Truth and the Consequences of Ignoring it

In an extremely serious and autocratic move (something we’ve seem much of these days), Venezuela’s President, Nicolas Maduro, recently disconnected all Venezuela’s access to CNN’s Spanish feed.

The banishment was a result of the report generated by the CNN affiliate, after more than a year’s investigation conducted by CNN and Venezuela’s legal adviser to the Venezuelan Embassy in Iraq, Misael Lopez.  Together, they exposed Venezuela’s Vice President’s links to selling fake passports at their embassy in Iraq; to people including Hezbollah.

Very troubling events paralleling Caracas and Washington DC lately; rather than becoming concerned about the serious allegations arising from the investigation, President Maduro blamed CNN instead.

And; the familiar bell-rings right here at home, where, rather than digging deeper into the traitorous connections between his campaign personnel and Russia, our very own autocrat has just blamed the “leakers” and damned the press who, in Trump’s narrow perspective, “always present a negative light” on Trump’s behavior.

Don’t get me wrong here; I would never suggest, either in a bigly way or a smally way, that Maduro and/or Trump have reason to kill the messengers.  I would never suggest that they’re trying to destroy the press in the eyes of the public.  And most importantly; I would never consider either man a serious danger to freedom of the press and to democracy.

Nope.  For; not just a suggestion, I am screaming the warning at the top of my lungs.

And now a word from the writer; “I FUCKING TOLD YOU SO”.

In Maduro’s response, one more country south of our border is telling the U.S., in no uncertain terms, to pound sand up our collective asses.

First Mexico, then the majority of Muslim nations, much of Europe, and now Venezuela.

The dominoes are falling, and are doing so in rapid succession.  Hell, even Russia is now pushing the Trump Clown buttons and for some “unexplained reason”, Trump’s not pushing back.  Rather; he continues to s
y “we should try to have good relations with Russia.” 

A very unstable man at the helm of the US nuclear arsenal, one has to wonder; will he?  And, the answer is a resolute; “Hell-fucking yes he will; in a heart beat”.  Among all the others concerns we have about him, we need to worry about both, Trump’s and Putin’s commonalities.

Massively (even YUGELY) narcissistic, severely ignorant to most things outside their own ego-driven minds, and worst of all, insanely impulsive.

“America's nuclear force is based on the nuclear triad, a concept that baffled Trump when he was asked about it during the campaign. The "triad" means the three delivery systems — land-based, launched from silos; air-based, delivered by strategic bombers; and sea-based, launched from submarines…….

Once launched, these missiles cannot be recalled or diverted. The second worst danger is that they could be launched in response to a false alarm or a technological glitch. The worst danger is that they could be sent on their way by a president who, in the pre-dawn darkness, opts for the nuclear trigger over a tweet.” The Chicago Tribune

Now, my final thoughts on the past two days:

“The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!”

“The enemy of the people?”

Hell! The press is the ONLY thing standing between you/me and complete autocracy.  

Many, far more intelligent than Trump could even hope to be, have even referred to the media as “the fourth branch of the government.”

Unfortunately, the dictator in the making (and his puppet, Trump) is quickly accomplishing what his intentions have been all along - to destroy confidence in the very thing that sets us apart from autocratic rule - freedom of the press.

There is no coincidence in the fact that one autocrat, President Maduro, ripped a giant hole in free speech and in the fact that another autocrat, Donald Trump, is in the process of doing the very same thing. 

This is a concern of epic proportions, for two reasons;

1. El Salvador is, as I said, accustomed to perceiving the direction of their government and developing work-arounds to authoritarian rule.  They also stand up against what they see as corruption and authoritarian rule.
2. The United States, on the other hand, is filled with naive, foolish, closed-minded xenophobes who, not only don’t care that the train is derailing, they happily support the equally foolish, closed-minded, xenophobe, Trump, in his efforts to destroy the rails upon which the train is traveling.  Trump is doing precisely what Maduro is; but on a much grander scale (and yes., a BIGLIER scale), by demonizing ALL the media outlets which inform us of the government’s behaviors, be they honorable or nefarious. 

If Trump’s followers continue their rage against all things different; their blind and completely unfounded hatred for all those they now call “snowflakes”; seeking some ill-conceived need for retribution learned at the behest of partisan politics, they will literally be aiding him in destroying the very values upon which this country was built, beginning with freedom of the press and speech.

I can promise them; the trump apologists will fall much harder than those snowflakes, now among the millions of others who are different than they, and for whom they've suddenly developed unfound, venomous hate.  For, at least those snowflakes see it coming and can brace themselves for the impact.