ALPERN AT LARGE-Well, looks like the paradigm of "progressive", "open-minded", "tolerant" government has given way to a new sort of paradigm--squelching dissent, belittling those who question, and silencing those who speak truth to power.
Most emblematic of this trend: Attorney General Eric Holder, who after riling up infuriated residents of Ferguson, MO with his own statements, had an interesting response to those leaks of the autopsy reports of Michael Brown which support the self-defense arguments of the police officer who shot him: "Shut up".
Which is a rather interesting sequence of events, because while Attorney General Holder is now decrying how the leaks of the autopsy reports, which do NOT support the "gentle giant" or even the "no angel" depiction of the young Mr. Brown, his demands that the grand jury leakers "shut up" because it will compromise that investigation come as a response to what Holder said and did, and because there are many who want to avoid a riot should the case not come to trial.
While the era of past lynchings of black Americans is among the most shameful chapters in our history, modern-day lynchings of innocent police officers aren't a suitable replacement (which, of course, doesn't excuse the St. Louis County police from being overly-equipped with military weapons, or being insufficiently represented with minority officers--but that's a separate issue).
If the correct narrative is coming to light, then we need more truth and less--preferably NO--rioting. But Attorney General Holder (and, unfortunately, he's NOT alone) has a long history of suppressing the truth, and in effect telling those who dare to speak truth to power to "Shut up".
● It's easy to understand Attorney General Holder's feelings about past injustice by "the man", but now HE is "the man" and we expected a professional that would rise above individual perspective and represent ALL the nation.
So when the public (and it shouldn't matter which party or segment of the population is complaining) screams about the Fort Hood Massacre being "workplace violence", the NSA spying scandals, the Benghazi incident being caused by a music video, the IRS e-mails being lost during the investigation into its political abuse, and a host of secret dealings in the White House on domestic and foreign policy, it's NOT too much to ask for a professional in the Department of Justice to serve the needs of ALL Americans...and not just one portion.
Being called "crazy" or "conspiracy nuts" to one's detractors is just as inappropriate today as when President Nixon used that strategy to his "enemies list" during the 1970's, and just because President Obama enjoys unheard of press support--perhaps bias is a better word, as those who've tried to report on current White House scandals have learned--this support can and perhaps already is shifting.
It's doubtful that our President wants history to remember him as a President who was another "Tricky Dick" (or a "Scary Barry", if you will).
And the "shut up" doesn't stay in Washington--and it doesn't work locally, either:
● LA Councilmember Paul Krekorian, and even the others who are concerned about unintended negative effects of a minimum wage hike that might be too high in too short a timeframe, are clearly being told to "shut up" because this wage hike IS happening--and economists' and businesses' concerns be damned, including those the City paid to study the matter.
● Virtually all the detractors of the LAUSD iPad scandal (and they range from the very far left to the very far right) were told to "shut up" when they raised the concerns about the blowback of using school construction bond funds for overpriced iPads , and about giving them to students of even higher incomes, until it blew up in John Deasy's face.
● Pension spiking is right back where it once was, despite all the talk of Governor Brown's limit-setting with the state public sector unions who threaten to bring this state right back to insolvency.
● Despite the concerns of both liberal and conservative constitutionalists, the "Yes means Yes" law that requires mandating California universities to get "affirmative, conscious, and voluntary agreement to engage in sexual activity" zipped right through the Legislature and Governor's office--even before the legal and moral questions were vetted by the courts and the public.
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Yet should someone have the temerity to point out concerns about this rushed-through policy to our "enlightened leadership", he/she is certain to be labelled as someone who is content with income inequality, and/or content with a lack of modern technology available to lower income students, and/or content with underpaying public sector employees, and/or content with college rape.
In other words..."shut up".
So for anyone reading this, and who remembers that the once-futuristic dystopian society envisioned in George Orwell's book "1984" describes a year that is now thirty years in our rear-view mirror, perhaps it's time we ask our Modern Enlightenment if life hasn't now imitated art, and that Orwell's predictions have frighteningly come true.
Until, of course, that time and ability to safely raise these issues no longer exists.
(Ken Alpern is a Westside Village Zone Director and Board member of the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC), previously co-chaired its Planning and Outreach Committees, and currently is Co-Chair of its MVCC Transportation/Infrastructure Committee. He is co-chair of the CD11Transportation Advisory Committee and chairs the nonprofit Transit Coalition, and can be reached at [email protected]. He also does regular commentary on the MarkIsler Radio Show on AM 870, and co-chairs the grassroots Friends of the Green Line at www.fogl.us. The views expressed in this article are solely those of Mr. Alpern.)
