Democracy, Assassination, and the free press

 

I try to restrict this  blog to elections - but so many important issues were raised by the assassination of Charlie Kirk, and the Jimmy Kimmel  aftermath, that I couldn't help myself.

Democracy is kinda the opposite of rule by terror.  It doesn’t work if people are afraid to run for office, so assassination is never an option … no matter how despicable a candidate or agenda may be.

For the record -- I despise the entire right wing echo chamber news/entertainment business. It's not honest  civic participation ….it's a business plan for stoking and then profiting from a certain kind of  blind outrage and alienation.  It’s a disgusting occupation, and it's become ever more successful over the last 30 years.  BTW, here’s a link to one of Kirk’s hateful, racist podcasts. Like Tucker Carlson, he normalizes divisive depravity as wholesome, Christian., and American as apple pie.

Yet still we must note that it filled a gap left when legacy media lost a perceived even-handed credibility - for which both Kimmel’s “joke” and the media response to his firing are current examples.

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We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it… Jimmy Kimmel

 1. The is zero evidence that puts Tyler in MAGA - and yes, even one of my best friends was fooled into believing otherwise.

 2. For whatever reason, the socialists of today are often quite proud to be called just that —-while today’s fascists are ashamed of what they are. Only leftists denounce anyone as fascist.  That’s what  Tyler wrote on his deadly bullets — so yes, at that moment he might be identified as a leftist terrorist - though no other evidence may ever exist.

3, The apparent intention of this misinformation was to denigrate political opponents.

4. So we may call it a malicious lie.

How this tragic story can be turned into comedy baffles me. Indeed, making any humorous political commentary on a nightly basis before a large national audience is probably impossible at this time. With more time and thought, Kimmel might have said something like:

 “ Isn’t it crazy how hard MAGA is trying to make this white, binary, Mormon, rural, gun-toting sheriff’s son into a radical leftist? Maybe he just finally understood what was beneath the sugar coating of Kirk's popular  brand of hateful white racism and responded in the only way he knew”  

Not really funny - and probably he still  would have been fired - but at least he would have been telling the truth. And that is most important than anything else.

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Meanwhile,  several NYT  columnists jump on Kimmel's sinking ship to bemoan his suspension from the network - and none of them call out  his malicious lie.   This is not responsible journalism —-and they should be fired as well as Kimmel.

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A week later - Kimmel returns -- proclaims a victory for freedom of speech - and offers this one sentence by way of contrition:  

Nor was it my intention to blame any specific group for the actions of what was obviously a deeply disturbed individual

If we accept free speech and the totally open marketplace of ideas, we must accept that eventually what can be sold will be sold without even the thinnest thread of remorse.

And an unrestricted marketplace is one that eventually will be owned by fewer and fewer people.  (hello, Larry Ellison)

It may be neither possible nor preferable to legally stop the proliferation of malicious lies.

But wouldn't it be a good idea not to celebrate and encourage those who make them?

Freedom without responsibility is not a political ideal.

It’s a danger.

2025 - Proviso elections

 Proviso Township Supervisor

Corrigan has held the job for 15 years.  Says nothing on his website —- but also appears free of scandal.

Jennings has a brain-dead page on Instagram- and raises no issues other than accusing his opponent  (who was endorsed by the Democratic Party) of being a Republican.  Huh ???

I’ll vote for Corrigan

Proviso Trustee

5 candidates for  4 seats - so one must be eliminated.  

The “Public Servant Party of Proviso” has no website, no platform, no vision, no experience, no nothin’

But I’ll vote for its candidate,  Stacy Armstrong, just to have one possibly dissenting voice at the table.  No noticiable difference between the others, so I won't vote for any of them.

Forest Park Park District

3 candidates for 2 positions 

In comparison with the other two, Maria Alzamora appears to be clueless when answering questions, so I’ll vote for the others.

High School District 209

Does Proviso East really have a truancy rate over 50% ?  That doesn’t mean that the classes are always half empty but still ….. it does mean that 50% of the student body have been absent without excuse more than nine times  a year.  

We’re more than twice as bad as the rest of Illinois.

And it’s not about race, either.

Nobody wants to go to that damn school 

if there’s something else they'd rather do.

But on the other hand -- 

this statistic does not tell us the average daily % of unexcused absences.

If  we had a 100% truancy rate, 

and each truant misses 10 days a year, 

out of a 180 day school year,

that only means that about 5% of the seats are empty on any given day.

Not so bad.

And it does occur to me that the purposes of public schooling need to be re-examined

now that so many workers will be replaced by robots or AI. 

The MOST important thing about human life is to enjoy it

(and not go crazy).

Staying home from school may be good for those who do.

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Regrettably, the entire Proviso 209 United slate chose to skip the only candidate forum,

so I will skip voting for them, and vote instead for:

Smith, Molinaro,Morris Fisher 

Triton College Board. Vote for 3 of 4

Princess  Dempsey, the owner of a beauty supply store, is the only non-incumbent, but she has posted absolutely ZERO about her candidacy. As a perennial candidate for one position or another, she has already been mentioned twice on this blog.

From here on out, I'll just ignore her. She’s only running to promote her name.

I’ll be voting for the other three - at least they have experience.

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When I began this blog seventeen years ago, I figured that elections would be different in the age of the internet.

Candidates could communicate directly to voters - at great length and practically no expense.

Instead, it was taken as a golden opportunity to propagate lies so egregious, they've become an alternate reality, justified cynicism, and now threatens the democratic process itself.

We can assume that all these people running for office know more about local politics than I - so they probably have good reason for saying nothing about themselves and their concerns.

It would make no positive difference if they did.

I also was hoping that I would be one of many who blogged about each election, but there appear to be fewer bloggers now than then.

As of today, I cannot find a single one.