Limiting Hopatcong Volunteer Photos on the Internet to give Sway to Political Parties

Recently, my husband told me of the lecture he received from the Hopatcong community volunteer group he belongs to.  The president of the volunteer group (a new full time paid Municipal hire) was warning them of submitting Sandy shelter photos on the internet and sharing their opinions on Patch.  The comment in part seemed to be a reasonable request in situations where a person’s statement was claimed to be on behalf of the group.  You shouldn’t speak for the group.  However, I draw the line when someone of “authority” wants to suppress photos taken in a public place. These are photos from neighborhood volunteers with their neighborhood friends who posed with smiles to show their triumph over a natural disaster. This was a neighbor helping neighbor Kumbayah moment that broke all political boundaries. In fact, it was a virtue of this particular community volunteer group.  It has both strong Democratic and Republican members working together for the greater good.  It was one of the few organizations in town where our One Party Municipal Government did not have an influence in selecting its members.   Too bad it didn’t last.  Now with a Municipal Employee at the stern of this organization, it appears they will foist the “political correct” (?) sway by the local government in the most partisan way. 

We are soon approaching state campaign time for Gubernatorial, State Senate and State Assembly for our districts.  And if our right wing conservative district wants to win re-election, they need all the community photo opportunities they can muster.  This has been difficult for this party who wanted to defund FEMA before hurricane Sandy hit.  Also, our state district party officials made good on their promise of spending cuts and closed county run senior nursing centers for its residents. This left them with fewer actual public community photo opportunities. Hard to take a campaign photo of these government funded community care centers if they no longer exist.  Getting your political photo connected to Sandy rebuilding efforts is the new rage in Jersey’s political photography, but it can be marred with too many citizen volunteer photos flooding the internet. 

Allow me to get back to the point the community volunteer leader made on the political correctness of photos on the internet. I myself have found distributing photos on the internet by our own local leaders.  I found past photos of our town attorney who is an elite Sports Club Foundation member and popular private self sufficiency charity member politically flagrant.   Standing with a shotgun and cannon in the foreground in a Patch community fundraiser article gives implication that all people who give to these charities also endorse the NRA and their ALEC party candidates. I sort of feel that my local community charity groups have been hijacked.  I now find it difficult to support these charities without feeling I am supporting a right wing corporate political agenda since they have become the board of trustee members to these nonprofits.  The next public photos I found offensive and politically incorrect are photos that are plastered of the poor recipients who have participated in programs by these shotgun sponsored nonprofits. I think a charity is virtuous when it provides anonymity and privacy to its attendees.  Professional photo shots of actual charity program attendees shouldn’t be made into charity infomercial e-promo campaigns.  This is irreverent to the principles of good will.  But, the ultimate outrageous imposition of webpage e-photos is the professional commercial close up shots of homeless pregnant girls and their newborns at a private nonprofit shelter in Sussex County.  It is a shelter funded by the shotgun foundations too. This shelter also has our same Borough attorney as an acting officer and at one time included the state senator’s wife as a board member. There are several web pages of close up e-photos of pregnant homeless girls and newborn babies.  It has the advertising appeal of a prospectus brochure for private adoption parents. These photos take advantage of homeless girls.  I can’t imagine a girl with parents allowing photos like these to be on the internet for everyone to view.    

So let’s talk about the exploitation of internet political propaganda photos both virtual and hardcopy that is forced upon its virtual and non-virtual community.  Then let’s talk about the photos my family and friends have on their Sandy volunteer involvement we want to share on Facebook or Patch.  Because, if you don’t stop the abuse by the powers that be, then what you are doing is allowing censorship and control of the average citizen in Hopatcong and that is not very American.  The political control group of Hopatcong does not trump my rights as an American to free speech and uploading photos of my community places.   Maybe my husband will feel the need to comply with this request, but he has no control over his wife and their shared photo folders and I am posting the photos on my pc to Patch.