This "blocking" has become one more political game. The "IT" team for the Minnesota State Legislature blocked my e-mails from being received by all legislators on the basis of the complaint of one extreme right-wing legislator, Republican Representative Tony Cornish... Jim Metzen, the Democrat who heads up the Senate Committee on "Business, Industry and Jobs" joined with Cornish... they both claimed my e-mails were causing a flood of e-mails from other people because of my "spamming." So, when people forwarded my e-mails to their legislators saying they agreed with my positions on issues like supporting socialized health care or saving two-thousand jobs by preventing the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant from closing, all these other peoples' e-mails were blocked, also, because they were forwarding my e-mails with their comments in support of what I had written. Fortunately there were a handful of legislators who took the initiative to oppose this undemocratic maneuver and the "block" was lifted after about three weeks of wrangling.
I find it sadly ironic and a clue to the direction our country is headed, that public officials who are supposed to listen to us seem to think that we have some kind of responsibility to go along with anything they say or do--- they don't seem to understand that they work for us; not the other way around.
What has happened to the democratic concept of issues and problems being discussed "in the public square?"
First these politicians go along with banning and restricting people from leafleting in shopping malls--- the modern day "public square"--- and now these politicians want to control what people say on the Internet... what has happened to the concept of "net neutrality?"
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