If You Claim That Money Is Speech You Ought To Be Prepared To OWN It - And Not Hide It!

Just over two years ago on the topic of money presumed to be speech, I offered this perspective:

"Money is a medium of financial and economic transaction, not speech in the accepted definition. "Speech" implies an individualist aspect whereby a person's unique consciousness is able to assemble specific words to convey an original thought or opinion."

I have not budged from that since, and argue even more strenuously now that if you are going to claim money as "speech" it must be individualized and owned not interjected as an abstract agent devoid of  human responsibility.  This is germane now as we read in a recent WSJ editorial:

"The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals struck again, handing California's Attorney General the power to intimidate political donors. "

The editorial's complaint hearkened back to a 2016 case decision (by a lower court) that found on behalf of the Koch brothers'  dark money outfit, Americans for Prosperity. In that decision the federal judge Manuel Real imposed a permanent injunction against the California AG's demand that nonprofits hand over the unredacted names of their donors.  In other words, if you are going to go the route of dark money, your money is divorced from any "free speech" privileges.

But as we read in the editorial:

"A Ninth Circuit panel swept past the trial evidence to vacate the injunction and reverse Judge Real.  The Judge (Real) had noted that the attorney General 'struggled to find a single witness who could corroborate the necessity of [donor names] in conjunction with their office's investigations.. The Ninth Circuit brushed this aside on grounds that the AG had a 'strong interest' in donor names to investigate fraud."

The editorial seems not to appreciate the enormous potential for fraud, say via hiding criminal identities in giving money donations for political agendas.  It is as if that AG concern doesn't count.   The WSJ then whined how the Ninth Circuit "waived aside security lapses and dismissed the 'undeniably' real threats against foundation supporters."

Again, claiming special privilege for these donors on the basis of their money donations. But that does not compute, and if free speech is advocated on the basis of equal justice under the law it's a no go.  To be sure, I've no objection to political campaign speech. Let the politicos and their super PACs take over air time on the tube and make their attacks to their hearts' content. Indeed, they can say whatever the hell they want, within limits. But it is foolishness to claim this is the same as personal free speech. 

The editorial would have done better to consider the case along side how Prof. Ward Churchill's free speech rights were seriously violated some 17 years ago.  This transpired  when then University of Colorado professor Churchill wrote an essay "On Roosting Chickens" about the 9/11 attacks in an obscure journal.  Some collegian with too much time on his hands found the essay then circulated it widely on the web, and it ultimately ended up in the hands of U of C honchos who declared Churchill unpatriotic and also, unfit to teach.

A special university "panel" was convened which rummaged through all of Churchill's  existing drafts, academic papers and communications - which they did to no other prof. They then pronounced their "verdict":  finding hum guilty of "plagiarism".   In the wake, every little anti-free speech dunce in Colorado went batshit crazy calling for Churchill's head,  with the university - and The Denver Post - complying in full.

The Post hung Ward Churchill out to dry in a number of editorials and op-ed columns, The guy was convicted and hung, drawn and quartered before he could ask 'why'.  The whole episode showed the "free speech" meme for the hypocritical bollocks it is because,  while someone could depict Muslims as "ragheads" in cartoons, he couldn't dare call into the question the U.S. role in inciting blowback to trigger 9/11 - as Churchill did.

The UC vendetta - via its specific ID of Churchill as the essay author - led them to a base violation of his free speech rights and also his equal protections under the law.  In effect, NO other UC professors had their bodies of published work scrutinized, only Churchill. (Even as many wrote in support of him.) This singled him out and the questionable methods caused him to be fired. (Churchill pursued an appeal case and "won" several years later, but again in backhanded fashion the jury awarded him $1.)

So the question arises: WHY should the Americans for Prosperity donors be afforded any more protection than Churchill?  Churchill - true - willingly attached his name to his controversial essay. But in a kangaroo court of public opinion it didn't matter and he ended up losing his livelihood while being selectively smeared. If an individual can be subject to such risk there is no justification  - barring major changes in existing law - political donors should not also face risk for their dark money contributions. You don't get a free ride, e.g. anonymity,  just became you have tons of money to donate.

The WSJ editorialists then bitch at the end:

"The polarization of American politics is raising the risks of disclosure for donors, though the judicial left won't admit it."

Yeah, well the civic  Left will.  But until that risk (for retribution) is also reduced for individuals who express their unpopular opinions, the monied donors do not get a free ride - e.g. to hide. At its core that to me is what the 9th Circuit decision is really about.   It shows the serious need to extinguish dark money speech as against the very basis of free speech, for which human conception and individual creation has been assured since the era of the Founders.

Gasp! Bill Maher Is Clueless On Free Speech & Role Of Boycotts

For a guy who bloviates a lot about free speech and defending assorted people on behalf of their 1st amendment rights, it's incredible Bill Maher could blow it so completely last night. This despite  having three panel members (Elliot Spitzer, Max Boot, Heather McGhee) who tried their damndest to educate him on the valid role of boycotts dating back to the civil rights era. But Maher, probably on another weed high, dug in. How does that old cliche go? "Wrong and strong"?  That was Maher last night on Real Time.

As I posted before it's evident that sometimes when Bill Maher appears loopy or "bolshy" on his show (ranting against liberals, or last night against David Hogg as a "bully") he is really high - probably from too much MaryJane beforehand. Maher in a segment that turned highly argumentative, mainly because he adamantly refused enlightenment from his sober panel, accused Hogg of "doing an end run around the first amendment" in his altercation with FOX hate monger Laura Ingraham. See e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2018/03/fox-harpy-laura-ingraham-has-to-eat.html

Poor little Laura - who Maher was defending and who boasts a show (Ingraham Angle) with millions of dopey viewers  - a voice thousands of times louder than Hogg's - unloaded on the kid with a tweet:

David Hogg Rejected By Four Colleges To Which He Applied and whines about it. (Dinged by UCLA with a 4.1 GPA...totally predictable given acceptance rates.) 

The ill-conceived attack instantly brought retribution including from Hogg's 14 year old sister, Lauren, and hundreds of others for beating up on a 17 year old kid.  Even the center right WSJ columnist Peggy Noonan, in today's piece  ('If Adults Won't Grow Up, Nobody Will' p. A13) got the picture when she wrote:

"Ingraham is a successful and veteran media figure, host of a cable show that bears her name. As such she is a setter of the sound of our culture, as it discusses politics. When you're that person you don't smack around a 17-year old ..."

She went on to add "even if he is obnoxious in his presentation of his public self" - but that is her subjective take and most don't agree with her. I certainly don't. It was in fact Ingraham who was the obnoxious one,  resorting to ad hominem as opposed to challenging Hogg's actual position.  But Noonan's larger, "saving" point was that most 17 year olds can be "obnoxious" but when you're the adult you have an obligation to act your age, not like the kid's, i.e. "He's small, you're big, there's a power imbalance."   Yuh think? 

Noonan was also amiss in asserting that "Ingraham was unjustly targeted for boycotts". Peggy, in fact,  would do better to take that up with Ingraham's advertisers.  They had the choice to follow Hogg's suggestion or not. He didn't point a gun to their heads or threaten violence to their companies. No force was involved.  Hogg had the free speech choice to appeal to advertisers' moral compass for a boycott, and he rightfully exercised it. They exercised their prerogative  to comply or not.  

The basis for proposing a boycott, which Maher made much ado over and actually attempted to diminish ("A boycott because you're attacked for whining over college rejections?") is immaterial. It's neither here nor there, and again, Hogg is exercising his proposal for a boycott irrespective of whether Maher believes the cause was sufficiently grave.  If Hogg saw it as grave enough himself to warrant his response to Ingraham's heavy -handed ad hominem attack, so be it.  Ingraham has her vast FOX media voice, the kid has hundreds of thousands of animated followers who can besiege advertisers for a boycott. I'd say it's a righteous free speech contest! We don't need Maher to put his weed-soaked thumb on the scales.

Maher's argument is that once you're "out there"  - reaching others in the public domain- then you have to cede the possibility of being a target, and that includes hate mongers (who put Hogg in with photo shopped images of Hitler) .  Thus, Ingraham was expressing her own opinion, never mind it targeted a 17 year old who'd revealed certain vulnerabilities regarding the difficulty of college entry for choice schools on a different media venue (TMZ) .  And as I noted regarding this, even the March 29 WSJ  (p.A3)  pointed out there is a crush now with college applications and the Millennials feature the biggest contingent ever- bigger in numbers than the  Boomers.  So Hogg was  perhaps a victim of too late applications, but would definitely gain entrance to a good school, just perhaps not his first choices.

But the consensus was that Ingraham went full bore  'mad dog' on the kid, capping it with the odious  nonsense that "because it's Holy Week" she'd make amends.  WTF has that got to do with anything? As Lawrence O'Donnell put it "So for all other 51 weeks you'd not have apologized?"  Referring to her subsequent tweet:

Any student should be proud of a 4.2 GPA —incl. @DavidHogg111. On reflection, in the spirit of Holy Week, I apologize for any upset or hurt my tweet caused him or any of the brave victims of Parkland. 

Which Hogg rightly perceived as insincere given she only proffered the apology to save her sorry tail, i.e. advertisers.

Hogg's response was to simply call indirectly for a boycott, tweeting to his 600,000 followers:

Pick a number 1-12 contact the company next to that #

Top Laura Ingraham Advertisers
1. @sleepnumber
2. @ATT
3. Nutrish
4. @Allstate & @esurance
5. @Bayer
6. @RocketMortgage Mortgage
7. @LibertyMutual
8. @Arbys
9. @TripAdvisor
10. @Nestle
11. @hulu
12. @Wayfair

The tweet was flooded with replies from Hogg’s supporters, some of whom pasted images of their messages to the companies in question.  Contrary to Maher's "bully" B.S.  Hogg at no time put a gun to the heads of any of the advertisers to coerce cooperation. And, in fact, only two did agree to the boycott in the immediate aftermath.  Also,  contrary to Bill's bollocks,  there was no "chilling effect" on free speech -  especially commercial speech as Heather McGhee noted. In other words, NO one - not even Ingraham - has a first amendment right to advertisers. That's a privilege she needs to earn, and I would add, sustain.

As we saw when corporate entities bailed on Trump after  his defending the Tiki torch bearing Neo -Nazis marching in Charlottesville   ("some very fine people"), it doesn't take too much to  vamanos when an intensely bad actor risks damaging corporate brands or issues. 

But that was THEIR choice! So Maher was wrong to insist Hogg was "bullying". No, he merely responded in a robust way to what was actual bullying by Ingraham. That Maher couldn't tell the difference perhaps shows how many tokes he lit up before the show.   And as all his panelists tried to impress on his weed-besotted head, there was no "end run" around the first amendment. 

If Maher wanted to be given an example of a real end run, he'd have needed to look no further than the example of former Univ. of Colorado professor Ward Churchill.  After his essay 'On Roosting chickens' came to light, dug out by a little twit with nothing better to do after 9/11, all hell broke loose.  Namely, fascist, anti-free speech lackeys at the University of Colorado  rummaged through all of Prof. Ward Churchill's drafts, academic papers and communications - which they did with no other prof - to find him guilty of "plagiarism" .  

The end result? There was such a chorus demanding his termination from  CU as rapidly as possible, that he was given the heave-ho. No way could a critic of government policy in the wake of 9/11 be allowed to continue to publish his work without hyper-scrutiny and kangaroo academic courts. THAT was Maher's "end run around free speech" example: the use of selective and phony opprobrium - and cafeteria-style  ethics - to get a prof fired from his post for exercising his actual free speech.

But perhaps Maher was too benumbed by weed to recall it, or maybe he never even processed it when it happened. But one thing we do know: In no way is David Hogg's boycott analogous to what the Univ. Of Colorado Board of Regents did to Ward Churchill.   Besides, Ingraham can always get other advertisers, or a new gig.  For Churchill it was all over.

See also the Maher segment here:

http://thehill.com/homenews/media/382071-bill-maher-defends-ingraham-parkland-student-calling-for-a-boycott-is-wrong

Kathy Griffin's Bloody Trump Head - And The Incredible "Free Speech" Hypocrisy Of The Right

How real is American freedom? More to the point, how does it compare with the freedom that other nations cherish, nations such as Norway, Barbados or Germany? Answering these questions can shed no small amount of light on the freedom we believe we have.

According to David M. Potter, in Freedom and its Limitations in American Life, (Stanford University Press, 1976), people of most other nations understand freedom to be wide ranging and to include freedom to express opinions contrary to the majority, or the societal "norms" and even engage in active dissent. Also, freedom to live as one chooses, e.g. in Barbados 'squatting' is quite legal, so long as it's not near water reservoirs, wells.

To the typical American (p. 7) "freedom" is not so inclusive or expansive but is limited to two concepts: "free and independent" and "free and equal". The first implies "freedom to avoid dependence" , e.g on any higher authority, thereby to attain true independence.This "freedom" is what the Tea Party Brigade incessantly invokes in its rallies to pursue the ultimate goal of "every man for himself" and no "nanny state".

As Potter notes, the other concept, "Free and equal" implies the essence of freedom is:

"Not being different from other people, but rather on a par with other people; not the right to choose between various modes of life, but the right to enjoy a mode as good as anyone else's "

In effect, the first ensures the typical American will pursue no true freedom of thought, but rather freedom from all collective responsibility or accountability (e.g. to a defined commonweal. ) This "freedom to avoid dependence" - which is to say, be "free" of the "Nanny state" has its limits.

Then there is the related issue of freedom of speech.  But especially here, hypocrisy abounds with  the Right often screaming at Leftists for  trying to censor their protected hate speech , e.g. at universities. But then they go ape shit nuts when a lefty evinces her own brand as Kathy Griffin recently did with her fake,  bloody Trump head.

But how shaky the brains of the Right when they get into high dudgeon and posturing outrage! They seem to forget what they did to the image of Obama e.g.



Or:


So please, don't go crying and whining about Kathy Griffin's bloody Trump severed head if you are the least bit ok with the preceding - as much of the victimized Right was in the Obama years. Or, if you accept the preceding images as expressions  of shameful but "free"  speech,   but not Griffin's.

Sadly as William Boardman has noted:

 "This episode speaks volumes about the tortured pathology of American culture in its present mindless form: freedom of thought, freedom of speech are allowed, but only if you exercise them within the walls of your invisible mental freedom prison. Otherwise you risk being an outcast. For Kathy Griffin, that risk is substantial, and it’s all too human of her to abase herself to save her career (if she can). The real sickness lies in the cultural demand for that abasement, which serves as a self-righteous cover for a deeply cowardly refusal to consider what the image means in a country where the majority of people want this presidency decapitated and are told they cannot talk about it except in officially approved and restricted ways. The official culture tries to prohibit depicting the living monster as defeated and slain.

We need to talk about that societal unwillingness to talk about that. The cruel, hideous ruler has long been a universal stereotype and reality."

Regrettably, as Boardman also notes, Griffin apologized at the "grovel" level for her stunt - something the Right's obnoxious cretins would never do. Like Great White sharks they tasted blood in the water, and this opened the door for even more feral attacks on her, just like Ward Churchill endured after his essay "On Roosting Chickens'.  This was an essay written after 9/11 that compared the investment specialists and brokers in the World Trade Center to "little Eichmanns". Every little anti-free speech dunce in Colorado went batshit crazy calling for Churchill's head,  with the university - and the Denver Post - complying in full, demanding his termination. The Post hung Churchill out to dry in a number of editorials and op-ed columns, The guy was convicted (of "plagiarism") and hung, drawn and quartered before he could ask why.  The whole episode showed the "free speech" meme for the hypocritical bollocks it was, because while someone could depict Muslims as "ragheads" in cartoons, he couldn't dare call into the question the U.S. role in inciting blowback - as Churchill did.

And who can forget the spewed hate after Colin Kaepernick took a knee for the national anthem? There we saw it again. The veiled threats that okay, this may nominally be the "land of liberty" but boy, you better had watch out which rights you exercise and look behind your damned back if it's the wrong ones!  Carrying this to outrageous extremes was a  self-proclaimed "World War II and Korean War vet" named Chris Cator who confided to Denver Post sports writer Mark Kiszla that:  "I will buy a one-way ticket for  Brandon Marshall (Broncos anthem kneeling LB)  to any foreign destination he wants."

What's the most galling and aggravating aspect of this whole aftermath, apart from some numskulls blaming it on "Trump Derangement Syndrome? The hysterical screeching of the Right that Griffin be charged with "domestic terrorism" or "making an assassination threat".  Are  you fucking kidding me? It was a tableaux prop explainable as artistic license which anyone who's read the end of 'MacBeth' would recognize - the protagonist bearing the severed head of the tyrant. E.g.  Act 5, Scene 8, lines 53-55:

[Re-enter MACDUFF, with MACBETH's head]
MACDUFF	Hail, king! for so thou art: behold, where stands
	The usurper's cursed head: the time is free:
	I see thee compass'd with thy kingdom's pearl,

In other words, unlike the crude images of Obama lynchings by the Right,  Griffin's invoked an artistic license based on a Shakespearean play.  Of course, most righties wouldn't make any such connection because they've never read any Shakespeare plays.  In the words of William Boardman:

"This is not an actual assassination. It’s not an actual attempted assassination. It’s not even a call for assassination of or even violence against Trump. It’s a far cry from all those right-wing memes lynching Obama. This is an example of artistic license. That’s another trait of free societies. Police states hate artistic license, even when it’s literally licensed."

The fact some Reich wingers might believe Griffin's form of intense speech is a "threat" or "domestic terror"  shows how far the county has descended into a limbo of historical and literary retardation.  Hence, that so many lack ability to do even basic critical thinking whereby one is able to distinguish a stunt using a prop from a genuine threat.  What was Griffin's error, if any? In not explaining the context for her speech.  But should she be crucified for that by the lynch-prone assholes of the Right? No, just as Ward Churchill shouldn't have been crucified for his 9/11 essay by losing his professorship at Univ. of Colorado.

The  pathetic takeaway from all this? Americans talk a good game about "freedom of speech" but have not defined it to a standard that all parties can accept. This means there will always be some who exercise it - such as Kathy Griffin, Ward Churchill, and Colin Kaepernick - who will pay a disproportionate price for so doing if believed to be outside the bounds of an artificially contrived "decency".  This also factors in the inevitable hypocrisy which allows one side (usually the Right) to get away with what in other nations might be hate speech, but if the opposite side tries it, it's met with hysteria and threats.

So much for the "land of the free".

See also:

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/william-boardman/73209/kathy-griffin-with-trumps-severed-head-sets-off-us-denial-storm

And:

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/p-m-carpenter/73247/griffin-and-mahers-outrages-are-nothing-compared-to-that-of-trump

Excerpt:

"If we've not lost our collective mind, we have, at a minimum, lost our perspective and sense of proportion. In the wake of unquantifiable outrage over the Kathy Griffin and Bill Maher kerfuffles, such a bundled loss just might be a proper assessment. I doubt it, but it could be true that America, by and large, can no longer distinguish acts deserving of resolute disapproval from acts deserving of genuine outrage. "