Social Security Censorship at FDR Library

from Daily Kos

BREAKING! Soc.Sec. Censorship at FDR Library
by am

Fri Apr 1st, 2005 at 14:05:32 PST

~snip~
I wanted to make everyone aware of a situation that is occurring in Dutchess County, New York. My name is Joseph Ruggiero, I am the Dutchess County Democratic Committee Chairman and Town Supervisor of the Town of Wappinger.

I am outraged that the Bush Administration is censoring a forum on Social Security sponsored by the American Association of University Women (AAUW), Older Women's League (OWL), and League of Women Voters (LWV). The forum was scheduled to be held Saturday, April 9, from 1 pm to 4 pm at the Wallace Center located on the FDR site in Hyde Park, New York (Dutchess County).

The AAUW, OWL, and LWV are non-partisan groups which have organized this forum on Social Security to include three panelists from Washington, as well as invited all three members of Congress representing Dutchess County (Representatives Kelly-R, Sweeney-R, and Hinchey-D). Congressman Maurice Hinchey was the only member to accept the invitation to participate. Kelly and Sweeney both failed to respond to invitations.

The FDR Site & Wallace Center are run by the National Park Service and the National Archives. Once the National Archives learned that Congressman Hinchey, an opponent to the Bush administration's plans to privatize Social Security, would be the only member of Congress speaking at the forum, the Archives deemed this a partisan event. The organizers of the event were told they had to have a speaker who would, "Speak to the merits of the President's plans on Social Security or to change the venue." Organizers of the event were informed Thursday evening that the Wallace Center could not be the venue for the forum.

This clearly is censorship on behalf of the White House.

I believe this forum has every right to go forward, and the women of these organizations have every right to put forth their positions and point of views on this topic. If the Republican members of Congress do not want to tell their constituents their positions on President Bush's plans to privatize Social Security then that should not stifle educational forums and debate on this topic by the people.

The actions of the National Archives has left these organizations without a venue for their forum in the eleventh hour. This is a deliberate and intentional act to thwart the efforts to educate women on the topic of Social Security. This violates the people's right to free speech, it is censorship at its worst, and it undermines our democratic society.

~snip~

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/4/1/17532/28074
http://JoeRuggiero.org

the idiots are screwing with FDR.

I guess the Bush destroy Social Security Plan is not going well and Babs is using her beautiful mind to spend extra time screwing the folks wanting to use the FDR Site & Wallace Center.

:-(

make a pimple on Elanor's ass.

His district is an IBM company town - between Fishkill (Chip Fab) and Poughkeepsie (Big Iron and Software). Kind of a Silicon Valley with snow and sleet and hail and freezing rain.

But this is pure blasphemy on the part of the Bush schmucks.

I mean, it's not like any expense related to his town hall meetings promoting the privatazation of Social Security are being paid for with tax dollars, right?

were invited, but only the D accepted.

Instead of appearing at an open forum where they'd outnumber the Democratic Congressman two to one, the two Rethugs declined, and then had the Park Service shut the event down as "partisan"?

I guess the symbolism of a Social Security event at an FDR historic site was just too strong for the Republican Party to allow an open debate.