Historic Echoes

[struggle4progress]

Last Updated: February 18, 2017 0:09 AM
Steve Herman Jeff Seldin

... "As an American diplomat, I stood up to petty tyrants who called journalists 'enemies of the people,'" tweeted Tom Malinowski, former assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor. "Guess that's not our policy anymore."

"It is one of the most controversial phrases in Soviet history," said Mitchell Orenstein, professor of Russian and East European studies at the University of Pennsylvania ...

"For both Lenin and Stalin, journalists and intellectuals who didn't share their point of view were among the most hated enemies. In attacking them, both appealed to the people," said Serhiy Yekelchyk, an affiliate associate professor and Soviet studies specialist at the University of Washington ...

"He's got his style," Congressman Ted Yoho, a Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said on CNN when asked about the provocative "enemy of the people" phrase ...

http://www.voanews.com/a/donald-trump-attack-on-media-enemy-of-people-historic-echoes/3729946.html

[struggle4progress]

1. Why Trump wants you to hate the media

By Frida Ghitis

(CNN) -- If you watched President Trump's astonishing press conference on Thursday, you might be forgiven for concluding that the most urgent problem facing America is that the media "is out of control" ...

The advantages of having an enemy are well-known. In Orwell's dystopian novel "1984" -- suddenly a new best-seller in the Trump era -- the masses engage in a daily mandatory ritual, the "Two Minutes of Hate," during which their anger is feverishly stoked against the foe of the moment. Dictators, strongmen and autocrats have practiced the art of drumming up loathing toward others to great effect ...

Trump's real nemesis is the truth. By attacking the media, he opens up a new line of attack against facts, his true target. He is, after all, the Gaslighter in Chief. He is trying to confuse the public so that they will not believe inconvenient truths ...

As the scandal surrounding his campaign's ties to Russia grows, Trump wants the public to think it's all the doing of the dishonest media. But journalists are not letting up, and the vast majority of Americans are not going to fall for Trump's tactics for very long. Even on the generally-supportive Fox News channel, the brave Shepard Smith called him out. "It's absolutely crazy," Smith said. "He keeps repeating ridiculous throwaway lines that are not true at all and sort of avoiding this issue of Russia as if we're some kind of fools for asking the question" ...

http://www.kbzk.com/story/34535851/why-trump-wants-you-to-hate-the-media

[dalton99a]

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