Reprinted from Smirking Chimp
Here's a thought experiment for you. Ask yourself, "When was the last time I heard any conversation at all about the role of corporations in the United States in the US public media?"
In the abstract, it seems like a silly question. So let me rephrase it:
When was the last time you heard in the media that Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson and Donald Trump both support Citizens United and it's concept that corporations are people?
When was the last time you heard that Hillary Clinton has said, repeatedly, that repealing Citizens United is at the top of her agenda when it comes to picking Supreme Court nominees? Or that Donald Trump wants to put somebody on the court who will reverse Roe v. Wade, and make it illegal for women to get abortions (and, possibly, many forms of birth control) in the US?
And when was the last time you heard about the role of corporations in education? Johnson and the Libertarian Party think that all state and federal funding for schools -- from elementary school all the way through college -- should end.
In Johnson's US, you only get to go to college if you're willing to go into debt or your parents are rich. You also only get to go to elementary school and junior high school and high school if you are willing to go into debt or your parents are rich.
Trump hasn't weighed in on this issue, although Trump University would suggest that he thinks that college students are simply easy-picking suckers for for-profit college corporations.
Democrats, on the other hand, are pushing for free college education for families making under $125,000, and strengthening our public school system so that the zip code you're born into no longer determines the quality of your education.
Have you heard any discussion of this on mainstream television news? It's fundamental to the larger question of what role corporations, including private, for-profit school corporations, should play in our nation... and no one on mainstream cable news is talking about it.
This is true of almost every single important issue facing the country right now, especially those that have to do with corporate power.
Take, for example, the fact that Americans pay more for health care than anybody else in the world, from drugs to eyeglasses to dental work, and we are the only developed nation in the world that allows for-profit corporations to offer primary health insurance? Heard about that in the corporate media? Of course not -- crickets, as usual.
How about the school-to-prison pipeline and the role that the war on drugs and the for-profit prison industry have played in it? Have you heard about that?
I certainly haven't.
It's yet another important dimension of the role for-profit corporations play in US life that the mainstream corporate television media completely ignores.
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