Silence is Not Democracy

It’s not free speech when you’re afraid to say it out loud

I’ve said it many times before that we live in a community where people hold two opinions–the one that they think is acceptable to say in public and the one they whisper when no one is listening. This has become only more prevalent with the current state of despair and disruption.– Many don’t want to risk their jobs, their status or even their friends by saying what is truly on their minds. And they still believe that they have “free speech.” This is self- censorship, which is motivated,  at its core, by polite cowardice.

So, I am inspired by the millions of people coming out to protest ICE and the orange Felon occupying the Oval Office,  pushing to expose  Epstein and his pedophile pals. And yet in the corporate owned media rarely call a lie a lie. We’ve seen it over and over where some journalist asks the right question at a news conference and the Orange Liar-in-Chief just barks back at them and  their news outlet. This silences the criticism but also avoids the answer. That’s the big picture.

On a more local level, what we see are people compromised by their own personal politics or contractual obligations–NDA’s are just codes of conduct from an employer that doesn’t allow a person to speak to the press.

Part of this comes from the corporatization of communications. Questions can only be posed to the PR mouthpiece of a company or department after the question has been vetted and approved. This has filtered down to all levels of government where the freedom to speak to the press has been vilified to “leaking” information anonymously. In previous times there were “whistle blower” laws to protect employees who revealed wrong-doing, corruption or malfeasance, but now? Saying the wrong thing is considered “treason”.

The weirdest part is that this corporate speak style has now infiltrated the non-profit sector where all you get is the “happy PR newsletter”.  Nothing ever is going wrong, right?

Over the course of 46 years publishing this town’s only newspaper I can’t tell you the number of times one or another non-profit has had to fire a director or treasurer or administrative secretary for fraud or theft. The boards of directors have only whispered the truth but never come clean for fear that their funding would dry up.

This is kind small potatoes compared to POLA summarily firing Chris Cannon, the director of Environmental Affairs with no excuse made public or why there was not further investigation of his Port of Long Beach counterpart, Rick Cameron,  who was served with a search warrant by the FBI to search his email, before he abruptly resigned and subsequently died of a heart attack.

No one at either port admits to knowing anything about any of this. What we get from both ports are glowing reports on TEU’s numbers, profits and how they are doing a superior job on addressing the pollution from the harbors. The headline being the future is bright despite the chaos of Trump’s ever-changing tariffs. Both port directors know Trump’s tariffs are insane. Not that certain kinds of tariffs can be beneficial but blanket tariffs are just plain stupid, but nobody wants to say it out loud.

These days, speaking out against the regime gets you pelted with a barrage of pejoratives such as: radical leftist Democrat, socialist terrorist, communist. Or brought under federal investigation for some fictitious crime. We are a nation now that lives in fear of speaking truth to power, whether at a press conference, city council meeting, a neighborhood council meeting or in the private boardrooms of non-profits.– Except now people, ordinary people, are marching in the streets.

When people give up their rights to free speech we are all worse off because the debate between people on policies, provisions or practices allows for real democracy to work. Remember we believe that we are still a democracy. Try actually using your first amendment like you mean it. Just try to remember to say something intelligent!