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ACCORDING TO LIZ - It’s not only China and Russia. It’s India and the United States.
Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has called for the censure of her long-time House adversary Rashida Tlaib for speaking in support of the lives of innocents in Gaza and faulting those who decried students’ opposition to the American involvement in yet another war.
The U.S.-supported Indian government and its Prime Minister Narendra Modi have bought terrorism charges against more than 40 journalists in Delhi and elsewhere, including the internationally-known writer and activist Arundhati Roy.
Even if forces arise to challenge what is essentially bullying by the state to silence the press, too often self-censorship by management beholden to those who deserve to be criticized will shut down people’s right to balanced news. Remember the lack of responsible reporting in the Bush rush to war in 2003?
We see the writing on the walls and billboards as the lines between the plutocracy and our government become blurred with deals between big business and elected officials becoming the norm in D.C. and L.A.
When high-paid corporate lobbyists can command the attention of politicians while constituents languish in the... lobby.
When Neighborhood Councils set up under the City Charter to advise Councilmembers on community concerns are given short shrift or ignored completely.
That issues that the people of Los Angeles care deeply about – development in their neighborhoods, destruction of their trees – are subordinated to the cold, hard cash businesses bring to the table. And a pivot to putting the emphasis on personal behavior rather than getting anything done.
The mantra “money talks, bullsh*t walks” is supposedly the entrepreneur’s guide on getting things done. And when the spotlight is turned to petty concerns, it’s all too easy to allow truly egregious manipulations of the law to slide by.
In a democracy, why should any individual’s greed trump the common need?
While there must be limitations – there will never be enough time for our City Council to listen to almost four million Angelenos let alone process their concerns – without due protection against the power of gelt, how can people ensure that the interests of the majority can be assured?
But free speech is not license to spew defamatory epithets nor incite hatred and violence.
Squabbling in the House of Representatives has taken on more sinister tones since the hatred-enabling campaign and rule of the president whose name should not be mentioned.
Recently Marjorie Taylor Greene of the guns for the family Christmas card fame, called Rashida Tlaib an "Israel hating America hating woman who does not represent anything America stands for" demanding the Palestinian-American be censured for supporting peace advocates opposed to Biden’s support for the escalating and indiscriminate aggression against Gaza after the Hamas terrorist incursion into Israel.
Vermont Rep Becca Balint retaliated by criticizing freshly anointed Speaker of the House Mike Johnson for allowing Greene to bring her censure resolution to the floor, and introduced a counter-resolution against Greene.
Eventually, 23 House Republicans, disgusted with their colleague’s vitriol and her hyper-partisan, conspiracy-driven rants, helped table the resolution.
On the way, the dispute degenerated to an X (pka Twitter)-exchange with Tlaib posting:
“Marjorie Taylor Greene's unhinged resolution is deeply Islamophobic and attacks peaceful Jewish anti-war advocates. I am proud to stand in solidarity with Jewish peace advocates calling for a ceasefire and an end to the violence.
“I will not be bullied, I will not be dehumanized, and I will not be silenced. I will continue to call for ceasefire, for the immediate delivery of humanitarian aid, for the release of hostages and those arbitrarily detained, and for every American to be brought home. I will continue to work for a just and lasting peace that upholds the human rights and dignity of all people, and ensures that no person, no child has to suffer or live in fear of violence.”
Far more eloquent than Greene’s response which reeked of the one-who-was, although in more coherent English:
“UNHINGED Jihad Squad member and leader of the Hamasurrection Rashida Tlaib still refuses to denounce Hamas terrorism after spewing vial antisemitic hatred. Tlaib must be held accountable!”
More to the point, what about all the threats brought against legislators and judges across the country to dissuade them from any action that might imperil the second coming of King Trump?
Once before, back in 2015 and 2016, when our elected officials didn’t act promptly to put the vengeful Maga-horde back in Pandora’s Box, their sense of entitlement to act without any restrictions on their behavior has increasingly imperiled democracy.
Threats and intimidation are hallmarks of mob bosses, and mob rule is incompatible with democracy.
We now need to look a little more closely at what is happening in Los Angeles, at City Hall and in the Neighborhood Councils. Where free speech is being used by too many to justify hurting and threatening others. And the rules being proposed to enforce decent conduct are equally oppressive.
On Tuesday, Election Day in a number of American jurisdictions, the Board of Neighborhood Commissioners is set to pass a complex reworking of the Neighborhood Council Code of Conduct Policy that incorporates by reference provisions of the City’s Workplace Equity Policy for their paid employees, further magnifying potential confusion.
Members of Neighborhood Councils are not paid and they are not employees; they are elected officials representing the interests of their stakeholders and should be treated with the respect that befits their position.
While the intent may have been well-meaning in this acrimonious and litigious age, too many of those on which it would be imposed have spoken up against it but their concerns appear to have been minimalized.
Complaints run the gamut from suppression of free speech to removal of due process. Supporters say something is better than nothing.
People have legitimate concerns about certain behaviors at board meetings but those can already be addressed by the Neighborhood Council at their meetings under the current Code of Conduct.
A number of the problems at meetings come from unaffiliated stakeholders and there are no provisions to control their freedom of speech – this is a far more important concern and one the City has been unable to deal with in their own meetings.
Is Los Angeles a democracy? Is it acceptable for five or six or seven people on an appointed board to impose rules on thousands of Angelenos?
Does this feel more like intimidation than an invitation for people to participate more fully in the City’s governance?
Especially when the proposed document is difficult for native English-speakers to interpret, let alone the diverse members of our Neighborhood Council system.
(Liz Amsden is a contributor to CityWatch and an activist from Northeast Los Angeles with opinions on much of what goes on in our lives. She has written extensively on the City's budget and services as well as her many other interests and passions. In her real life she works on budgets for film and television where fiction can rarely be as strange as the truth of living in today's world.)
