Does Albuquerque Mayor Berry decide just what information citizens receive?

“On June 22, I asked Journal Editor Kent Walz whether the real editor of the Journal sits in the Mayor’s or CAO’s chair on the 11th floor of the City/County Building. That is where the Ministry of Truth and Newspeak described in George Orwell’s book “1984” seems to reside telling you and others in the media just what propaganda to put out to us unwashed (assumed to be stupid) masses. See an abbreviated extract of the “1984” plot below. It should be mandatory reading by all there and elsewhere in the broadcast and printed media.

The Journal’s deliberate lack of coverage of the many people speaking at the City Council meeting last night who objected to the June 10 execution of neighbor Chris Hinz by APD was inexcusable! Even most of your recent article covering last Thursday’s candlelight vigil for Chris in our neighborhood was devoted to the City’s defense of the killing. Someone in the City even lied to KOAT-TV-7 saying Chris had a criminal history to try to somehow justify it. This certainly demands the firing of that person or persons-(White?, Schultz? your former guy T.J. Wilham? or someone else?) but does Mayor Berry have the backbone to do it? We’ll see. This defamation of Chris was repeated on the late news by KOAT anchor Shelly Ribando to tens of thousands and the family has yet to see a correction. Will APD ever release a videotape of their June 10 execution?

Will Dan McKay and others covering the City ever have an epiphany and become a Winston of Oceania? Are those among us who have the courage to condemn the City’s culture of corruption and fraud, waste and abuse of our tax dollars now deemed by the Journal to be the Emmanuel Goldsteins of Albuquerque? Is that why our letters to the editor or OpEds there never get published? Possibly your boss-Publisher T.H. Lang might consider renaming the paper the R.J. Rag, the Berry Bugle or something more descriptive.

Your misguided editorial today “A Government That’s Here to Help-Really” praised the three transit mechanics who in reality were only doing their jobs that the seemingly incompetent highly-paid City contractors just couldn’t do. Doesn’t it instead send a message that the City ought to hire more competent lower-priced city mechanics and other employees who can serve us better than these favored contractor friends of the Mayor, of the CAO, of ABQRide’s Bruce Rizzieri, of DMD’s Mike Riordan and others?

Isn’t the planned waste of tax dollars to bulldoze the neighbor’s attractive completed median already there on Cesar Chavez and Yale and now do a ridiculously-expensive new median-this time with water wasting sprinklers, more newsworthy and more typical of this Berry administration-the waste that occurs there every day?

You should also have praised Councilor Dan Lewis for being the only one with the guts to oppose the “downtown first” crowd’s Council bill last night attempting to perpetuate the unneeded, unjustified and wasteful $430 million events center/hotel downtown. APS ought to say NO to sharing the First Baptist Church property.

Just a reminder in the extract of “1984” below just how similar we are to Oceania?

Cheers

Silvio Dell’Angela
President-EANA
296 3241

Plot Overview-“1984”
Winston Smith is a low-ranking member of the ruling Party in London, in the nation of Oceania. Everywhere Winston goes, even his own home, the Party watches him through telescreens; everywhere he looks he sees the face of the Party’s seemingly omniscient leader, a figure known only as Big Brother. The Party controls everything in Oceania, even the people’s history and language. Currently, the Party is forcing the implementation of an invented language called Newspeak, which attempts to prevent political rebellion by eliminating all words related to it. Even thinking rebellious thoughts is illegal. Such thoughtcrime is, in fact, the worst of all crimes.
As the novel opens, Winston feels frustrated by the oppression and rigid control of the Party, which prohibits free thought, sex, and any expression of individuality. Winston dislikes the party and has illegally purchased a diary in which to write his criminal thoughts. He has also become fixated on a powerful Party member named O’Brien, whom Winston believes is a secret member of the Brotherhood—the mysterious, legendary group that works to overthrow the Party.
Winston works in the Ministry of Truth, where he alters historical records to fit the needs of the Party. He notices a coworker, a beautiful dark-haired girl, staring at him, and worries that she is an informant who will turn him in for his thoughtcrime. He is troubled by the Party’s control of history: the Party claims that Oceania has always been allied with Eastasia in a war against Eurasia, but Winston seems to recall a time when this was not true. The Party also claims that Emmanuel Goldstein, the alleged leader of the Brotherhood, is the most dangerous man alive, but this does not seem plausible to Winston. Winston spends his evenings wandering through the poorest neighborhoods in London, where the proletarians, or proles, live squalid lives, relatively free of Party monitoring.