{"id":7019,"date":"2015-07-28T10:22:48","date_gmt":"2015-07-28T14:22:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/?p=7019"},"modified":"2015-07-28T17:11:13","modified_gmt":"2015-07-28T21:11:13","slug":"faces-of-the-first-amendment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/?p=7019","title":{"rendered":"Faces of the First Amendment"},"content":{"rendered":"

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My camera is one of the most important political tools I have. Whether it’s a political campaign or organizing for environmental groups, photos are important, especially on social media.<\/p>\n

I find photos of public meetings strangely moving. Sometimes they capture the spirit of a Rockwell painting. I’m thinking, of course, of Rockwell’s “The Four Freedoms.” Freedom of speech and freedom of assembly are the bedrock of our American democracy.<\/p>\n

These photos were taken at a commissioners’ meeting last night. A coalition of environmental groups and plain unaffiliated citizens pleaded with the Stokes County commissioners to draft and approve an ordinance protecting the county from fracking and coal ash. Here’s a link to a news story<\/a> on what the meeting was about.<\/p>\n

On the one hand, this was a heartwarming outpouring of love for our county and concern for our rural way of life. Black people and white people, conservatives and liberals, are working together in this county like they never have before. But I also am a cold-blooded political operative. This event was organized. Back in May, environmental activists had politely asked the commissioners for an ordinance. They crudely blew us off. This was payback. Note the attitude of one of the commissioners in the last photo. It’s the classic attitude of an authoritarian who’d rather not be bothered with the people — at least when the people disagree with him.<\/p>\n

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My camera is one of the most important political tools I have. Whether it’s a political campaign or organizing for environmental groups, photos are important, especially on social media. I find photos of public meetings strangely moving. Sometimes they capture the spirit of a Rockwell painting. I’m thinking, of course, of Rockwell’s “The Four Freedoms.” … Continue reading “Faces of the First Amendment”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political-issues","category-stokes-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7019"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7019\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7047,"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7019\/revisions\/7047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}