Tag: POLITICS

Keep on rocking in the free world

~ Randy Seaver ~ Leave a comment

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Apparently, a lot of people have absolutely no clue

about the First Amendment or ‘free speech’

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It would appear that a lot of people did not pay attention during their seventh-grade Social Studies classes.

That’s okay, I slept through my English and math classes and look where I landed.

For more than three decades, I have made my living as professional writer, reporter, columnist, communications consultant and newspaper editor.

For better or worse, I am also one of four administrators on a community Facebook page — a volunteer gig that is the equivalent of poking at your eyes with the sharp end of a hot pencil.

If I had a nickel for every time someone threatened to sue me for libel, defamation or just really bad grammar, I would be living comfortably and sipping banana daiquiris in Boca Raton rather than shoveling tons of snow and walking my dogs in sub-freezing temperatures.

I am also – with increasing frequency — roundly criticized and accused of “censorship” by about a half-dozen or so malcontents – most of whom were banned from participating in the above-mentioned community Facebook group by yours truly.

Somehow, these rather insipid mental giants don’t understand the very basic role of being a community Facebook administrator or moderator.

The Facebook admins and moderators exist only to moderate and control whatever page we operate. That’s really it. We make sure that group members adhere to eight basic group rules and follow principles of basic human decency and community standards — all of which are clearly spelled out by the Facebook big wigs.

Facebook group admins are, in fact, supposed to censor comments that violate the community rules or Facebook standards.

I violated your First Amendment rights? Sue me.

For all the wailing and gnashing of teeth, I have yet to receive a single complaint from the American Civil Liberties Union for my egregious violations of the U.S. Constitution, most notably its First Amendment provision that discusses the concept of “free speech.”

And despite repeated threats of civil (and criminal) action, I have yet to receive a subpoena or a call from any of the big law firms like Joe Borenstein’s office.

My own attorney is bored and growing restless.

Free speech isn’t free

Before we proceed, let’s all pull out our copies of the U. S. Constitution and turn to the Bill of Rights, specifically the First Amendment, which reads as follows:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

The First Amendment does not allow you to say or write whatever batshit idea that pops into your head in public places or on public forums — and it most certainly does not mean that you can force a privately operated media outlet to publish your non-sensical thoughts and opinions.

You’ll see that our founding fathers (some of them quite experienced in journalism) took great pains to specifically protect the press, giving it wide latitude to criticize the government and operate its publications – on its own terms and as it sees fit.

Now, let’s talk about what the First Amendment does do for every day Americans.

In a nutshell, the First Amendment limits what the government cannot do to you when it comes to free speech. It does NOT allow you to publicly demonstrate how big of a moron you are and how few active brain cells you possess.

Facebook can determine its own standards of community commentary. You cannot sue them for enforcing their own standards and or for removing speech that they determine as offensive.

Also, the New York Times, the Washington Post or the Biddeford Gazette are NOT legally required to print or publish your crazy-ass rants that were written at 2 a.m. while you were chugging gin & tonics and watching reruns of Celebrity Apprentice on cable television.

In fact, there can be serious consequences for certain types of speech, even here in the United States where we all have the freedom to put mayonnaise on our French Fries if we want to.

For example, you cannot yell “Fire” in a crowded movie theater. You cannot publicly threaten to harm the president or anyone else.

Even threatening to harm yourself comes with certain consequences. Just trust me on this one. I’ve been there. Done that. Got the tee-shirt.

Am I full of shit?

If you still don’t believe me or think I’m full of shit, try this as an experiment: Log onto Facebook and make some rude comments about your boss and your place of employment, specifically mentioning their names.

Later — when you get called into their office — simply tell them they must respect your First Amendment rights. Threaten to sue them when they fire your ass. That will leave them trembling in their shoes.

Maybe you don’t have a job, so here’s another experiment:  Walk into your local Applebee’s restaurant and start telling other customers that the restaurant is likely serving rat poison and that your waitress is a cocaine-addicted prostitute and the bartender is certainly a pedophile, and probably named in the Epstein Files.

I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that the management team will not let you finish that platter or riblets – and that’s if you’re lucky.

You do not have the “right” to use Facebook or any of its pages. They can bounce you like a hot tamale whenever they choose.

You don’t pay for Facebook. You don’t control Facebook. In fact, you are the Facebook product, not the consumer.

Facebook gets its money from advertisers. Advertisers give Facebook money to get you and grab your attention.

I hope this is helpful. And if you want to sue me, my attorney is standing by and waiting to hear from you 24/7.

I hate to break it to you, but we all have to follow rules.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Randy Seaver is a nearly insufferable malcontent living in Biddeford, Maine. He is a veteran journalist, a Constitutional scholar and jazz aficionado. He is also the editor and founder of the Biddeford Gazette, a non-profit digital media outlet that focuses on the city of Biddeford. Send your praise, angry comments or questions about French Fries or the First Amendment to randy@randyseaver.com

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Pour Some Sugar on Me

~ Randy Seaver ~ 6 Comments

There’s no denying it. This is not your father’s news industry anymore. That’s good news, but it’s also very bad news.

I’m writing this because there were three significant local changes in the news industry that happened in just the last two weeks.

More about that in just a moment.

Traditional, legacy media outlets are no longer the sole guardians of truth and justice, and that fact — like it or not – will impact you — and it might even hurt you.

For centuries, newspapers, (and then later) radio and television news operations kept an immeasurable amount of gravitas in their pants’ pocket, like so many nickels and dimes. The publishers, editors (and oftentimes the reporters) took your trust in them for granted.

Nearly 300 years ago, Edmund Burke, a member of British Parliament, reportedly coined the term “Fourth Estate” to describe the press, pointing out its obligations as a check in government oversight and its responsibility to frame political issues as well as to be an advocate for the general public.

Pretty big responsibility, eh?

The industry that was once the trusted and almost sole gatekeeper of vital public news and information is now scrambling, desperately trying to find a way to remain relevant or at least financially solvent.

So, what are the threats and challenges facing both you as a news consumer and traditional media outlets?

First and foremost, social media platforms are taking over the distribution of news and information. There are no more paperboys and even newsrooms are shifting away from brick-and-mortar structures.

In survey after survey; in poll after poll, one fact becomes abundantly clear. Consumers want their news on their schedule (on demand). Readers also try to skirt paywalls, no longer seeing the value of paid news subscriptions.

Readers today gravitate toward click-bait headlines and “news” websites that match their own political ideology.

Photo: The Death of the Newspaper Industry | John W. Hayes)

Never-ending competition, a 24-7 news cycle and the disturbing rise of AI (artificial intelligence) all remain as threats to established and not-so-established news outlets.

And to top it off, reader trust in traditional news outlets is plummeting faster than shares of K-Mart stock.

In his Nov. 29, 2022 opinion column, Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby pointed to a recent Gallup report, which revealed that just one out of three Americans claimed to have a “great deal” or a “fair amount” of confidence in the media.

We could talk all day about the national news scene and the spiraling demise of legacy media, but let’s take a deeper look at the news on a local level, right here where it hurts the most.

Today, almost everyone is a journalist – or so they believe. All you need is a keyboard and an internet connection and it’s off to the races.

While I love certain aspects of “citizen journalism” it does sort of invite a Wild, Wild West approach in reporting news.

While I love certain aspects of “citizen journalism” it does sort of invite a Wild, Wild West approach
in reporting news.

These citizens journalists typically do not have editors or the resources of an editorial board. They have no professional training. Ethics and objectivity are now electives, no longer requirements.

In other ways, however, these pesky citizen journalists and their social media followers do keep some much needed pressure on those Fourth Estate guys, the traditional legacy media outlets.

We’re not in Kansas anymore

Speaking of legacy, traditional media, the Bangor Daily News (BDN) – Maine’s preeminent source of political news – decided last week to shut down its editorial board. The paper will no longer have an Op-Ed (Opinion-Editorial) section.

I found that news strange. It struck me as counter-intuitive, especially since so many people are saying that readers are flocking toward opinion and away from objective news reporting.

In a Jan. 24 column, the BDN described the move as “the end of an era.”

Susan Young, the paper’s opinion editor, said the news was “bittersweet.”

“Far too few people read opinion content, so we have to try different things,” Young told me during an online conversation, saying the decision was influenced by the paper’s digital analytics.

The BDN’s decision will also mean the end of rigorous and highly regarded opinion columns from people like Amy Fried on the political left to Matt Gagnon on the political right.

Still closer to home, the publishers of the Biddeford-Saco Courier announced on Wednesday that they will now offer their subscribers a digital weekly update via email.

That “announcement” dropped exactly two weeks after I formally launched the Biddeford Gazette, a free digital newspaper dedicated to covering Biddeford news, opinion and events.

For more than 30 years, the Courier has relied upon free delivery of its print publication at newsstands or tossed into the driveways of private homes.

The Courier was founded and locally owned by David and Carolyn Flood. A few years ago, the paper was then sold to the owners of the Portland Press Herald who also own a number of weekly and daily publications.

Courier reporter Sydney Richelieu announced the “inaugural edition” of “Biddeford-Saco | Now” in an email sent to subscribers. The move, she said, is designed to offer readers another option in finding out what is happening in their community.

I have some unsolicited advice for Sydney and the Courier’s editors, please stop printing press releases and then labeling them with a byline of “Staff Reports.”

Otherwise, I am quite pleased that you guys finally want to step up your game in covering local news.

To be honest, I have a bit of an advantage over the other guys. I’m a Biddeford native and resident, and I have been covering Biddeford for nearly three decades. I have a stockpile of sources and lots of time on my hands.

Just a few days ago, a close friend of mine remarked that other local publications are now starting to pay more attention (deservedly so) to the city of Biddeford, since I launched the Gazette.

That’s actually really good news, especially for the people of Biddeford.

The other guys may not like the fact that I am now in the mix, but they should remember the folks at the Journal Tribune were none too happy when the Courier was launched in 1989; and the folks at the Courier were none too happy that Saco Bay News came along in 2019 and showed off the nimble advantages of being a digital publication.

Increased competition does not help the Courier, Saco Bay News or the Biddeford Gazette, but it does keep a fire lit under our asses; and that is good news for readers.

The people of Biddeford should not have to rely upon just one reporter for the news that matters to them.

Competition keeps reporters motivated, but more importantly – it keeps them in check.

The Biddeford Gazette is not trying to put anyone else out of business. In fact, the opposite is true.

The Biddeford Gazette uses its own social media pages on Facebook, BlueSky and X to round up and share local news stories from other media companies. No one else does that.

You read that right. We take the time to share news from the other guys on our social media pages. And when you click to read those stories, you are not directed to our website, instead all the postings will link automatically to whatever source produced the news, whether it’s Saco Bay News, the Courier or WGME-TV.

Please visit our new Facebook page and follow us to experience a new level of local news coverage.

Whenever or wherever news about Biddeford is published, we will be there to make sure you know about it.

That’s my mission. That’s my passion.

I value your trust.

I will not stop.

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Radio Free Europe

~ Randy Seaver ~ 2 Comments

With each passing day, I am becoming further convinced that the United States is inching closer and closer to another civil war.

It just seems inevitable.

But this time around, I don’t think the lines of demarcation will be so neatly drawn or conveniently labeled.

In 1861, it was easy to identify “the enemy.” Geography was the name of the game. North versus South. We even had a rather convenient and mutually acceptable dividing point: the Mason-Dixon Line.

Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol Riots. Photo: Pew Research Center

As you probably recall from your sixth-grade social studies class, the Mason Dixon Line ran between Pennsylvania and Maryland, separating the good guys from the bad guys. Defining who were the good guys was purely subjective, depending solely upon which side of the line you found yourself.

To this day — more than 150 years after the first Civil War started — many southerners still adamantly deny that it was about slavery.

While living in Nashville during the early 1990s, I had a good friend who vigorously tried to convince me (a Yankee) that the war was simply about state’s rights. That the south was simply trying to defend itself from “northern aggression.”

He was right, of course. The southern states wanted the “right” to own slaves. Everything else was (and remains) a smokescreen.

The practice of slavery was essential for the economic survival of the southern states that lagged behind the economic bustle and prosperity of their northern neighbors.

In short, it was about money. But isn’t it always?

While the north was humming along with mills and factories, the south was mainly dependent on an agriculture economy that required lots of manpower.

Today, however, the lines of dissension are much less clear and are muddled across a constantly shifting variety of social and political boundaries. Reproductive rights, gun rights, climate change, LGBTQ+ issues and so much more.

Sure, it’s easy and somewhat convenient to say it’s about Democrats versus Republicans, or about red states versus blue states, but I think it’s a lot more complex than that.

I don’t think it’s going to be that easy to spot the enemy in the next Civil War.

I think in this next civil war – and it is coming – it will be more of a neighbor versus neighbor thing.

A cold wind is blowing

We know that our country is divided. We know that there is an increasingly apparent undercurrent of rage brewing just beneath the surface of our political infrastructure.

We saw a hint of it on January 6, 2021.

But that was just a glimpse. The Democrats seized upon that event, pointing to all that was wrong with Republicans.

Many Republicans downplayed the incident and tried to shift blame onto people like Nancy Pelosi for “allowing it to happen.” They pointed to inner city riots that had happened only months earlier when mostly minority residents were enraged about examples of police brutality.

The Democrats miscalculated the incident. Many of them mistakenly thought that event would “seal the deal” and would be the long awaited and much anticipated death knell of Donald J. Trump’s political career.

The American people would be horrified, the Democrats reasoned. The people would be galvanized by what they witnessed on their flat-screen televisions and smart phones.

It would be sort of like Sept. 11, when most all Americans would rally behind truth, justice and the laws of our democracy. When we would stand united in the face of evil.

On Sept. 11, 2001, we knew – or at least thought we knew –who the enemy was. We swore vengeance.

But this time was different. The Democrats had miscalculated.

Trump and his supporters did not suffer any meaningful blowback from the Jan. 6 incident. In fact — court cases be damned – the Capitol riots only made Trump and his growing legion of supporters stronger.

Sure, a handful of Republicans condemned the incidents of Jan. 6; but they were almost immediately expunged by a political party that was tipping to an extreme and rather rabid position.

The GOP, it seemed, was ready to eat its young. Chaos descended over the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. The extremists were now in charge.

No one was even pretending to be civil.

Democrats, too, dropped the ball, using the Jan. 6 riots as little more than an endless rallying cry for political purposes, a four-year campaign ad to prevent the GOP from ever again occupying the White House.

Meanwhile – beyond the media frenzy, beyond the ensuing federal indictments and beyond all the talking heads and all the noise – some Americans started quietly making plans.

While living in the south, I once made the mistake of joking with one of my work colleagues who was busting my chops about being a Yankee. “Relax,” I told him. “The Civil War is over.”

“No, it ain’t,” he replied with a grin. “It’s just halftime.”

I remember a chill going down my spine when he said that.

He wasn’t joking.

Pawn Takes Queen

You can already see the ads on the internet and on late-night television. Survival kits and emergency meal rations. We laugh at these “preppers.” A bunch of delusional, paranoid conspiracy theorists.

We dismiss them and their concerns. Our arrogance only fuels their not-so-hidden rage about the “elitists.”

But when the shit hits the fan – and it will — what will be your first move?

Will you take sides or will you sit back and hope that other people – the government – can fix it? The good guys will win, right?

But riddle me this: What if the “government” splinters? More aptly, what if the military splinters?

What happens when you see the “troops” marching through your neighborhood and you’re the only one without a gun?

Or . . . what do you do if you’re the only one on your block with a gun? Are you willing to shoot your neighbor? Someone you know? Will you defend your home or surrender and just hope that things work out for the best?

How will you know the good guys from the bad guys? Who decides? Who will you believe? The news?

Who’s to say that our police department will not be fragmented, same for the fire department. The guys and gals who drive the snow plows and the trash trucks?

Speaking of trucks, what about all the cross-country truckers? The airport personnel? The hospital staff? The reporters and media outlets? Second-shift at Wendy’s?

What happens if all these groups are suddenly fractured?

I am not trying to scare you.

But if you’re not scared by now, then my silly blog post is sure as hell not going to motivate you to consider a rather dark reality.

Will the next civil war bring out the best in us or the worst in us?

Me? I’m not preparing for some kind of half-assed Armageddon. I’m not stocking up on guns, ammo, Hot Pockets or even toilet paper. Nope. I’m just gonna sit back and watch. I refuse to let fear control my life.

I will take each day as it comes – on its own terms.

But when the shit gets real — and it will – just remember, I told you so.

History is written by the winners.

Is it over, or was my former co-worker correct?

Is it only half-time?

It’s happened before. It will happen again. It just won’t be so easy to sort the good guys from the bad guys this time.

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