Trump’s War Against Journalists

“Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.”

                                                    —Thomas Jefferson 

For those of you who may have never heard the term, the “fourth estate,” it’s a reference to the press or what we call the media in today’s world. The founding fathers of our form of government knew only too well the dangers posed by a government not kept in check by a free press. And they strove to establish as many checks & balances on possible corrupt & tyrannical government leaders by specifically including freedom of the press in the first amendment to our Constitution. It’s referred to as the fourth estate because to the framers of our government, it was every bit as important as the three major components or centers of power in the U.S. i.e. the Congress, the Legislative, & the Executive branch (the presidency).

The press’ central purpose is to serve as a sort of watchdog on the other three branches of power. Tragically, the press has almost completely abandoned their duty & nowadays basically serve as stenographers to those in power. And you might care to note that with the passage of the “Patriot Act,” right after 9/11, they effectively gutted just about the entire Bill of Rights—and hardly a single congressional member bothered to even read the Patriot Act before signing it. In my opinion, Congress is mostly an empty chamber full of cowards just seeking power, wealth, & privilege by sucking up to the corporate cockroaches. And this underscores how shallow & hollow our favorite myth of we’re fighting around the world to defend & promote freedom & democracy. 

I believe that Trump’s time as the boss i.e. authoritarian leader on the “reality show” The Apprentice, fed his ego to such an extent that he internalized the illusion as reality & if you dare to challenge or criticize him on any of the thousands of lies, distortions, myths, alternate facts, etc., his fragile ego can’t handle it & that’s why he launches into his childish & ignorant tirades via Twitter.

Donald of the Duck Dynasty Klan is a spoiled brat who was born with the proverbial “silver spoon” in his mouth. He has deluded himself & millions of others that he’s a self-made man & a huge success. If he actually were anywhere near what he claims to be, why won’t he reveal his tax returns? Could it be that they’d show us the truth i.e. he’s a charlatan who knows that Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, was so right. In brief, the bigger the lie & the more frequently you repeat it, it eventually becomes accepted as truth. Donny boy’s tax returns would also reveal the numerous times he failed in his business ventures & was bailed-out by the mafia here in America as well as the Russian mafia. And the “Christian” right-wing fundamentalists love Donald Duck because they believe he’s going to push forward their agenda of destroying the last vestiges of the separation of church & state. So much for the “family values” they are so fond of pontificating on ad nauseam. 

The ties that bind these hypocritical “Christians,” and Donald, Darling of the KKK is their fervent belief in authoritarianism. These evil faux “Christians,” believe husbands rule over their wives & rule absolutely in the family. And they believe that compassionate or empathetic people are weak & need to be removed from the government and actually harm their children by “sparing the rod.” And Donald the Dumb-shit, like all petty tyrants (most husbands in the “Christian” evangelical movement), can’t handle any questioning of their authority or criticism of their actions. In case you forgot or don’t know it, the KKK has claimed that they’re good Christians throughout their horrific history of lynchings, racism, & bigotry. 

Moreover, Hitler & the Nazis claimed to be good Christians as well & like Hitler, Trump is trying desperately to silence his critics in the media & wants his voice to be the only voice his Walking Dead base of supporters  hear. The Nazis burned all books they felt might be a threat to their power & Donny boy is attempting to silence all his critics with constant ridicule, dismissal, & outright lies. The Duck knows that he doesn’t have absolute power yet, so he has to wage a steady war ideologically against the press for his hidden agenda of undermining their authority.

Donald the Deceiver doesn’t want his celebrity cult worshippers to think for themselves. And I despair that America will ever outgrow its long history of anti-intellectualism (see Richard Hofstadter’s classic on the subject). But you’d have to be willfully ignorant to not see how we celebrate our ignorance in America & idolize violence & wealth. How so many of Trump’s supporters can believe that this supposed billionaire gives a rat’s ass about them & isn’t a part of the ruling elite who have fucked us all for so long, is beyond my comprehension. 

I’ve been pleading with others for most of my adult life to read the serious works of political science, history, philosophy, etc. so they could develop their critical/analytical thinking skills. And my words have usually fallen on deaf ears. And speaking of reading, I recently re-watched the classic movie based on Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451,” & a connection came to me regarding the thesis of this essay. Bradbury was basically saying that when people can no longer read books because it’s against the law, they lose their collective & individual memories and are much easier to control. 

Well in the present dystopian society we’re living in, reading, especially the Classics is mocked, dismissed as elitism, and FOX “News” has been allowed to pose as a news channel for nearly 20 years now with barely any protest. FOX “news,” if people had any historical memory, is basically the American version of Russia’s major newspaper “Pravda,” which means Truth. It’s the fear & hate channel not unlike George Orwell’s nightmare world in “1984.” Is it any wonder that Trump gets his news from FOX “News” and watches several hours of T.V. per day? 

For those of you who haven’t drunk the Kool Aid & are concerned about our slide into a fascist state, I urge you to read a couple of classics on illiteracy in America; “Illiterate America” by Jonathan Kozol, & “Amusing Ourselves to Death” by Neil Postman. And finally, if you doubt my assertions about Trump’s authoritarianism, you might do a bit of research for yourself & check out his respect for Putin, Duterte, Xi Jinping, Kim Jong Un, Saddam Hussein, Erdogan, Bashar al-Assad, & Gaddafi. And no, the Dunce in the White House isn’t alone in his hypocrisy & betrayal of the soldiers who have fought & died for the supposed principles & ideals we stand for, here’s a list of “Friendly Dictators” that I bet you didn’t know we have trained, financed, & often sent our military forces to protect: 

Abacha, General Sani —————————-Nigeria
Amin, Idi ——————————————Uganda
Banzer, Colonel Hugo —————————Bolivia
Batista, Fulgencio ——————————–Cuba
Bolkiah, Sir Hassanal —————————-Brunei
Botha, P.W. —————————————South Africa
Branco, General Humberto ———————Brazil
Cedras, Raoul ————————————-Haiti
Cerezo, Vinicio ———————————–Guatemala
Chiang Kai-Shek ———————————Taiwan
Cordova, Roberto Suazo ————————Honduras
Christiani, Alfredo ——————————-El Salvador
Diem, Ngo Dihn ———————————Vietnam
Doe, General Samuel —————————-Liberia
Duvalier, Francois ——————————–Haiti
Duvalier, Jean Claude—————————–Haiti
Fahd bin’Abdul-‘Aziz, King ———————Saudi Arabia
Franco, General Francisco ———————–Spain
Hitler, Adolf —————————————Germany
Hassan II——————————————-Morocco
Marcos, Ferdinand ——————————-Philippines
Martinez, General Maximiliano Hernandez —El Salvador
Mobutu Sese Seko ——————————-Zaire
Noriega, General Manuel ————————Panama
Ozal, Turgut ————————————–Turkey
Pahlevi, Shah Mohammed Reza —————Iran
Papadopoulos, George ————————–Greece
Park Chung Hee ———————————South Korea
Pinochet, General Augusto ———————Chile
Pol Pot———————————————Cambodia
Rabuka, General Sitiveni ————————Fiji
Montt, General Efrain Rios ———————Guatemala
Salassie, Halie ————————————Ethiopia
Salazar, Antonio de Oliveira ——————–Portugal
Somoza, Anastasio Jr. ————————–Nicaragua
Somoza, Anastasio, Sr. ————————-Nicaragua
Smith, Ian —————————————-Rhodesia
Stroessner, Alfredo —————————–Paraguay
Suharto, General ———————————Indonesia
Trujillo, Rafael Leonidas ———————–Dominican Republic
Videla, General Jorge Rafael ——————Argentina
Zia Ul-Haq, Mohammed ———————-Pakistan

 

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/dictators.html

“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”

― Smedley D. Butler, War is a Racket: The Antiwar Classic by America’s Most Decorated Soldier  

So yeah, be sure to hang your flags on all patriotic holidays & forget the gross hypocrisy & the millions of lives lived in desperate poverty or killed by the soldiers following orders from the corporate cockroaches. Donald of the Duck Dynasty Klan is preparing the American version of the gas chambers. Onward Christian Soldiers! 

—Rob DeLoss, April 29, 2018 in Trinidad, CA