U.S. Representative Corrine Brown, 2nd Congressional District of Florida

This is the third in the current series of posts reflecting, at the least, a decline in political civility and, at the worst, the demise of American democracy. The first was about the possibility of the November, 2004, elections being cancelled. The second was an interview with New York Representative Maurice Hinchey, in which he has some rather strong criticisms to make of, among other things, the way the Republicans run the U.S. House of Representatives.

For more on that theme, you can read an article in the San Jose Mercury that reports on an encounter today in the U.S. House of Representatives between Democratic Florida Congressmember Corrine Brown and the ruling House Republican majority.

Defending her view, against the opposing position of a House Republican member, that U.N. election observers ought to officially monitor the upcoming November, 2004, elections, Congressmember Brown, who represents the Third Congressional District of Florida, said:

"I come from Florida, where you and others participated in what I call the United States coup d'etat. We need to make sure it doesn't happen again. Over and over again after the election when you stole the election, you came back here and said, 'Get over it.' No, we're not going to get over it. And we want verification from the world."

The Republican she was arguing with demanded that her words be "taken down," meaning stricken from the Congressional Record. The presiding Republican concurred. Ms. Brown objected, precipitating a vote on the issue, which was decided against her on a 219-187 vote.

Her words, having been "taken down," have now been permanently deleted from the official record of the House, as if, in the official view, they had never been uttered, on the dubious premise that destroying a record of the words could obliterate the thoughts they express.

In the Oceania of George Orwell's 1984, this process was called throwing something down the "memory hole."

The House Republicans had apparently forgotten, or not cared, that Ms. Brown's remarks had been noted, reported on, and repeated by news media not yet invented at the time the House rules on censorship of members' speech were formulated and not many other means of finding out what was said there existed.

Ms. Brown was also prohibited from speaking on the House floor for the rest of the day.

In the parlance of 1984, she was declared a (temporary) "unperson."

Nevertheless, her words (for now) survive:

"I come from Florida, where you and others participated in what I call the United States coup d'etat. We need to make sure it doesn't happen again. Over and over again after the election when you stole the election, you came back here and said, 'Get over it.' No, we're not going to get over it. And we want verification from the world."

"I come from Florida, where you and others participated in what I call the United States coup d'etat. We need to make sure it doesn't happen again. Over and over again after the election when you stole the election, you came back here and said, 'Get over it.' No, we're not going to get over it. And we want verification from the world."

"I come from Florida, where you and others participated in what I call the United States coup d'etat. We need to make sure it doesn't happen again. Over and over again after the election when you stole the election, you came back here and said, 'Get over it.' No, we're not going to get over it. And we want verification from the world."

Tape at eleven.