Keep up the good work
I’ve subscribed to the Lewiston Tribune for more than 40 years. It has offered a local perspective and an enjoyable read over my coffee through the years.
The new focus on local activities is engaging and different. I love the photos and the mix of local people, businesses and politics in our community. Keep up the good work.
I’m reminded of the journalists from the past that I enjoyed: David Johnson’s Everyone Has a Story. Bill Hall was always the laugh I needed over crazy life adventures. And I think my favorite was Dr. David Roen’s wonderful look at our furry family.
I think they would all smile and say, “Good job” to the Tribune owners and staff. Thanks so much, and please keep up the stories.
I’ll add my request to bring back some of their columns, just for a smile.
Linda Rosetti
Clarkston
Recognizing the psyops
In 1950, RAND Corp. and the U.S. Air Force published a memorandum on psychological warfare used by communist Joseph Stalin and Nazi Adolf Hitler regimes in World War II. It found people believing propaganda as the most malleable to coerce and control. Then Robert Jay Lifton published “Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism, a Study of Brainwashing in China.” Clearly, the battle for men’s minds is as old as human history.
Historically, psychological warfare (psyop) goes like this: Divide people against each other, give them a fake enemy (Hitler used Jewish immigrants, LGBT+, intellectuals), poke the amygdala and get the fear going, and repeat. In 2024 America, Donald Trump also used immigrants, LGBT+ and intellectuals.
Today’s corporate media is indistinguishable from psyop propaganda conning people for profit and power. Now that we have a government by the billionaires for the billionaires, will Americans stop falling for their psyops?
It’s not immigrants (ask Elon Musk), not trans people, not economic promises tailored to the audience. It is about power for the ruling class oligarchs and Americans fell for it. They bought the con, hook, line and sinker. The deepest state was always the deepest pockets.
Maybe it’s too late, but if there’s a chance at all, it will be Americans learning how to recognize a psyop. And Americans getting money out of politics, overturning the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling and demanding campaign finance reform to have government by the people, for the people — not billionaires.
Janet Marugg
Clarkston
Comparing the two
Comparison: Former President Jimmy Carter was happily married for 77 years. The incoming president has been married three times and was found liable for sexual abuse.
Carter served in the military. Incoming claimed he had bone spurs so did not serve. He said veterans are losers and suckers. Carter was a man of faith and protected the right of all to follow their own consciences. Incoming has lied to us more than 40,000 times and thinks white Christian nationalism and racism give him the power to defy the First Amendment’s separation of church and state.
Carter was proactive about having a balanced budget. Incoming wants to give the richest more tax loopholes while eliminating affordable health care. Carter divested himself of his peanut farm so there would be no conflict of interest. Incoming sells everything from gold tennis shoes to his own version of the Bible for profit. Carter devoted his life to serving humanity. Incoming serves himself, Vladimir Putin, oligarchs and other dictators.
How low we have fallen in the eyes of the world and how far away from the ideals of a true democracy. Sadly, there is no comparison.
Sheila M. Robbins
Boise
The puppet’s strings
The question sounds simple and innocent: Why did Elon Musk not run for president?
The answer is simple. He was not born in America. To obtain power of our country, he had to get a puppet elected. Now he has his puppet president; he does not have to wait for his puppet’s stance. He says it before the puppet.
Personally, I don’t think they have the strings on the puppet properly.
Brad Stewart
Lewiston
