by William Skink

I had this post cued up before leaving town and forgot to publish it. In light of the media blitz of over 300 op-eds reacting to Trump’s allegedly unique threat to I wanted to show one sad extreme from someone eho should know better, James Risen.

here’s the post:

James Risen thinks the media needs to stop Hitler. I mean, Trump. James Risen doesn’t think the media has done enough so far to stop Hitler. I mean, Trump. James Risen also believes in the fairytale that we have a free press and that Hitler—I mean, Trump—represents a unique threat to his fairytale depiction of corporate media:

…it is a mistake to see Trump as just another White House occupant following in a long tradition of presidential press-bashing. While the present-day U.S. is not Weimar Germany, Trump is not Hitler, and his incompetent administration has not come close to consolidating power in the way the Nazis did, Trump is nonetheless a dangerous demagogue who deploys some of the same tactics that Hitler did, and he has already gone further to attack the democratic institution of a free press than his predecessors did. He is seeking nothing less than the destruction of the legitimacy of the American press.

I’m not sure how Donald Trump is going to destroy something that doesn’t exist. The “American Press” has already done the lion’s share of destroying their own legitimacy in countless ways. And there’s a body count, like the 40 children that were blown up by US-backed forces in Yemen. I guess our legitimate American press is too busy reporting on the very important Omarosa tapes to bother reporting on what our Saudi pals do with the Lockheed toys they buy.

I’m not the only one not rising to Risen’s call to action. Here are some of my favorite comments from his “article”:

Wait_Wut:

This hypocrisy is astounding! 99% of the media, including Risen, continues to propagate lies upon lies to distract us from the dangerous truths, which, if ever widespread enough to awaken the populace, would result in a massive rebellion against our MIC and plutocrat overlords as well as their career politician and MSM lackeys. Anyone voicing the contrary is immediately shutdown, yet we’re supposed to sympathize with these shills’ hurt feelings when Trump tweets mean things their way.

Trailgrub:

Jim, I’ve referenced, outlined, and notated the framework that you’ve omitted. The question you need to be asking is, how come we have such a broken and dysfunctional mainstream news media? l’m begging you, The Intercept, Glenn and Jeremy: Please come clean and tell the truth about mainstream media. Tell us what’s happened in the past 25 years! That means to first report the story about the corporate takeover and concentrated ownership that we have today of newspapers, TV stations, radio stations, cable TV, web site properties, and internet pipelines in the U.S.A. How did we get here?

Photosymbiosis:

The last thing either corporate Democrats or Republicans – or the corporate media – want to talk about are the actual issues – for example, what about the crumbling infrastructure around the country? That’s gone right off the radar, as soon as they realized how much it will cost to fix; it would need an FDR-scale New Deal public works program to do it, and that would necessitate a hefty cut in the military-industrial complex and increased taxes on corporations and billionaires, to generate the revenue needed for bridges, roads, sewer and water treatment facilities, better power grids, etc. etc. – they don’t want to see their Wall Street profits impacted by such a change in government priorities, and that’s who finances the corporate Democrats and the Republicans. I mean, why hasn’t the press gone after Trump on his failed infrastructure promises?

It’s called gross corruption. Both corporate Democrats and Repubicans are really working for their plutocratic masters, and are competing over who gets primary access to the corrupt gravy train. Incumbents get to enrich themselves via corruption, that’s what they’re really fighting for, their place at the hog trough. So, what’s the goal Risen suggests here? Focus on getting rid of Trump, and then what, install another Obama-style corporate Democrat like Cory Booker or Kamela Harris or Michael Bloomberg in his place, another corrupt tool of Wall Street billionaires? Oh, that’s so inspiring! Pffftttt…

Cyberflaneur:

Crickets on facebook’s, twitter’s or google’s silencing of alternative media. Press “freedom” for James Risen means freedom for him to spread lies and to silence his dissenters.

BPAC:

You raise fair comments Jim, but i think that an intro referring to Nazism is way off mark. But i do see that some believe that. There is a third reaction possibility – the press neither capitulates nor fights (well not immediately anyway) but the press asks why so many, along with Trumpy, don’t trust the press. There are a lot of lies being peddled on all sides of the aisle that lying has become as accepted as oxygen. That has to change. His mocking of people on twatter is ghastly. But if the media wasn’t click-bate algorithm advert revenue selling and had more credibility, a la Risen, Greenwald and a handful of others, then the mistrust of the media will continue. Look at yourselves as media first and ask why. When MSM ceases to be overrun with lies (on all sides) then things will start to get better. Then fight him with truths and shun those tribalists who constantly post self-serving confirmation bias crappola. Just a view.

Dienne:

Yes, absolutely we need more brave journalistic outlets to criticize Trump. Hardly anyone is doing that. I mean, except for, like, MSDNC and CNN and ABC and CBS and HuffPo and DailyKos and Salon and Mother Jones and The Nation and Alternet and, and, and….. But, I mean, other than those, it’s like crickets. Because, like, those who speak out against Trump totally get shut down. Or, well, at least they get a nasty tweet from Trump, and that hurts their feelings….

And this is one of my favorites:

Anon_account:

So let me get this straight: the Democrats and the “Resistance” have created a climate in which anyone who disagrees with them is accused of working for a hostile foreign government and who risks harassment and abuse, but *Donald Trump* is a dangerous demagogue.

Let me give James Risen a little hint: Saint Rachel up on MSNBC doing all Russia conspiracies, all the time, is a far greater threat to respect for American journalism and media than Donald Trump ever could be.

Malcolm Nance, up on MSNBC, declaring a founding editor of The Intercept to be a paid Kremlin operative, is a far greater threat to respect for American journalism and media than Donald Trump ever could be.

And you, yourself, were pursued by the two previous Presidents, yet you act as if time just started with Donald Trump.

The “Resistance”/Russia Hysteria front in Democratic-aligned media is a much bigger threat than “mean tweets” could ever hope to be. You’ve resurrected McCarthyism, you’ve published conspiracy theories, and you have given your readers and viewers permission to suspend all reason and participate in a dumb, angry mob.

As for your invocation of NAZIs, your last head of state (Obama) that you adored put actual neo-NAZIs in power, in Ukraine. So spare me the silliness, OK? The only faction that has given any actual NAZIs any power anywhere is Trump Deranged Hillary/Resistance Democrats.

You’ll forgive me, all of you, if I just fail to be impressed at all by this latest vacuous media hysteria surrounding Donald J. Trump. This just another example of Hot Air.