No Way to Run a Recall

This is a secret…What?

Many people in Wisconsin have been waiting for months to take action; to finally get their hands on a petition to recall Scott Walker. I drove 20 miles to attend the training session offered at the Wisconsin Dems office in Richland Center. One of my face book friends suggested that I live stream the session so I brought my laptop, hand held video cam, camera and note book to the session remembering the scout motto “Be Prepared”.

What no pictures?

I asked the session leader, Sheigh Freeberg if I could take pictures and video, explaining that I wrote a blog and wanted to inform people of news from the trenches of the recall. He said he would make a call and check. Seconds later he got the word “from the top”. No video, or pictures of the training session would be allowed. Of course, I asked “Why?”, and Sheigh remarked, “That’s all I can say”. Ok. So, I took copious notes about the recall process so I could share the specific procedures, rules, and information learned from the previous state senate recall action. I got pages of notes of things you may want to know even if you didn’t get up on Sunday morning and drive 20 miles. After all, that is what a blog is for; to share information for easy access from your computer. I would gladly share the information with you. I can’t. I was told not to.

What? No words?

When the session was breaking up, Sheigh approached me once again to make it clear that none of the information of the session was to be shared publicly. I assured him that I would not use pictures, or video of the presentation and I would only write about it from my notes. Nope. That was no good. I was told not to share any of the information from the session in any manner.

So you will learn nothing of the valuable information shared by the twenty or so people at the gathering. Why? That’s all I and Sleigh can tell you.

I did approach Sleigh as I was leaving. I told him this same sort of censorship of information became a subject of controversy during the senate recall last Summer, and it was met with strong reaction from many activists on the ground. One of injustices now playing out in the Capitol can be aligned with the Dem’s lack of transparency of the recall session. People are being evicted and arrested for holding cameras, and even signs in the public gallery of the assembly. How is the policy of banning the use of cameras at training sessions any different? He calmly explained that the Capitol was a tax-payer supported public building, the Dem headquarters was a private office. Ok.

Can you help me figure this out? I would like to inform you of what I learned about canvasing signatures to recall Scott Walker, but I told Sleigh I would not do so. I would not break the rules of the Committee to Recall Walker or the Wisconsin Democratic Party.

Too bad.