Thursday, January 20, 2011

Never Mind, 'Sicko'

Update3: Great piece on this by Courant columnist Rick Green.


Update2: See, I told you so. The creator of the Enfield library Facebook group has admitted "calling all Republicans Nazis" on his own page. Fortunately, he now says he regrets it.


Update: I am told that the objector, Mr. Fealy, is a member of the Enfield Republican Town Commitee.

This is a good thing in that it will attract more attention to this issue, but bad because it will no doubt degenerate into partisan attacks by one party on the other, resulting in a distraction from the topic of censorship, which is truly a bipartisan problem. See the nascent Facebook group: Stop the Enfield Republicans From Censoring our Library!

* * * * * * *

Michael Moore's scathing indictment of the U.S. healthcare system has been banned in Enfield, Conn. Well, sort of.

That's right. Acting under orders from the mayor, the town manager has strong-armed Enfield Public Library officials into either canceling the showing of the film or else, in the words of the mayor, "they’re going to have the repercussions of the [town] council."

Apparently, the exercise in censorship was precipitated by the complaint of one taxpayer at a council meeting.
At Tuesday's council meeting, resident Kevin Fealy brought the upcoming screening to the council's attention, urging it to pressure the library to cancel the movie, saying he didn’t want the town "to promote material such as this on my tax dollars."
Talk about a solution in search of a problem. The mayor and town council members who went along with Fealy should be ashamed of themselves. Should the library remove politically objectionable books as well? Mein Kampf? The Communist Manifesto? Burn them.

Here's what the boneheaded mayor should have suggested: show the Academy Award-nominated film and then have a discussion period afterward in which audience members could exchange thoughts on the film and on the subject of healthcare in general. Don't you think Enfeldians are smart enough to handle that, Mr Mayor?

For the record, I have not seen Sicko and I can't stand Michael Moore. He is a world-class demagogue and blow-hard. And now he has inflicted yet more injustice on me because I'm in the painful position of defending him.

H/T to Rick.

6 comments:

  1. It appears we have forgotten about FREE SPEECH ... and worse ... FREE THINKING.

    Beyond what I have just stated ...

    There are many (both left, right, and center) who have become reliant on the GOVERNMENT to guide us (and legislate us)concerning our thinking.

    Our FREE society is being eliminated when we accept this type of GOVERNMENT 'muscle flexing'.

    Many sit in the 'wings' professing 'I can't do anything about this ... what will be will be'.

    I have said (many times) that the problem begins at the 'grass roots' ... 'in our backyard' ...

    Democracy grows from the roots and when the roots become infected (as in this example), the TREE of Democracy is doomed to die ...

    Funny (not HA HA) how we speak about 'civilized debate and discussion' and allow this kind of incident to happen.

    Is the MINORITY NOT RULING THE MAJORITY? Having said that, I have noticed this event occurring for decades.

    If we do not change course, wake up, speak out, ... well ... We are doomed to be servants to the system.

    Is that what the American Dream was really all about?

    Our future works or fails from the LOCAL LEVEL ... Let's get with the program and start throwing up the roadblocks to those who would impose their will upon society ... It is happening from instances like this, Planning and Zoning Commissions, local boards of all natures ...

    It does not reach the National Level unless we ignore it at THIS level ...

    Wake up at HOME ... It is not the ROSE GARDEN that you WANT it to be and it eventually infects the entire plant! (How many medaphors must I invoke?)

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  2. You're right, Mike. All too often it starts on the local level. Unfortunately, most people are bored with local issues, unless they have national implications, as this one does.

    Remember when the Region 1 superintendent elected not to show President Obama's speech live? An outcry ensued on the letters to the editor page of The Lakeville Journal. But when the Salisbury Board of Education clerk embezzled $100k plus, it barely generated a ripple.

    Such is life.

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  3. The Region 1 Superintendent didn't elect not to show Mr. Obama's speech live. My recollection is that the speech was, in fact, shown live in at least one of the seven schools of Region 1. So, unless that principal as reprimanded for failing to do as directed by the Superintendent, I would suggest that the final decision was left to the building level administrators. (Or maybe, at the High School, to those overly-powerful faculty leaders?) [Sarcasm alert!]

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  4. I stand corrected. She didn't order all Reg 1 schools to show it live. She actually let them make up their own minds. Imagine that.

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  5. Odd ... this went to the Region One Superintendent ...

    She made a RECOMMENDATION ... ALL THAT SHE CAN DO!

    For the record ... the Falls Village Board of Education ignored the recommendation!

    It just goes to show how little the public understands about the structure of the Region One School System.

    They all MOAN about the Superintendent, however, little do they understand what MINIMAL power SHE (or anyone who should sit in that position) really has ...

    Welcome to the REAL world!

    ReplyDelete