Silencing Constituent Voices

I am quite active on Facebook commenting on the pages of my elected officials at all levels of government and the pages of groups that engage in watchdog and activist activities. I speak my mind early and often especially when something comes up that really defies common sense. I use forceful, but polite language when engaging with others on the issues at hand and have been lucky that such language has not been construed in any way as a personal attack or vulgar.

Thanks to the new Facebook message structure, I hadn't noticed a few private messages from people I am not "friends" with. I thought the messages were application notifications or some such nonsense that I needn't worry over. One message was from earlier today from a woman that posts to my congressman's page wishing me good luck since she had been banned for using the word "damn". Now, this isn't the first time I've heard of this happening. A good friend of mine got banned from the same page in February of this year for calling something a "pissing contest" and has been fighting to get his posting rights restored since. Then for giggles I look down the list of messages to see if I missed anything else interesting and lo and behold there is one from last week from another frequently outspoken poster on our congressman's page saying she has been banned too!

A little about my congressional representative for background: He is an ultra-conservative member of the GOP. He's been in office a little over 10 years. Updates on his blog, Facebook page, and Twitter at worst have been race baiting, classist, and outright lies. Usually, it's only moderately misleading headlines and diatribes with selected facts conveniently left out of his reports to the constituents. He's more interested in culture wars than improving the lot of his district unless you happen to be a military member or contractor. His current position is that we need to cut spending, not raise taxes, but increase the military budget even though the audits he requested (being on the House Armed Services Committee) have not been delivered. He's just taking the word of the Joint Chiefs that they are underfunded without seeing the hard numbers.

The banning of three people, to my knowledge, outspoken against him is not the first action taken against constituent driven discussion on Facebook. Sometime this Spring the ability for constituents to post directly to the representative's wall was disabled. This kept constituents from using Facebook to bring issues in the district to the representative's attention as well as the community at large. However, it did allow the representative and his staff to control the direction and pace of discussion through this media by dictating what was discussed and in what context by being able to warn people about keeping on topic; the topic chosen by the representative and his staff. While I can appreciate wanting to direct the topics for discussion, I cannot comprehend how someone that claims to love the constitution and the first amendment can ban people whose biggest crime is to disagree with him in a clear and convincing manner. Now, before anyone says, "Well, they used words that violated the terms of use," there are other constituents that post regularly that have also used crude language and harassed and attacked other constituents repeatedly that still maintain posting privileges. What is the difference, you ask? These repeat offenders are cheerleaders for our representative where those banned were outspoken against him. How do these actions square for someone who has sworn repeatedly to support and defend the Constitution of the United States?

Exciting things are happening!

Well, things have been busy. A Facebook page has been set up, mostly to have an easy place to consolidate ideas and discussion and to disseminate and keep track of noteworthy news and opinion pieces. I've been joined by two friends that are equally passionate about putting light on the way people with money and power shape our nation to help with the admin side of things.

One theme that seems to be sticking out in the intervening time has been around food and agriculture issues. Monsanto has been a huge name in the news in this regard be it in the Ag Gag laws going through several legislatures, in their support of Public Radio shows and influence buying, or in the case of the USDA and RoundUp along with it's resistant GM crops. They have also been mentioned in discussions on raw milk raids due to their production of rGBH, a synthetic bovine hormone used to increase milk production in industrial dairies. And industry trade groups are even going so far as to try to jump through legal hoops in order to defraud consumers into buying a product they don't want that other trade groups are suing. Meanwhile, the American Farm Bureau Federation is trying to run interference and tell everyone that local, sustainable, and food safety advocates are elitists trying to scare people.

Then there was more talk about the revolving door in Washington between industry and the agencies that regulate them that was met with shock by the nation, but a shrug inside the beltway when After approving NBC buyout, FCC Commish becomes Comcast lobbyist.


Finally, the new consumer protection agency has been under attack by the House Financial Services Committee today in a follow-up to Senate GOP'ers threatening to block confirmation of Elizabeth Warren as head unless the agency is weakened. Meanwhile, the banking industry has been lobbying congress hard and even taking out ads in the DC metro claiming the legislation designed to protect consumers is going to cost them (when the banks aren't making enough profits... you know, what's left over after paying bills, salaries, and bonuses in the way of raising fees).

And here everyone thought it was going to be a slow news week with the death of Osama bin Laden...

VUI - Voting under the influence of lobbyists.

This is a collection of comments I mentioned in my first post about Voting Under the Influence. Some of these reflect issues near and dear to my Congressman and the constituents that live to wince whenever his staffers blog, tweet, or Facebook.

• In case your representative seems a little distracted, looks past you, ignores your questions or inquiries or acts contrary to a majority of the people in the area, he may be voting under the influence of lobbyists (VUI).
• If your representative is talking overly ambiguous or generally about issues, they may be VUI.
• If your representative talks about "cutting government spending" and opposes EVERY EFFORT TO SO WITHIN THEIR OWN DISTRICT, they may be VUI.
• If your representative spends more time talking to the Chamber - and "listening" - than he talks with ordinary people, he might be VUI.
• Fatigue from continuously lying and spinning is a symptom of VUI.
• If your representative is trying to convince you of the dangers of the Chinese, while ignoring the ignoring the impact of long-term chronic deficits on our own economy, he may be VUI.
• If your representative is so controlled by their leadership that they have to check-in before taking a stand, they may be VUI.
• If your representative is so wishy-washy that you don't know what he really stands for, may be VUI.
• If your representative asks you how $4.00 gas prices are impacting you - and is obviously out of touch - he may be VUI.
• If your representative wants to overturn a bill that helps the middle-class get health care - while maintaining their own GOVT. sponsored NON-vouture - health care, he may VUI.
• If your representative is talking out of three sides of his mouth - to lobbyists, typical political BS and the truth - he/she may be VUI.
• If your representative sits on the Armed Services Committe and can't find a few dollars in that huge bloated budget to cut - without reducing our national defense - they are DEFINITELY voting under the influence of lobbyists (VUI).
• If your Congressman thinks the Citizens United case was a good decision by our Supreme Court (SCOTUSes), they are definitely VUI.
• If your Congressman believes one ethnic groups' voting strength should continue to be diluted in the upcoming redistricting votes, they are probably VUI.
• If your Congressman is rich and wealthy and believes that most of the people in his/her district are as well when they really aren't, they are probably VUI.
• If your Congressman was in office in the run-up to our nation's biggest recent disasters - Banking, oil spills and mortgage scandals - and still believes that government regulations has NO BENEFICIAL ROLE TO PLAY, they are definitely VUI.
• If your Congressman believes that government health care vouchers are a great idea except for Congress, government employees, active military and military retirees, then they are voting under the influence (VUI).
• If your Congressman thinks that banks should be able to prey on the poor and middle-class by luring them with attractive rates on credit cards and raising the rates - for often trivial things - they are VUI.
• If your Congressman thinks that lying-by-omission is okay with the Bible, he is VUI.

Copied direct without editing. Keep 'em coming!

An introduction

Today I found and shared a site, Maplight.org on my personal Facebook page pointed specifically to my Congressional representative's entry. This blog was inspired by the comments of a friend that just kept coming. It started out sounding somewhat like a cross between a tribute to Jeff Foxworthy and those annoying ads for new medications. The idea of becoming more active politically than posting on my elected officials' Facebook pages or liking the pages of causes and organizations I agree with has been coming up more often. So, I guess this is that first real step. I hope to post on things I find relevant to political discourse, both serious and humorous.