Welcome to the “Hate Blog”

Look at the facts, make up your mind and then get out and VOTE!

By Will Collette

If you’ve been reading the Letters to the Editor columns of our local newspapers, you may have seen a bunch of letters written by various members and supporters of the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA Party) calling Progressive Charlestown the "Hate Blog."

It seems as if this has become their #1 campaign issue, which makes sense, given that they really don't want anyone look at their record. 

But putting so much emphasis on Progressive Charlestown - even though we're not running for office - actually works against the CCA Party not only by driving more readers to us, but exposing those readers to the seditious stuff we write.

We dig behind the affairs of Charlestown town government which has been controlled by the CCA Party since 2008. We examine their plans, actions and claims. 

We present an alternative point of view is spiced with humor, but backed by research and documentation. You'll usually find links to original documents in the articles, or screen shots of the documents. 

We work our hardest to expose the contradictions between the CCA's noble words and ignoble acts. The CCA doesn't like that. An informed electorate needs more facts and more points of view, especially in a town that is so thoroughly controlled by just one political group.

So you can read, judge for yourself and make intelligent decisions, here is “hateful” content that ran on Progressive Charlestown over the past month:

Ethics, Morality and the CCA Party covers the failure of CCA candidates to file honest and accurate disclosure reports with the RI Ethics Commission.

Filippi tries to cover up his extremist views and connections shows Blake Filippi’s ties to groups that want to end Social Security and promote civil rebellion. Filippi has been all but endorsed by the CCA Party in his efforts to unseat our able longtime representative Donna Walsh.

Charlestown Taxes and the Election debunks the CCA Party’s claims on Charlestown taxes which they've raised for six straight years while turning down a proposal for general relief for the middle-class.

CCA files changes to report showing who REALLY owns the CCA Party shows you how the CCA Party is actually controlled by wealthy non-residents who provide 60% of their funding.

Voter fraud in South County by non-residents raises issues about whether non-residents are illegally voting in Charlestown, or in Blake Filippi’s case, Block Island.

In case you missed it: Charlestown's Chariho candidates exposes inconsistencies and likely resume inflation by CCA candidates for Chariho School Committee. If they were students and did this, they might be expelled.

See for yourself - the evidence on Blake Filippi's election and voter fraud shows you the documents backing Rep. Walsh’s charges that Blake Filippi does not live in the 36^th District.

Understanding the CCA Party, Part 3 continues the on-going history of the CCA Party, its roots and core beliefs. Lots of links. Lots of names named.

How clean are local food establishments? This puts my blind hatred of tainted food on full display.

No good deed goes unpunished shows how the selfishness, greed and obsessiveness of the CCA Party and its followers impacts children.

Carney blasts Planning Commission for missing video and violating the law takes the CCA Party to task for its hypocrisy in claiming they run an open and transparent government when they commit repeated open government violations.

Things you should know about red light cameras in Charlestown details how the town’s new system will work and also gives you a background of how the system came to be adopted. I’ve been following this topic closely because I HATE red-light runners. There's that word again.

Ruth Platner leaves fingerprints catches our Planning Commissar in the act of orchestrating the attack against the state plan to acquire some undeveloped land and preserve it as open space for the future use of the clean water underneath. Exposes Platner’s and the CCA’s hypocrisy about the environment in general and open space in particular. Also exposes Platner’s interest in bringing private land sales under town control.

Recycling in Charlestown flops again is another piece that shows the CCA Party’s stated environmental principles are meaningless as Charlestown once again is worst in the state on the amount we recycle.

If you scan some of those articles you will see that we don’t just tell you things – we give you the source documents so that you can decide whether you come to the same conclusion. Then decide, do our articles have no value or are they just embarrassing for the faults and gaffs that we expose?

How to easily find hate-filled content

Also, gratuitous kitten pictures

We try to make it convenient for readers to find this hateful content in several ways. We have a category link right under the masthead that reads “Just Charlestown.” Click on it and you get only Charlestown stories. But if you do that you will be missing out on my passions: the astronomy photos of the day, the cartoons, the adoptable pet articles and much more.

Or you can click on the button on the left labelled “Fact-Checking the CCA.” That’s where you’ll find the stuff the CCA hates the most.

We’ve made it easier for you to get at our election coverage with one button, also on the left, labelled “2014 Election.”

Or you can go into Topics and get links to all the articles on, for example, Boss Tom Gentz or Ethics Meister Ron Areglado.

When you’re trying to run a town government on a tissue of lies, of course you’re not going to like some smart asses bringing up inconvenient truths or poking fun at the puffed up characters who run this town, so the CCA Party’s violent reaction to Progressive Charlestown is understandable. But it seems the thing they hate most is humor.

Joking or not joking

One of the things that I’ve liked the least about the CCA Party’s reign over Charlestown is how they’ve sucked all of the joy out of the environment. Sadly, they don’t know the difference between humor and hate, a terrible affliction I call humorous dyscognition.

However, there was a time very recently when I thought the CCA Party was actually going to try to come to grips with their Stage Four case of Humorous Dyscognition by engaging in some pretty funny political humor.

For example, the Attorney General recently ruled – yet again – that the CCA Party leadership violated the Open Meetings Act by – yet again – holding a secret ballot during a public meeting. Planning Commissar Ruth Platner’s reaction was not to fess up and acknowledge the mistake. Instead, she decided to blame citizens for not making more use of internet technology, like watching the video of meetings on Clerkbase.

Here's her piece on the CCA Party website:

This is an honest-to-god screenshot from the CCA Party's website

She wrote that essay AFTER she put a discussion of the Attorney General’s decision on the Planning Commission’s agenda for October 1. But a funny thing happened: the Clerkbase video for that entire discussion was cut off! That made me rotflmao because I simply couldn't believe it.

And it gets even better. I tried to go back to that October 1 meeting as I was writing this article and here’s what I got:

Screenshot from Clerkbase shows ALL of it is gone. The video, the agenda, the document links. All of it. Maybe when she says "fully transparent," she means invisible. UPDATE: as of this writing (Nov. 3rd), the Clerkbase content on Platner's meeting is STILL GONE!

And this was hardly the first time Ruth’s "fully transparent" internet solution has failed. The September 17 meeting also had the front end cut off. The Planning Commission used to regularly cut off Clerkbase video, claiming that someone had “accidentally” pulled the plug.

Then there’s the chronic problems with Clerkbase that you can access it only with certain web browsers (Internet Explorer, primarily) and then have to employ a back-door technical fix. That’s beyond the skill set of the average internet user. We’re supposed to get a new, more user-friendly recording and records system called IQM2, but no sign of that yet.

Thank you, Mike!

The other case of unintentional funniness was a letter to the editor by CCA Party pundit and appointee to the Zoning Board of Review Mike Chambers. 

He wrote a piece called “A Sober Look at Campaign Tactics” that talks about the negative tactics of “strategic researchers and campaign managers” – I assume he’s talking about me since I've performed both those roles over the past 40 years – for revealing negative things about CCA Party candidates.

If you read any of the articles I listed above, you’ll see prime examples of what Chambers is talking about. In those articles, you’ll see document links, screen shots, names named and details provided. 

When I offer my opinion, it’s usually obvious though sometimes I remove any doubt by saying “in my opinion.”

Chambers lays out five rules for smart reading of political subject matter: (1) ignore anyone who claims someone is lying unless they show you where and how; (2) ignore any broad generalization unless the writer of the piece identifies specific individuals and puts it in context; (3) separate fact from opinion; (4) if there are conflicting stories “get the facts from someone who knows,” presumably that’s Chambers, and (5) watch for global characterizations “because they are misleading and usually do not apply” which is, in itself, a pretty good example of a global characterization.

But that said, it’s generally a fine list. The only problem – for Mike – is that if you apply this formula to the many pieces he has written either on the CCA Party’s website or in the Sun’s Letters to the Editor column, nobody would pay any attention to anything he’s written.

I prefer Abbie Hoffman’s advice: “Only believe what you see with your own two eyes, and have your eyes checked regularly.”

Charlestown is a very lucky town to be so well endowed with so much beauty and so many natural riches. We are wonderfully situated and still have an interesting and diverse population.

I stand and fight for all of that, and to make it better. I also stand and fight against the dour, sour, humorless crowd that wants to turn Charlestown into an exclusive retirement enclave where everyone speaks in hushed tones and never a discouraging word is heard.

This election, like every election, is a battle over vision and direction. Since 2008, Charlestown voters have gone along with the CCA vision. That vision is of a Charlestown that is a seaside version of Sun City, Arizona where young people are excluded and where you are only welcome if you meet their standards for residence. If you’re a person of color or working class, you are welcome only so long as you are providing services to the residents and you get out by sundown.

By the way, that's also the CCA Party's jobs plan - for people to work in the homes of the wealthy, absentee beachfront property owners. Read it for yourself (from one of their latest mailers):

When more than 60% of your funding comes from seasonal home owners, you damn well better consider them the bedrock of your economy. But consider: non-residents buy homes in Charlestown because they are cheaper than the Hamptons. And if they decide to leave, they will sell to someone else who likes prices that are lower than the Hamptons. It's not like they can move their Charlestown summer cottage to Sri Lanka.
Why does the CCA Party feel it has to suck up to non-residents? Could it be their campaign contributions?

The CCA's economic improvement plan

For six years, we’ve heard all the platitude from the CCA Party about how they represent, as their mailer put it “character and competence,” while they’ve show little evidence of either.

They call Progressive Charlestown “cyber-bullies” because we call them out and shine a light on the truth. Let them actually come forward with their proof of competence, ethics and morality instead of just talking about it. 

And their odd proffer of a few negotiated collective bargaining agreements is not it, in light of all the violations of open government law, persistent tax hikes and wastes of public money, not to mention their own bullying of honest citizens.

They get to keep doing what they’ve been doing when the rest of Charlestown stays home on Election Day. This election is important. Get your ass out there on Tuesday and vote.