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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 Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned.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
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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.