I came across this cartoon the other day…

…and it occurred to me that the power of words is useless unless there is:

• Someone to write the words, and
• Someone to read them.

It’s a little like another slogan I saw recently:

After every election in this country, there is always that sad reminder that less than half the registered voters participated in one of the most sacred privileges available to a free people: the right to vote.

As someone once said, if you didn’t vote, you have no right to complain.

Likewise, if you don’t read, you have no right to say you didn’t know.

An uninformed public is a compliant public, willing to be bent and molded by those with the resources to shape public opinion.

And more and more, that is being done with sound bites rather than in-depth reporting. Sound bites that inundate you with half-truths, misrepresentations, and outright lies.

LouisianaVoice is neither Republican nor Democrat, neither conservative nor liberal.

LouisianaVoice has only one agenda: the truth.

LouisianaVoice has only one objective: to inform our readers of what takes place behind closed doors that impact your lives.

You won’t always agree with what appears here. Likewise, we will make mistakes. But the mistakes we do make are made with the intent of informing you with the facts available to us.

Getting those facts takes time, effort and money. We have to pay for public records. And sometimes public officials even sue in an effort to discourage our efforts.

One area sheriff, in response to a simple public records request, retained the services of an expensive New Orleans law firm to do the records search for no other reason than to escalate the costs and to discourage our efforts to get to the truth by passing the attorneys’ fees on to us. Yes, it’s dirty pool, but it’s an illustration of how far your public servants will go to keep the facts from you.

That’s why we hold two fundraising drives each year—in October and April.

We are in our April fund drive now and we humbly ask for your continued financial help.

You may have seen the comment by Ben who, in ridiculing our efforts (for whatever reason), predicted that because other liberals only like to spend other people’s money, our fundraiser would be a failure. I’m happy to report there was a spike in contributions after his comment was posted. Ben might also be interested in knowing that we have never failed to meet our fundraising objectives.

Please help us prove him wrong again by clicking on the yellow DONATE button above the image of my Jindal book to the right of this post or by mailing a check or money order to:

Capital News Service/LouisianaVoice

P.O. Box 922

Denham Springs, Louisiana 70727

But even more important, do it to keep our public officials accountable.