Walker regime's efforts to stifle dissenting voices are part of a national trend

[midnight]

Last edited Tue Jul 16, 2013, 11:40 PM - Edit history (1)

Finally, let's not forget how conservative groups in Wisconsin quickly turned state recall petitions into contact databases, which the groups essentially are using as permanent McCarthyesque black lists against around a million state residents. Applying for a job? Your prospective employer may consult the on-line blacklist and reject you as undesirable. All because you exercised what is supposed to be a high and unassailable right to particpate in the nation's political discourse. And thanks to the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling, companies arguably now have more rights in that regard than you.

Sum it all up. Right now, arguably, the number one threat to progressive causes and minority/mainstream rights is this country's growing, institutionalized assault on privacy and disagreement of any sort with political, corporate and economic elites. The assault is especially alarming given the billions spent to pursue it from wealthy, corporate authoritarians like the Koch brothers, who are now busy trying to buy up major US media companies.

Chris Hedges, blogging at Common Dreams, puts it all into disturbing context:
The security and surveillance state, after crushing the Occupy movement and eradicating its encampments, has mounted a relentless and largely clandestine campaign to deny public space to any group or movement that might spawn another popular uprising. The legal system has been grotesquely deformed in most cities to, in essence, shut public space to protesters, eradicating our right to free speech and peaceful assembly. The goal of the corporate state is to criminalize democratic, popular dissent before there is another popular eruption. The vast state surveillance system, detailed in Edward Snowden's revelations to the British newspaper The Guardian, at the same time ensures that no action or protest can occur without the advanced knowledge of our internal security apparatus. This foreknowledge has allowed the internal security systems to proactively block activists from public spaces as well as carry out pre-emptive harassment, interrogation, intimidation, detention and arrests before protests can begin. There is a word for this type of political system -- tyranny.

Uppity Wisconsin | Progressive News from the Cheddarsphere
http://www.uppitywis.org/blogarticle/art-fairs-serve-slice-wisconsin

[mokawanis]

1. That's why I want to puke

every time some asshole like Walker gets in front of a mic and starts talking about what a great democracy we live in. They don't tolerate dissent, they hate free speech, they're increasingly reducing our rights to organize and to vote, and they're winning elections because they have nearly unlimited funds for airtime and advertising. Add to the mix that there's a huge number of uninformed voters playing right into their hands and I wonder how we'll ever turn things around.

[midnight]

2. I'm wondering how that lawsuit filed last fall played out dealing with first amendment issues....