admission this person is totally clueless as to what that message is supposed to be: “So one has to wonder, what was the point (message)?”

This Editorial writer makes comparison to America's so-called “amazing amount of freedom” to the people in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia. If this writer understood what those people were fighting for, AFTER decades of totalitarian, authoritarian, dictatorial rule he or she would know exactly what these six demonstrators were trying to do. Those people are holding their “leaders and government agencies” whatever that means, “government agencies,” some sort of entity I guess, WITH TOTAL CONTEMPT AND DISDAIN.

Where is the freedom to speak when you are told when to speak, how to speak and what to speak? The Editorial says: “The protesters were given the 'opportunity' to speak during public comment. They chose civil disobedience instead and paid the 'usual' price the that choice: arrest.” “Given the opportunity to speak,” so they freely chose to speak by singing, but that is not the way the Supervisor's told them to speak. Apparently these people, according to their letter, had a clear-cut demand, "hold a public forum to discuss this issue," that the Members of the Board refused to address in any manner until these protest demonstrators barked like dog for them. What's the difference between “free speech” and “civil disobedience”? The difference is someone's worthless opinion, that is all. The difference is who controls speech by who defines what constitutes “acceptable” speech and “disrupting” speech.  Why should a person's legally guaranteed free speech rights to “demonstrate” or speak by acting rather than talk, automatically produce criminal arrest? Specially if all they are accused of doing, is nothing more than “child-like theatrics.”

Finally, the Editorial writer should have gotten a clue as to what the protest demonstrators were doing with this statement: “In this case, the protest was not even directed at a decision-maker in the process, ...” So, why didn't they? They, the Times-Standard, knows who these demonstrators are. Why didn't they, in particular Donna Tam, ask one of these protest demonstrators why or what they were hoping to accomplish? Apparently their letter the paper quotes is incapable of explaining sufficiently. Or is it it because she and the Editor would rather speculate? Or, perhaps, is it more likely actually recognizing one of these demonstrators enough to talk to them would be beneath their elitist's sensitivities?

I would point out that right now Muammar Gaddafi and other corrupt despot dictators are saying the same things, different words perhaps, but demonstrating the same demeaning and derogatory attitude, judgments and violent assaults towards the people of Libya and other states that this Editor demonstrates toward members of our community, so-called “free” people trying to express themselves as legitimate citizens and individuals. This statement is extremely insulting and reveals the writer as a corporate demagogue: “Childlike theatrics do little to help promote a message – in fact, they can have the opposite effect.” YEAH, they get you beat – arrested.

This is exactly the same thing an all-powerful, self-righteous and self-absorbed father tells his “disobedient and bad” son just before he beats the hell out of him for trying to talk to his father in the only way the son knows how to talk.

When these protest demonstrators can show me why I should leave the safety of my home and risk a beating for joining their cause, they will have learned the lessons of the Egyptian, Libyan, and Tunisian people's revolt.

--Joe