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About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 1, 2017)
2 Wednesday, February 1, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon O P I N I O N Robert B. Reich American Voices LettersptopthepEditor… The Nugget welcomes contributions from its readers, which must include the writer’s name, address and phone number. Let- ters to the Editor is an open forum for the community and contains unsolicited opinions not necessarily shared by the Editor. The Nugget reserves the right to edit, omit, respond or ask for a response to letters submitted to the Editor. Letters should be no longer than 300 words. Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned. The deadline for all letters is noon Monday. Craig Eisenbeis’ article last week about local avalanche conditions was timely in this season of heavy snowfall. I would like to supplement his work by pointing to some excellent resources for winter backcountry travelers. The Central Oregon Avalanche Association (COAA) is a nonprofit, com- munity-based organization dedicated to ava- lanche education in the area. COAA provides a weekly snowpack summary and daily obser- vation reports prepared by local guides and avalanche professionals who volunteer their time to improve backcountry safety. These reports are supplemented by hourly observa- tions from several weather stations located between Hogg Rock and Odell Lake. You can find these reports and observations at http:// www.coavalanche.org. COAA also provides free Know Before You Go seminars to give backcountry users a basic understanding of avalanche safety. Their course schedule can be found on their website. If you are going out to play in the win- ter backcountry, make sure to use these free resources. Your loved ones will thank you. Bob Hoffman s s s To the Editor, Congratulations to all those folks who have been successful in obtaining the round- about in Sisters. I have traveled and lived in areas with roundabouts. So, roundabouts have never been a problem for me. However, this one is bad news and will make shopping, banking, See LETTERS on page 14 SisterspWeatherpForecast Courtesy of the National Weather Service, Pendleton, Oregon Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Monday Chance snow Snow Snow ;likely Chance fain Chance fain/snow Chance snow 27/14 24/17 31/22 40/27 37/23 35/na The Nugget Newspaper, Inc. Website: www.nuggetnews.com 442 E. Main Ave., P.O. Box 698, Sisters, Oregon 97759 Tel: 541-549-9941 | Fax: 541-549-9940 | editor@nuggetnews.com Postmaster: Send address changes to The Nugget Newspaper, P.O. Box 698, Sisters, OR 97759. Third Class Postage Paid at Sisters, Oregon. Publisher - Editor: Kiki Dolson News Editor: Jim Cornelius Production Manager: Leith Williver Classifieds & Circulation: Teresa Mahnken Advertising: Karen Kassy Graphic Design: Jess Draper Proofreader: Pete Rathbun Accounting: Erin Bordonaro The Nugget is mailed to residents within the Sisters School District; subscriptions are available outside delivery area. Third-class postage: one year, $45; six months (or less), $25. First-class postage: one year, $85; six months, $55. Published Weekly. ©2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. All advertising which appears in The Nugget is the property of The Nugget and may not be used without explicit permission. The Nugget Newspaper, Inc. assumes no liability or responsibility for information contained in advertisements, articles, stories, lists, calendar etc. within this publication. All submissions to The Nugget Newspaper will be treated as uncondition- ally assigned for publication and copyrighting purposes and subject to The Nugget Newspaper’s unrestricted right to edit and comment editorially, that all rights are currently available, and that the material in no way infringes upon the rights of any person. The publisher assumes no responsibility for return or safety of artwork, photos, or manuscripts. Donald Trump is such a consummate liar that in coming months and years our democracy will depend more than ever on the inde- pendent press — finding the truth, reporting it, and hold- ing Trump accountable for his lies. But Trump’s strategy is to denigrate and disparage the press in the public’s mind, convincing the public that it shouldn’t believe the press because it’s engaged in a conspiracy against him. Trump wants to use his tweets, rallies and videos to make himself the only credi- ble source of public informa- tion about what is happening and what he’s doing. It is the two-step strategy of despots. And it’s already started. Step 1: Disparage the press and lie about them: At a televised speech at the CIA, Trump declared himself to be in a “running war” with the news media, and described reporters as “the most dishonest human beings on earth.” Trump then issued a stream of lies about what the press had reported, accusing the media of falsely under- reporting the number of people showing up to hear his inaugural address. (When aerial photographs confirmed media accounts, he called the acting head of the Park Service and demanded new photos.) Trump then accused the media of falsely reporting that he had disparaged the CIA. “They sort of made it sound like I had a feud with the intelligence community,” Trump said, continuing to criticize the press for its “dis- honest” reporting. In fact, Trump had repeat- edly vilified the CIA and the entire intelligence com- munity for reporting about Russia’s intervention in the 2016 election. Then at press secretary Sean Spicer’s first televised news briefing, Spicer blasted the press even more about its supposed false reporting of inauguration day events and numbers. (When confronted with Spicer’s outright lies, Kellyanne Conway, coun- selor to the president, told NBC that Spicer had merely given “alternative facts.”) Later in the week, Steve Bannon, Trump’s chief strategist, told the media to “keep its mouth shut,” and asserted that the press is now the “opposition party.” Step 2: Threaten to cir- cumvent the press and take the “truth” directly to the people. At his CIA speech, after denigrating the media, Trump issued an ominous warning. “We caught them, and we caught them in a beauty. And I think they’re going to pay a big price.” What price? One big clue came the next day at Spicer’s press briefing, when he said “The American peo- ple deserve better. As long as [Trump] serves as the messenger for this incred- ible movement, he will take his message directly to the American people.” We’re not talking Roosevelt-like “fireside chats” here. Trump’s tweets have already been firestorms of invective directed at crit- ics, some of whom have been threatened by Trump follow- ers stirred up by the tweets. Trump won’t stop with tweets. We’re seeing the emergence of pro-Trump news sources that get access at the expense of traditional news companies. The ultimate “price” the media will pay comes when a significant portion of the public trusts Trump’s direct communications more than it trusts the media. But when that happens, our democracy ends. And it’s the perfect pun- ishment for a press that dares criticize him: He makes the press irrelevant by substitut- ing himself as the source of truth. At that point, most of the public will believe his inau- guration attracted a record number of attendees, he was elected in a “landslide.” They’ll believe anything he wants them to believe — that humans don’t cause climate change, Putin is a good friend of America, Muslims should be pre- sumed dangerous, vaccina- tions cause autism, scientists shouldn’t be trusted, and crit- ics of Trump are enemies of America. Four years from now they may even believe Trump made America great again. © 2017 By Robert Reich; Distributed By Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer and are not necessarily shared by the Editor or The Nugget Newspaper.