If Not The Press/​people As Final Line Of Defense Then Who?

When Government attack the established Press labeling it Fake news without evidence that the Press is doing anything untoward ‚it behoove all of us who are in the business of recording history to be very alarmed.

There has to be con­cern when a leader stand in front of the media, berate the media, label­ing it fake news , brand­ing it the ene­my of the American people.
The United States is the old­est func­tion­ing Democracy. Imperfect though it is, the United States stood as a bea­con of hope for free­dom and free speech, even though it still has not yet attained that moral height to which it still aspire.

In a way, it is like that myth­i­cal shin­ing city on a hill of which Ronald Reagan spoke. Mythical ‚yet hun­dreds of mil­lions seek that per­fect Union in a still imper­fect world.
It is that America of which Barack Obama spoke with such elo­quence , that America still per­fect­ing itself.

I am remind­ed of a bunch of desert trav­el­ers whose stage­coach was robbed and their hors­es stolen.
Stranded and in deep trou­ble their trou­bles mul­ti­plied when a gun­slinger approached . The strand­ed group viewed him with utter revul­sion and dis­dain but he had some­thing they needed.
He had water and he knew how to get them out of the desert. He told them to fol­low him, some­thing they decid­ed to do after much hand-wringing.
They con­clud­ed that this no good gun­slinger only want­ed to exploit them as oth­ers had just recent­ly done.
Notwithstanding , out of options and thirsty, they reluc­tant­ly decid­ed to fol­low after him.

They begged him just for a lit­tle taste of the water from his canteen.
He promised them he would allow them a taste as soon as they got over the next ridge.
Exhausted and parched he made the same promise ridge after ridge, after ridge. Utterly exhaust­ed and near death they stum­ble and fall , drag­ging them­selves along. They cursed him for being inhu­mane and with­out conscience.
Then final­ly a town appeared .
Exhausted, and thirsty to the point of death they stum­bled into the town.
Refreshed and reju­ve­nat­ed after quench­ing their thirst they turned to the gun­slinger who stood silent­ly by..

“How could you have denied us water , that was all we asked”?
It was then that he showed them his can­teen, it was rid­dled with bul­let holes.
It had no water in it. It could hold no water. He too had encoun­tered dan­ger­ous men in a gun­fight he escaped with his life , but his can­teen was not so lucky.
He told them that it was only through the promise of a few sips of water that he was able to keep them going .
That’s how they were saved.

America has always struck me this way, imper­fect yet inspi­ra­tional. It has always offered the [promise of free­dom] , free­dom of expres­sion and the free­dom to be all one can be.
Inspirational, yes, prac­ti­cal you decide .
That promise has inspired peo­ple of all races and creed, all reli­gious and ide­o­log­i­cal per­sua­sions , sex­u­al and eth­nic back­grounds to seek out America to ful­fill their own ideals.
As Barack Obama would say “that is the America I know”.

“The peo­ple are the only cen­sors of their gov­er­nors: and even their errors will tend to keep these to the true prin­ci­ples of their insti­tu­tion. To pun­ish these errors too severe­ly would be to sup­press the only safe­guard of the pub­lic lib­er­ty. The way to pre­vent these irreg­u­lar inter­po­si­tions of the peo­ple is to give them full infor­ma­tion of their affairs thro’ the chan­nel of the pub­lic papers, & to con­trive that those papers should pen­e­trate the whole mass of the peo­ple. The basis of our gov­ern­ments being the opin­ion of the peo­ple, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a gov­ern­ment with­out news­pa­pers or news­pa­pers with­out a gov­ern­ment, I should not hes­i­tate a moment to pre­fer the lat­ter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers & be capa­ble of read­ing them”.

Believing that Government’s assault on the free Press is some­thing of a joke, is to mis­un­der­stand how incred­i­bly easy it is for demo­c­ra­t­ic Nations to quick­ly slide into auto­crat­ic dictatorships.
Just ask the Russians how quick­ly Vladimir Putin moved to solid­i­fy pow­er in Russia.
In America Democrats have no pow­er in the Senate . They have no pow­er in the House. They have no pow­er in the Executive Branch.
This assault is not hap­pen­ing in a vac­u­um . It is designed to seize con­trol of the most effec­tive medi­um avail­able to peo­ple today.
No , not the Press.
The Internet.
This is the ground work for clamp­ing down on what peo­ple like myself and mil­lions oth­ers can say using inde­pen­dent medi­ums like social media and pri­vate blogs.
In order to con­trol the peo­ple you must first con­trol the message.

We have seen the mas­sive assault of Trump and his acolytes on the right of the Federal Judiciary to be inde­pen­dent ref­er­ees in this three part co-equal sys­tem of Government.
Of course the Press is not with­out fault , but as Jefferson said “The peo­ple are the only cen­sors of their gov­er­nors: and even their errors will tend to keep these to the true prin­ci­ples of their institution”.
If not the Press/​people , which is the final line of defense, then who?