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Media Blackouts: The Biggest Story Of This Century

By Caitlin Johnstone
Published on: 16:29 PST, Sep 15, 2016

Mainstream media’s near-complete blackout on major stories and events is without a doubt the most interesting thing happening in the world today.

Earlier today, WikiLeaks dropped a massive bombshell about the largest trade agreement ever made, which covers 52 countries and affects 80 percent of the economy in the U.S. and Europe, accounting for two-thirds of the global GDP. It will allow Wal-Mart economics to flourish on a global scale, forbidding the governments of participating nations from preferencing local businesses over foreign ones, and making it nearly impossible to stop those businesses from predatory pricing practices. In effect, there will be nothing stopping giant businesses from opening up shops on the corners of every neighborhood in any of the 52 participating nations, and using their wealth reserves to undercut the prices of all local businesses, forcing them to close and becoming the only business (and employer) of that type in the area.

You know how every time a Wal-Mart opens in a new neighborhood it undercuts its competition and forces them to fold, offers new jobs at slave wages and then uses corporatist lobbying to protect itself from repercussions and shift the burden of the damage it does to the American taxpayer? It will be like that, only worldwide, with all businesses, including banks.

You would be forgiven if you don’t know the name of the planet-altering trade deal I’m referring to, because you’ve never seen a news story on it. This would be the Trade in Service Agreement, or TiSA, also known as the TPP and TTIP’s secret brother. WikiLeaks revealed a major block of information about this agreement which will, without question, significantly alter the way humanity itself moves and behaves on this planet, and Wolf Blitzer’s dead-eyed face has nothing whatsoever to say about it.

Americans enjoy freedom of the press under the First Amendment of the Constitution because an informed populace is an essential ingredient in a healthy democracy, and citizens have understandably come to rely upon the press to provide that information. But time after time, story after story, important information has been getting swept under the rug by all the biggest news media providers in the country.

The minority of Americans who are plugged into alternative news media have been witnessing a very different world unfold than those who get their news from CNN, Fox, or the New York Times. While we watched Bernie Sanders launch an unprecedented crowd-funded campaign to pack stadiums and win election battles he never should have been able to win, consumers of mainstream media were fed a constant diet of Donald Trump’s mouth farts.

Tens of thousands of people were gathering for an unknown underdog, a man who even called himself that pariah term “democratic socialist” and who was calling for something as outrageous as a revolution, but that once-in-a-lifetime story went untold by the mass media. Only in Facebook groups could you see video of the moving scene of thousands of people from all walks of life lining up for blocks and blocks. Only through regular people’s updates and livestreams could you get the inside story of the voter suppression and voter culls, deliberate cutting of booths in a historically popular primary season and the long long lines it created, hundreds of stories of older, sicker, over-employed-but-underpaid people having to give up and leave the line before voting, dead people voting for Hillary, schools of mentally challenged people being bussed in to vote for Hillary, bosses giving their staff the day off as long as they voted for Hillary, dodgy machines, massively irregular exit polls and ex-presidents with bullhorns blocking the entrances to key polling booths for hours.

None of these stories were covered. Surely one of the biggest political uprisings in living memory was barely mentioned, and was mostly scorned by all the major news players, and as the season went on, a lot of the minor ones too. Alternative media outlets like The Onion were noticeably bought up by big-time Clinton donors, and their editorial immediately changed.

It had the desired effect, too. A Harvard study confirmed that the media blackout alone fatally hindered Sanders’ momentum and lost him the election.

In fact, if there was any coverage, it was to mock suggestions that the DNC were colluding against Sanders as “conspiracy theory.” Even when that conspiracy theory became conspiracy fact, there was no mea culpa from the media. In fact, they mocked people further by intimating that they had known all along it was rigged and somehow turned it around to make us look stupid again.

We see what you did there. To mock people for suspecting what you secretly know is happening, and then mock them again by saying “Of course it happens” is double-dipping on the whole pompous mockery thing. You either knew, or you didn’t.

The tag of “conspiracy theorist” is used to mollify anyone who doesn’t toe the corporate line. The assertions that Hillary might not be feeling so hot were shouted down as conspiracy theory and sexism and a Huffington Post writer even lost his job for pointing out the rumours about her health.

Lost his job. For simply doing his actual job and reporting on what turned out to be the truth.

Dr. Drew Pinksy was threatened and his show was axed days after suggesting that Hillary Clinton’s health care was a concern. Not even her health. Just the care she was getting.

Is anyone else getting creeped out here? This is like an abusive gas lighting technique, but on a massive nation-wide scale.

“You’re crazy! You’re insane! She’s fine! You’re a conspiracy nut!… Oh, she’s sick, but it’s nothing, she’s our gal, she’ll pull through, nothing to see here!” All in the space of a day.

Yeah, that’s totally normal.

Just this last week, a deluge of data has come from Guccifer 2.0 leaks, detailing proof of absolutely astounding government appointments, dizzyingly high-up jobs, including many positions of real national power like the FCC Chairman, auctioned off to the highest bidder. Obama was cheerily raking in the dough while selling off our most powerful public positions.

This is possibly the most shocking revelation of Obama’s presidency, and the most damning indictment to come to light yet on the ever-growing history of deep corporate corruption among the Democrats, and do you think it made it to any of the leading newspapers? Nuh-uh. Not a peep.

Not to mention the mercenaries setting their attack dogs on the Dakota Access Pipeline protestors. I mean that literally — there was no mention of it.

Except of course by Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman, who got an arrest warrant for her efforts. Even Facebook is stopping protestors from sending out live streams.

Look up any of these stories and there is a dearth of material on them. If you use Google, rather than Bing or Yahoo!, you will get even less.

What is this, Burma? Even they have given up censorship. And at least they used to give you the courtesy of selling the newspaper with the censored news blacked out.

There are no black boxes in our newspapers hinting at what cannot be safely said or is not allowed to be known though. Just mockery where the news should be.

[Featured Image by Shutterstock]

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hillary clinton News cnn wikileaks chris matthews dr. drew julian assange bernie sanders Opinion Donald Trump
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