January 9, 2022

Welcome to GRAVITAS . . . . fair and brutal opinion (trapped by facts).

Our only topic will be this: Gardner Government.

Plain and simple.

We don’t trick you by writing stuff as if were fact, when it’s only someone’s opinion. You have Facebook and the mainstream media (and network TV) for those lies. That’s what it is – when someone’s opinion is written as fact – it’s a straight-up lie.

This is opinion. It’s opinion based on known facts. If we don’t know the facts for sure, we’ll openly tell you that the opinion is based on a reasonable assumption of what we think the facts are likely to be.

If you want Republican Fairy Tales – listen to Mike Nicholson.

If you want Democrat Fairy Tales – listen to Jonathan Zlotnik.

We don’t do political party ideology here.

A few days ago, I was still City Councilling.

I am now a recovering City Councillor.

During that 16-year binge as City Councillor, I had to stay fairly reticent, hold my tongue, keep my cards close to my chest.

Not anymore. From a position of absolute freedom and fearlessness, I am free to do what I have always wanted to do – tell my fellow Citizens exactly what’s going on in their government.  No more straight-jacket. No more looking over my shoulder.  Absolute freedom to write the truth, good and bad.

So, this is GRAVITAS . . . . Where this Correspondent is here to tell you, in real time, what’s really going on at Gardner City Hall. When they hand you a plate of semantics tossed with legalese, covered by a sauce of hogwash and rhetoric – come to us, we’ll tell you what it means. We’ll share it with the Citizenry (your anonymity will be preserved, if you wish). 

We’ll also tell you why some official remained silent when he or she owes the Citizen a duty to speak.  No more hiding. Don’t rely on lawn signs to get elected, tell the People how smart you are, and how great of a thinker you are.

GRAVITAS . . . . is our opinion/journalism organization.

We have a separate organization for just reporting the news about what City Hall is doing.  It’s called “Gardner Government Watch” or “GGW.”

Welcome to your free press in this City. Because you don’t have one.

It’s critical because we find ourselves in a new era. It’s a new City government, where two-branches of government for all intents and purposes are being morphed into one – run by the Mayor. Never before have we seen this.  

In this new City Government, no decision can be made unless it can be reconciled with, and is in conformity with, what is mandated by the cult of personality which pervades and envelops the modern and illiberal City Hall ecosystem. 

Debate and dissent are not only frowned upon, but have been purged from the decision-making process regarding all matters and issues that matter to the Citizens.

A perfect example, which I will write about next, occurred at the new City Council’s very first Meeting (Jan. 3^rd). The Councillors rushed through two amendments to the Legislative Branch’s long-standing, and effective, legislative procedural framework without a whimper or an abracadabra.

There was no debate or deliberation because Councillor Mack told the Citizens that this permanent Legislative Branch alteration was the brainchild of the Head of the Executive Branch (the Mayor).  Who would dare question the infallible Mayor structurally modifying the Legislative Branch he has no governmental authority over? Answer: no one.

GRAVITAS is here to detect the phony stories and fake narratives coming out of the city government, and all the “nothing to see here’s.”  We will decipher the dissembling and the silence.

Also, we’ll be talking about Heating Coils. Just like I was doing as a City Councillor. We have an inside scoop there.

We’ll be talking about what the powers-that-be do to people who don’t toe the company line.  Like when I was a City Councillor, the Ruling Class Wizards of Oz actually instructed everyone at City Hall to ignore my emails.

So, all your City Hall servants and elected officials put their hands over their eyes, and hoped that I’d just go away. It’s pretty hard to represent 21,000 Citizens when you can’t communicate within the government.

I had nowhere to turn to – just like no one else does when they get shafted by City Hall.  Here is where GRAVITAS comes in.  Dissenters in City Hall have no one behind them.  They isolate you, so you have nowhere to turn, nowhere to go. Citizens who get ignored, or abused, they too have no one to complain to, and nowhere to go.

Now there is a place to go.  Welcome to GRAVITAS – come on in.

We are here for when that happens to someone, whether you work for the City, or are a Citizen, or anyone who has been mistreated by our City government.  We are watching.

We will expose it so that the Citizens are aware of what their Government is doing to people, and what stunts they are pulling against the Citizens’ best interests – and hopefully, that behavior, once exposed, will deter them from doing it to others.

Whistleblowers, and all Citizens, bring us your tired, your huddled masses. We are here for you. You, are not alone.

We are your consumer/Citizen advocates. 

If the Ruling Class (and that includes their semi-illiterate goons and minions on Social Media – whose skirts the Beta-Rulers and City Hall hacks hide behind) is picking on you, pressuring you, putting words in your mouth, lying about you, distorting your truth, using you, trying to destroy you, trying to get you to believe in fairy tales, taking away your relevance, putting monsters under your bed – come talk to us.

Your anonymity will be protected, if that is what you wish.

We are in The Arena.  We’ll fight back, and we’ll do it in a fun and educational way, so that the Citizens will have some leverage for a change, and some say in what their government is doing.

Anyway, if you like Gardner City Hall Pollyanna and Nancy Drew – don’t read GRAVITAS – keep watching the “Mayor’s Updates” and the City Council Meetings.

But, if you want fair and brutal analysis of what’s really going on, you’ll like GRAVITAS. It will empower the People.

Some of you need play-pretend, I get it. It’s O.K. – again, just keep watching the “Mayor’s Update,” or keep watching the City Council Meetings. Because GRAVITAS will be light on the Mother Goose, and heavy on the Brothers Grimm.

We’re not here to pander to anyone, or to get social credit points on your Woke Meter.  We’re not here to assuage your feelings, or those of the Rulers you adore at City Hall.

If you work for the City of Gardner, you’re in our crosshairs for everything you do that is not above board, or is sneaky, or is overly-wimpy-Beta-Male, or is not based on facts, or which is simply against the best interests of the Citizens.  

If you don’t tell the truth, and we catch you, you’re toast.

Welcome to truth’s Zone of Safety.  Where the “free” in free press rules. The Ruling Class has zero power here, and their credentials and titles are nothing here. Your Super PAC’s wealth and fortune can’t help you here.  As Bartender Lloyd said in The Shining, ”your money is no good here. Orders from the house.”

City Hall can keep covering their eyes by ignoring the Citizens (or “incorrect” City Councillors).

But, yes, Pollyanna, he’s still standing there (and I don’t think he’s leaving this time).

SMG’s ‘Are We Here Yet’?