Suppressing Free Speech: There and Here

“Without freedom of expression and freedom of the press, it will be difficult to successfully promote fraternity between nations, disarmament and a better world order to succeed in our time,”

A quote from journalist Maria Ressa of the Philippines who was a 1982 graduate of Toms River High School North and a 1986 graduate of Princeton University and a winner of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize.

No, I was not arrested, but are the corrupt political systems in Ms. Ressa’s childhood home state any less efficient in suppressing free speech when it suits them?

From my own experience yesterday:

7 Dirty Words

Subtitled The Life and Crimes of George Carlin, the book was more a précis of HBO specials without much on his life beyond his love of wine and cocaine and seminal thoughts.

Life-Changing Science of Detecting Bullshit

Having been accused of it:

I decided to do some research and started with this book.

In the Same Breath

Dysfunctional government designed to benefit party members is not unique to China. I am chronicling a particularly odious example in Kenilworth on the countywatchers blog but I won’t trouble you with that here.

More relevant is what this documentary shows us being fed by governments and experts last year. Remember?

Where not to look and someone we are sadly without who would have certainly looked.

Surviving Autocracy

A Trump-bashing book from early 2020 but I found local parallels from late last month.

Muzzled: “Tired Of Hearing This BS Every Time”

In attempting to respond to a statement made by the Kenilworth mayor (which I found out recently was a reading of a tapinto piece dated July 30, 2021) I got a minute in before this happened:

Below is video of the mayor’s statement and my aborted response:

Slander: “That’s A Good Way To Get Rid Of Him”

Yesterdays’ Kenilworth council meeting is up on youtube. I will be unpacking my comments in several blogs over the weekend, mostly to do with questions I had on budget items but, to kick this off, after I was slandered, this is how borough attorney Frank Capece, reacted:

Polonium-210 might not have been readily available but, maybe next time.

Another “good way to get rid of” me came later in the evening and if you want to skip ahead the full youtube of the meeting is at bottom. For now this is the incident that precipitated Frank Capece’s comment:

Slandered and Muzzled

slander[ˈslandər]NOUNlaw

1. the action or crime of making a false spoken statement damaging to a person’s reputation.

That’s exactly what happened to me tonight at the Kenilworth council meeting but, rather than describe it, let’s all wait for the video to go up on the borough youtube channel, if it ever does.

Suffice it to say that the mayor read a critique of my mailer and then accused me of stalking her. I denied it but in my comment time was not allowed to finish my rebuttal (and also was not allowed to file a criminal complaint since the officer at the desk claimed it was a civil matter). Maybe so but, for the record, here is what I would have said in my defense if we had free speech in Kenilworth.