Letters submitted by BDN readers are verified by BDN Opinion Page staff. Send your letters to [email protected]
The Bangor Daily News’ Saturday editorial about President Donald Trump was well written and spot on. I agree that his actions to control information are used by dictators worldwide. However, Trump did not come up with this strategy all by himself.
Joseph Goebbels, propaganda minister for Adolph Hitler, actually developed this strategy. Following is a direct quote from Goebbels:
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
Early in my career I was a newspaper reporter covering local, state and federal government. A free press is fundamental for a democracy. It concerns me deeply that our current president can bar reporters from White House briefings because they wrote a story that was not flattering to him.
Michael Drake
Hermon
