Walker "Responds" to Emails with Attempt to Silence Commie Mommy Blogger

I assumed you don't write these updates.  Now I wonder.

4 March 2012

Dear Scott Walker,

I almost fainted. There, in my inbox is a message from "you" (by which I mean the people who send out emails from your office) with the subject line "Responding to your message." FINALLY! I thought, FINALLY! HE IS RESPONDING TO MY MESSAGE! I was almost a little shaky when I clicked on it. But guess what? That's just the new header for your catastrophic "E-Updates" (you know, the taxpayer funded campaign literature your office sends out now that the recall's in full swing).  This one arrived on 3/2/2012 and instead of actually "responding" to my many messages, it just tried to sell your policies as usual, closing with a signature line in which you misspelled "governor" [actual screenshot above]. The most offensive part is usually the "Just ask the governor" part at the bottom, where you make up a fake question someone allegedly "asked" you or pose a deliberately nuanced question so that you can create a myth of yourself as someone who communicates and cares. And this one was the worst yet, as you used it as an opportunity for pointless demonization of teachers and their unions,  claiming that the unions are sending messages full of lies about the WPS system to their members (I received no such message from any of the unions I belong to), writing

It’s unfortunate that the very unions who are supposed to be looking out for public employees are misleading their membership for the personal gain of a few union bosses.  Ultimately the unions’ political tactic of spreading misinformation does a disservice to all public employees.

I should have known. It was just your misinformation bulletin. But still.  How dare you?

How dare you ignore every communication from me and every other concerned, worried, outraged, terrified, devoted, patriotic, taxpaying citizen who has written to you since you took office? How dare you then have the nerve to pretend that your auto-mailed propaganda is a "response" of any kind to the thousands of serious concerns we have raised with your policies, your strategy, your approach to governance, your cronyism, your nepotistic tendencies, your subservience to out-of-state interests and wealthy benefactors?  How dare you pretend that this constitutes a "response" to our concerns?

You have, from the start, ignored and belittled those hard-working, taxpaying citizens who justifiably oppose you.  You mock us in public and simply disregard us when we reach out to your office.  You dismiss our valid concerns as "misinformation" from union bosses. I have, in the 12+ months I have been writing to you, first privately and then openly (if you're not going to read the letters I send you, someone else might as well see what you're ignoring!), not received a single communication from your office beyond the autoreply that mockingly claims you will "keep [my] specific concerns in mind."  You did not reply even when Brian Williams read aloud to you from one of my letters on a national stage. You did not reply when I asked you to please publicly call off the hounds who were making death threats against recall workers - including me personally.   You did not reply when I encouraged you to revise your fuzzy math (even though you did revise if not improve that math in subsequent communications, maybe due in part to the Isthmus sharing the letter I wrote to you in its Citizen opinion forum).  And now you have the nerve, the absolutely staggering gall, to imply that you are "responding" to your constituents with these insulting "updates."

I don't know how it is that you justify this shameful strategy to yourself, but I do know one thing for sure: you are not only not "responding" to me, you are actively attempting to not  correspond with me at all, and to limit my potential response to you. 

Because you took me off your mailing list. I received the first update at this address. And after I replied, criticizing the dreadfully manipulative and intentionally deceitful content of that message, you took me off the list, even though I made sure to ask to be kept on. I just stopped getting the updates.  I know this because (1) the E-Updates are posted online anyway where anyone can see them, so I can see there that you are still sending them and (2) this is not the only email address to which I have subscribed to those updates, for the very reason that you might pull some fascist attempt to stifle dissent by restricting access to your precious updates to those who might potentially send you money.  So I don't know what kind of commie mommy blogger™  you think I am, but I would like to know why you took me off the list and why it is that you feel you have the right to restrict open record correspondence to citizens with whom you do not expect critical response.

Because you claim that you think it "important" to contact me "directly." This is how you start every update: 

One of the most important duties I have serving as your Governor is to provide you directly with updates related to the operation of our state government.  I also frequently provide updates on Facebook (Governor Scott Walker) and Twitter (@govwalker). Please feel free to share this update with your family, friends, and others who may be interested in state government operations.   

Well, I am very interested in state government operations, and as one of the taxpayers of Wisconsin who is funding this "E-Update" operation, I demand that you put me back on your mailing list immediately.  I have, as you are apparently aware, been a vocal critic of the propagandist content of these "updates" which I see as very thinly veiled vehicles for mass distribution of taxpayer-funded campaign literature. But that does not mean that I am not entitled, as your constituent and a taxpaying citizen, to receive them.  

At the end of these messages, it says "You received this e-mail because you contacted Governor Walker’s office directly."  I don't think there's any question as to whether or not I've contacted your office directly. So I should be on that list.  The fact that you (by which I mean your staff) have removed me can only mean that you are actively attempting to stifle potential or future dissent, which is a violation of my rights as an a American and a citizen of this state.

I have been paying very close attention to the anti-environment, anti-Wisconsin, anti-women legislation that you support, which you mischaracterize regularly in your E-Updates.  I have grown increasingly disgusted with your incessant nationwide fundraising tour and your pay-to-play "business approach" to governing, which makes a mockery of representative democracy.  I have also been paying very close attention to the widening gyre that is the John Doe investigation that seems centered on you, and enjoying very much the ever-more apparent reality that the center cannot hold. Things are falling apart in Fitzwalkerstan, and that must be taking its toll on you.

That toll, however, should not come at the cost of limiting freedom of expression and access to public resources and communication. And it most certainly should not require attempts to stifle the dissent of a concerned citizen who has been making active attempts to correspond with you for an entire year. For an entire year, you did not respond, except by attempting to shut me out of your communication list altogether.

I expect to be restored to that list immediately, and I relish the thought that each of the future emails I receive may be your last, as we impatiently await the date of the recall election.  And I ask that you please consider responding to my question in the reader Q&A portion of your next E-Update: How dare you pretend these updates "respond" to the concerns of the citizens of Wisconsin, when all they do is provide an opportunity to favorably revise the damage you have done to this state and advertise yourself as someone who cares about citizen input, which you do not?

Until then,

Heather DuBois Bourenane

Wisconsin taxpayer, parent and concerned citizen

P.S. I also find it interesting that the first E-Update I received, on Dec. 30, 2011 (you know, they one with the fuzzy math and the request that we send you gift cards in the amount of our alleged "savings" - I wrote to you about that one and also shared it with others who may be interested in state government operations), is not included on your website.  This is telling, because that original email was later revised, slightly, and sent to me at another email address on Jan. 6, 2012.  I wrote to you about the revised version here, and it's that revised version that appears online now.  Just a curious observation that even in your attempt at propagandist transparency, you are not particularly transparent.

 

In the FAQ portion of his most recent E-Update, the king of disseminating inaccurate information accuses unions of disseminating inaccurate information. Because lazy thugs like me have so many jobs, I belong to 3 state employee unions. None of them sent me the sort of information Walker refers to in his answer.  And even if they did, Walker's claim that they would do so "for the the personal gain of a few union bosses" indicates that he does actually think there is a problem that needs fixing with our model retirement system, and that he does intend to do something about that.

Read more about threats to the pension system here and here.

™ commie mommy blogger and commie mommy blogger logo used with permission and in jest. Said jest is the sole intellectual property of Ryan Wherley. Heather DuBois Bourenane is neither a commie nor a commie mommy nor a commie mommy blogger.