ble to commit to sit at: Television, Radio, Internet, Newspaper or General Media. My friend and I decided to be non-committal and chose "General Media."
I say "moderated" because there was no free-flowing discussion. Each table had a "facilitator" assigned and the discussion was carefully limited. We were only allowed to speak when it was our turn. I watched our facilitator shut people up more than once. A discussion usually involves verbal give and take - back and forth. I've had more "community discussion" at the park with strangers.
Fortunately, my friend is a very experienced, confident and knowledgeable fellow about free speech, the 1st amendment as well as the groups holding this event. He challenged every question they presented and opened the door for me to offer some of my directness and unabashed opinion when I am faced with a load of liberal horse sh*t.
The topics were:
Public Afairs
Diversity
Political Coverage
Community Input
Broadband Internet Access
See where we are going with this?
Bottom line, this "community discussion" tried to manipulate the participants into concluding that there is not enough Public or Community Input in the media, that diversity is not focused on enough, that everyone deserved to have broadband access in their homes so that the political coverage can be managed by the government. Since the FCC requested that every comunity have these meetings and the Obama administration "published a detailed agenda containing goals and proposed policies for media and telecommunications," they need to pretend that they get public approval to create community "advisory boards" for all local media.
The room was filled with bitter, granola crunching, Prius driving, Air America, MSNBC and NPR loving misfits - they all told me so within the first 5 minutes of the meeting. The only other woman in the room with any makeup on was a well-known, local Republican activist.
The "discussion" was video recorded and will be submitted to local media and to the FCC. Big brother is watching.
Welcome to "Hugoland, Fidel land, Chairman Mao land. " We should all be very afraid for our country, and work to stop this.
Here is the Common Cause website and information about the meeting: http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=498015 send them your thoughts and by all means, send me your thoughts.
Watch for The Sacramento Union news, commentary and political opinion website to be up and running again soon!