THREE STRIKES AND YOU'RE OUT: Censorship of Critical Thinking at Niagara Times Blog

I’ve been kicked off the Niagara Times blog spot for the third and final time. Hobbes, the Administrator, says I don’t follow his ‘rules.’ He e-mailed me with this:

“Anything you post will be deleted due to the fact that you have repeatedly been told to abide by my rules, and you have chosen to blatantly disregard my requests. No need to respond, just choose another site. Have a nice day.”

What this really means is that any critical discussion of any of the implications of his feature post or any essentially related materials is out of bounds. Well, that’s one way to have a discourse but it’s not rational and it’s not reasonable and it's not really discourse, especially critical political thought. It ends up being propaganda, agitprop, character assassination, witch hunting the supposed enemies of the Republican Party, partisan obstructionism, etc. So Hobbes, whose identity we don’t really know, censors any commentary that distracts from his mission. What is his mission? It is to disseminate the talking points and projects of the Niagara County Republican Party.

Hobbes diatribes are usually against those darn corrupt and incompetent Democrats who are ruining the State of New York and the county of Niagara. His latest attempt is to stir something up about the County Manager, Mr. Lewis. Hobbes accuses Lewis of endangering the health of Niagara Countians by not shutting down the County Court House when apparently a couple people came down with the flu. (Reportedly, a swine or two was seen leaving the building.) Hobbes didn't like my take on this, which suggested that his hysterical rant was mostly hyperbole and gossip in an attempt to whip up some social and political hysteria to start a witch hunt aimed at Lewis.

Hobbes is good at witch hunting. He was instrumental in stirring up an apparent public outcry on his blog (i.e., really only about 3 or 4 people) against Tom Christy of LCTV Legislative Journal fame, which was then used by the Republican Administration at the station to oust Christy. A few Niagara County Legislators also referred to this fabricated outcry in their self-justification in not defending Christy and saving his show. There was some soft evidence that Senator Maziarz was involved in ousting Christy also. It all makes sense given the capabilities and essentially authoritarian ideology of the Republican machine consisting of a network of politicans, lawyers by the dozen, IDA connections, LCTV supporters, etc.

More recently Hobbes, who sometimes calls himself David Stein of Lockport (who I don't think exists) has been disparaging Mayor Dyster, a Democrat of course. And he has attacked most of the rest of the Democrats in the area at one time or another. That's his job. He probably gets paid for it and he doesn't work/write on weekends. So bourgeois, no?

The last straw for me was when I commented on how the Republicans might actually like Gov. Paterson's recent, apparently Constitutionally illegal, appointment of a new Lieutenant Governor. I suggested, sarcastically of course, in the following post, that the local Republicans might actually like the Governors move:

"...But, Hobbes, the Niagara County Republicans should love Paterson’s maneuver! Don’t they all think government is about “efficiency” as we discovered in the last Niagara County Legislature meeting where they were all ranting about the need for "efficiency" in government and thus the need to downsize government? Well, now they have such efficiency in Albany: a dictator who flouts the Constitution and operates like a good business man is as “efficient” as you can get. The chickens have come home to roost. And when do Republicans around Niagara County ever express any concern over “democracy” or even the Law for that matter. Your blustering, as if you care, about democracy and law is a great example of using principle to manipulate the faithful blind followers. As we all know, most Republicans hate ‘dictatorial authority’ only when they don’t have it. [They are for the most part] proto-fascistic hypocrites!..."

That was strike three for me. Hobbes had his excuse to censor me for good. I broke the RULES. Well, the truth is that I got his goat with the truth. Even the most callous of hitmen have feelings sometimes. And they don't like pesky gadflies around who remind them about the truth they conveniently overlook, the lies they tell, the distortions of facts and events that they manufacture and the essentially viciously violent vulgarization of politics and democracy that such as he propagate. Such as Hobbes also don't like to be made conscious of their own self-contradictions and inconsistencies. They don't really like to think. It's not a good demagogic method when you're trying to control people as opposed to trying to play a part in a process of self-reflection and socio-political self-criticism.

So, if I were Hobbes I would want to stay anonymous also. Who would want to be publicly known for systematically functioning to undermine openness, transparency, truth and the integrity of the public sphere. All in the name of retaining and further expanding the power and the oligarchical aspirations of the Republican Party in Niagara County.

Some useful information comes from Hobbes site. I will and have always given him that. But his skewed perspective, judgmentalness and moralistic crusading is self-serving of partisan power alone. As Hobbes himself once said in one of his rare appearances in the discussion thread as Hobbes himself that 'it's all about his money' and only about his money. It's all about securing the lowest possible taxes for the rich and assuring conditions for a "free," that is, anarchistic, market, that the elite of mega-wealth and their minions can continue to exploit for their own financial aggrandizement. Hobbes does not serve Niagara County well.

Nevertheless, I'll keep an eye out for and keep exposing the agitprop from over here at Niagara Journal.