Earlier this month, Alaska Senate candidate Joe Miller announced that he would no longer be answering questions from the press about his "background" and "personal issues" -- issues including his possible past use of government computers to do campaign work. Yesterday, Miller took the law into his own hands to enforce that rule when he had his personal security guards handcuff and detain a journalist who was trying to ask him about those ethics charges at an event on public property, in an Anchorage middle school. Miller's campaign dismissed the journalist as an "irrational blogger" and tried to act the victim of an overly aggressive press corps.
The incident is appalling, but maybe we shouldn't be surprised by it. Led by the notoriously "Lame Stream Media"-averse Sarah Palin, Tea Party candidates like Miller, Nevada's Sharron Angle, and Delaware's Christine O'Donnell have been shunning both progressive and ideologically neutral news outlets in favor of conservative media mouthpieces who will tell only their side of the story, and ask only the questions they want asked.
The ability of citizens to ask questions of those in power is the centerpiece of a functioning democracy -- and any candidate hoping to serve in such a democracy should be ready to deal with tough questions. Miller, who prides himself on his knowledge of the Constitution, should know that when the founders chose to guarantee the freedom of the press, they recognized that a robust press corps is key to citizens holding those in power accountable. At a minimum, one can imagine they sought to limit the handcuffing of reporters.
But with the rise of the Tea Party and in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United, right-wing candidates have been promoting a curious inversion of the right of free speech in a democracy. While they refuse to be held accountable by an independent press corps, they enthusiastically defend the newly declared right of corporate special interests to spend extraordinary sums of money from vast treasuries to help them get elected -- all while avoiding accountability from the public.
We're living in a world where candidates don't speak, but corporations do.
When Palin advised O'Donnell to "speak through Fox News," she was talking about that network's function as a mouthpiece for right-wing candidates. But she could have just as easily been referring to Fox News' other form of campaign speech -- the millions of dollars its parent company, News Corp, has poured into campaigns to elect Republican candidates. It's no longer convenient for right-wing candidates to answer to "irrational bloggers" or others who will ask them tough questions -- they have an entire network devoted to twisting the truth on their behalf, and have corporate interests willing to plaster the airwaves with attacks on their opponents.
The same Joe Miller who was willing to physically restrain a reporter who dared ask him about alleged ethics violations has had no problem with the corporate-funded Club For Growth spending thousands of dollars to attack his opponents, while under no obligation to tell voters where those thousands of dollars come from.
While right-wingers promote conspiracy theories about a supposed Obama-led totalitarian regime, incidents like this one reveal the truth behind their view of democracy. In a world where the right to "free speech" doesn't protect the rights of citizens to ask questions, find accurate information, and hold those in power accountable, what we get instead is the kind of free-for-all where Joe Miller's hired goons can restrain a reporter and where big corporations can fund attack ads without ever being held accountable by voters. What we get is free speech for the wealthy and powerful and tough luck for the rest of us. It's the First Amendment turned on its head, and democracy gone dangerously awry.
Follow Michael B. Keegan on Twitter: www.twitter.com/peoplefor
Nomi M. Stolzenberg: The Separation of Church and State and American Politics
The AK militia group is headed by the notorious Norm Olson, who played a major role in the radical militia movement in the 1990's in Michigan.
Read the details:
http://palingates.blogspot.com/2010/10/revealed-joe-miller-hired-security.html
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer
This incident is a symptom of a larger problem. These people are becoming steadily more bold in pushing the legal limits. Here is a sampling of what we have seen in the last 2 years:
- People bringing guns to political rallies, including Presidential events, to "exercise their rights"
- People engaging in rhetoric that is laced with vioIent imagery and comparisons to WWII Germany
- Individuals breaking actual laws in pursuit of their agenda, and actually receiving support for it
Now, we see one of the boldest yet. Operatives for an actual candidate acting as a private police force. These people are beginning to believe that the law doesn't apply because they claim to be patriots. The message needs to be sent that these tactics are against the law and will not be tolerated. It is not just about this one reporter being handuffed. It is also about the next reporter, or even private citizen, that gets "arrested" for asking an uncomfortable question.
It's pretty obvious and pretty public. Kinda hard to deny...
How?
The media should publish (LOUDLY) exactly what questions they are asking that are getting ignored, and explain why those questions are useful and relevant for an informed voter to use to make voting decisions.
The repeat. A lot.
He and his gang of goons are A I P members:
http://palingates.blogspot.com/2010/10/revealed-joe-miller-hired-security.html
Let me put is another way. YOU explain to ME why any voter should support ANY candidate who refuses to answer relevant questions during a campaign?
That should be an instant disqualifier.
Kinda like sales, you know? The salesman REALLY wants to sell his widget to you. If he won't even answer useful, relevant questions about it, should you buy?
I'd walk.
But the MSM are trying to be "MS", that is, "mainstream".
Why?
Because they want to make a lot of money, and the easiest way to do that is to have a lot of listeners. The best way to do that is to report the news from their perspective, whatever it is. That is, the "Mainstream Media" is, by DEFINITION, "mainstream", i.e. they are interested in preseenting a middle-of-the-road view, plus or minus a standard deviation or two, in order to capture a large part of the market. Why would they do otherwise? The shareholders want to make money.
Fox 'News', on the other hand, doesn't care (but is very successful, because it captures all of the right wing).
Why?
It's mission is it's owner's mission. It's perpetrators are more interested in the continuous dissemination and repitition of their propaganda. Murdoch is on this mission world-wide, in case you haven't noticed.
I don't know what planet you are from, but Fox 'News' is so biased, it's laughable (if it weren't so dangerous).
Hey! It works!
These oligarchs through their puppets tout individualism, less/no government, low/no taxes, "freedom", mom and apple pie.
They really want control. They don't want to be regulated or taxed. They want to control the economy, socieity and politics for their own profit.
They don't want an EPA, SEC, FEC, OSHA, FDA, IRS or what have get in their way of making money.
That is why they are pouring so much money into the candidacies of puppets who are fighting their surrogate battle.
The oligarchs still need the legitimation of elections in this country. That is why they are backing their horses with millions of dollars of secret contributions.
Thanks to new campaign financing laws their corporations have become "people" who can make practically unlimited donations secretly.
They would prefer to eliminate the pesky hindrance of elections and are working towards this end.
We need to lots of sunshine to flush these men out of the shadows.
A free, independent and intrepid fourh estate, not on the payroll of these oligarchs, helps the sun shine in.
...But, hey! They will benefit, anyway, because their little nests will be feathered by their overlords, as long as they are useful to them and they continue to play along.
I strongly disagree with that statement. Yes, it would be useful against the current crop of tea party fringe candidates. However, when applied to mainstream candidates, it would only serve to make the landscape even more partisan (and we are already to a point where partisan bickering has slowed the government to a crawl).
It is also a Pandora's box that the left should not want to open any further. The right is good at a couple of things, and making a huge deal out of small things in the pasts of their opponents is one of them. Getting those things into the consciousness of a large number of Americans is another.
Look what they were able to do with Reverend Wright. They scoured through countless hours of sermons to find a couple of quotes that, when taken out of context, could be used against him. Then, they managed to get many people to think that this was somehow relevant to the election.
Running for public office does not and should not make one's entire personal life the subject of such scrutiny. Personal issues can be important, but part of the problem is that we place too much emphasis on these topics and not enough on whether someone is qualified and presents a feasible political platform that we support.
I wonder if she meant to write "personnel records", in which case, I'm all for such a level of scrutiny being placed on a candidate. Would we expect to know any less if this person was applying for a job at a company? "How would you describe your past employment?" "I don't want to talk about my past."
Sorry, not going to get hired if you don't want us to know what you've done in the past. You want to be hired as my financial adviser? Have you ever filed for bankruptcy? Unemployment benefits? If so, please explain those situations, or else I'm going to assume you don't know how to manage money.
I realize that's somewhat of a utopian perspective, and that the MSM no longer observes these arbitrary limits as they once did.(e.g. ignoring JFK's numerous indiscretions) Nevertheless, we can't allow people such as Joe Miller and Sharron Angle to hypocritically dictate journalistic standards of news and disclosure.
Classic Social Dominator- Right Wing Authoritarians.
Google it and see...
I don't think so.
A great sign of the only question they themselves will continuously ask when in office---
"What's in it for ME?????"
Corporate America has long ago locked up Republicans as its personal shills and Democrats, since corporations are where resides the biggest pile of reelection money, have no choice but to also bent their ways to the corporate agenda, or else.
Benito Mussolini
They actively supported totalitarian states that trampled over democracy, justice, decency and human rights. They were as much responsible for World War II as were Hitler and Mussolini.
All they cared about making money.
For a look at American individuals and companies that supported European fascism read the article here:
http://rationalrevolution.net/war/american_supporters_of_the_europ.htm
(Prescott Bush is the grandfather of George W. Bush)
The Tealibans are the only ones allowed free speech others - especially Muslims have no free speech under Tea Party America"
Perhaps the ONLY place in the world where Moslems have free speech is in America... certainly not in their home countries and certainly not in the speech code restricted Canada and EU
...but the same show I got that fact from, also mentioned that no charges have been filed... I find that very, very strange... I would think that the local cops would be very disturbed, upon arriving at the scene to find private citizens restraining another private citizen, who, as it turns out, had done nothing wrong, including putting the guy in handcuffs... The cops I know would not be inclined to side with the security guards - though it's true - I only know a couple of cops.