if the opinion piece were made-up, falsified, it would damage the ny times's reputation enormously. the piece is introduced by a claim by the nyt that they know who wrote it, etc. it would be too risky for the premier paper in the nation to participate in a falsification on that order.
my fear is in trump's reaction. i see the responses by members of his administration denying authorship, and his call for this as treason, as the actions expected in dictatorships, not democracies. my real "fear"--as in woodward's title--is that the tendencies trump exhibits to subvert the judiciary and the press are those of dictators, whose belligerence he seems to admire in rulers generally despised around the world--like kim of n korea or duterte or putin.
that's the problem. as eastern europe runs in that direction, as rightwing parties like sweden's new democracy party, or germany's afd or the 5star italian parties, rise, or come to power, we see the denigration of liberal democracy at a high point.
yes, we can criticize those liberal democracies for their imperial actions in africa or elsewhere, but the solution is not authoritarian dictatorships or their neo-conservative, really neoliberal, opponents. we can reform liberal democracies, speak our minds, and organize openly. all those statements are now relatively untrue in trump's america, and in more and more of europe.
ken
kenneth harrow
professor emeritus
dept of english
michigan state university
517 803-8839
harrow@msu.edu
Sent: Friday, September 7, 2018 10:01:06 AM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - TRUMPLAND:. Not I! (Whodunnit? (Anonymous Opinion - "I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration"
Friends:
Is it possible that the real author of the Op-Ed does not work within President Trump's administration and that the essay, ahead of the upcoming US midterm elections, is a made-up story--a political fiction designed to both cause a disequilibrium within that administration and deepen mass disaffection with this presidency? In this age of higher frequencies of fake news within both the social and traditional media, anything is possible. Fake news, more commonly known as gossip, has always been part of the human experience across human cultures, but emergent social media, which have diminished the role of gate-keepers in traditional news media, have exacerbated that phenomenon.
If this Op-Ed turns out to be fake, would that be a first time that a newspaper, anywhere, has published a material that's entirely made-up? Of course, no. I am not a fan of anonymously authored materials. In general, anonymously authored materials are suspect and they must be regarded with a grain of salt.
Human gullibility, which predisposes us to believe the worst about fellow human beings that we dislike, may also be at play here.
In the context of US politics, I am a quintessential Independent, and so, sometimes, I am able to look at political currents from a non-partisan perspective.
What if there is no "writer"(that is someone from Trump's cabinet)? Is that perspective impossible?
CAO.
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