The Come-Back, Day 23. Death of Freedom

John Peter Zenger. How many Americans remember that name? I suppose it depends on whether they liked history class or not. Or, even, if they had a competent history teacher. 

Zenger was a New York publisher back in 1734, who published the newspaper, The New York Weekly Journal. In the journal, he included various opinion pieces against William Cosby, the royal governor of New York Colony at that time. The governor was accused in those pieces of having rigged the election, aided the French (the enemy at that time), various other crimes of abuse of power, and called him an idiot (remind you of anyone?).

Zenger was put in prision on a charge of libel (at that time it meant simply expressing an opinion against someone in power). He was defended at his trial by Andrew Hamilton, who argued that, while it was true he had published those pieces, he dared that anyone in the court would not be able to declare them untrue. He defended Zenger's criticism of Cosby's abuse of power, and declared in his speech,

"Power may justly be compared to a great river. While kept within its due bounds it is both beautiful and useful. But when it overflows its banks, it is then too impetuous to be stemmed; it bears down all before it, and brings destruction and desolation wherever it comes. If, then, this is the nature of power, let us at least do our duty, and like wise men who value freedom use our utmost care to support liberty, the only bulwark against lawless power, which in all ages has sacrificed to its wild lust and boundless ambition the blood of the best men that ever lived..."  

Sound familiar? Ever since 2016, Trump has been railing against "fake media", and lumping just about all mainstream news outlets in the same category. The only ones that escaped his anger were Fox News, Breitbart, and a few others who did nothing but praise him. Trump is today's William Cosby. The only problem is, he's not simply the governor of a state, he's the president of the entire nation. 

Ever since the protests and the riots have begun over the unjust killing of George Floyd, police have targeted the press. There have been accounts of police officers pointing and shooting rubber bullets and tear gas at reporters who had identified themselves. Sometimes, they attacked the reporters after the press badges were shown, or even though they were wearing vests with "PRESS" written in well-seen letters, like a reporter from Deutsche Welle in Minneapolis. 

The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker reports on attacks journalists receive while doing their jobs. Generally, they document about a hundred to a hundred fifty attacks per year. In the last three days, there have been over a hundred. Just three days. This situation became news when a black CNN reporter was arrested for no reason while on the air. His arrest was televised to the entire country. I doubt it's any bit of a coincidence. Trump has derided CNN since day one. 

A free press is the sign of a healthy democracy. It is the embodiment of freedom of speech. Yet, the very country where it was born and first guaranteed, is now number 45 on the index of press freedom, having slipped further down the list in the last four years. Spain is above it, at number 29 (Though our neighbor, Portugal, is number 10; and they finished a much longer dictatorship at the same time as us.). Countries like Lithuania, Ghana, and South Africa are all ranked better than the United States. 

When the press is muzzled, public leaders can do as they like without anyone knowing. A healthy democracy can be measured by the freedom its press enjoys. The American democracy is in danger. Trump will keep bashing the press and encouraging his followers (plenty of cops among them) to keep them from doing their job by any means available. Elections in November? They won't mean anything, I fear. The stage is being set for a clamp down so hard no one will be allowed to dissent. The American experiment is over. Let other countries learn from its mistakes so as not to follow it into dictatorship.

Life continues.