There seems to be an enormous unwritten self censorship on some news stories right now, here was my list of the stories the media seem to fastidiously ignore right now.
- The French strikes
- Julian Assange’s incarceration
- Ongoing occupation of Palestine
- Climate change connected to catastrophic climate events
- Bernie Sanders
- The corrupt rigged nature of capitalism
- China’s obscene abuse of Muslims in ‘re-education’ camps & abuse in Hong Kong
- The American coup in Bolivia
- Utter failure in Afghanistan
The need to not focus on those issues is part of the need to keep citizens blind to the frontline of the existential crisis we find ourselves in at the turn of the decade.
Denial for a fractured sense of normalcy is the best we can hope for from our media as they become less the voice of challenge at critical times of our collective humanity and more the band playing background noise on our shared Titanic.
Here’s a goodie! NZH;
“National will be back in charge of housing by Christmas 2020!”
It’s becoming increasingly difficult to see any scenario under which the Coalition Government could secure a second term. All it would take to see a change of Government would be National achieving more than 47 per cent of the popular vote (and picking up the rest through support from ACT as well as getting its share of the reallocated ‘wasted vote’), a new centre-right party making it into parliament, or either of the Greens or New Zealand First not making it back. Only one of these needs to take place — and, frankly, at least two of the three are looking highly likely.
For these reasons, we’ll see a change of government this time next year – leading to another big shake up in the country’s housing policy (and everything else).
– Ashley Church is the former CEO of the Property Institute of New Zealand and is now a property commentator for OneRoof.co.nz. Email him at ashley@nzemail.com
Yes, but is [it] because we can now know, thanks interweb, how much we were once denied to know? Or is it that there’s now so much that one can know, that we all think it’s new and clearly worth knowing but our MSM is doing it’s best to deny us access to that knowledge to turn a nice dollar? I have a head ache…
The one thing I do know is, the more I know, the more I know that I don’t want to know it.
We had a friend over from North Carolina. That person works in finance.
That person was amazed to learn how devious and subversive of the facts common, house-hold-name companies were to us AO/NZ’ers. That person’s cases in point were the telco’s not to mention the power companies and the supermarket chains, or duopolies as we know them as, are.
We’re being lauded over by a criminal class of elite money fetishists. No wonder, then, that we have homelessness, child poverty and can only watch on helplessly as $5 billion dollars in bankster net profit disappear off-shore annually as an example of just how seemingly powerless we are to be able to do anything about it.
Vive Le France ! Springs to mind.
Which is probably to say, things will have to get worse before they get better.
More than that, we’ll have to continue to vote for the least worst option.
Even worse – the longer it goes on, the worse it gets for those on the wrong side of history – which it turns out isn’t always just one damn thing after another.
On a more positive note, I see signs of various members of the cobbled together coalition beginning to awaken (possibly now that there is fear they the COULD actually blow it in 2020). Lotsa cudda wudda shudda’s.
Maybe next time round though eh? When is it? 2023? By that time, if we’re not living in 45degree heat, there might be a plan where a progressive gummint is able to take back control and be kind and transformational (though I’m pretty sure there’ll have to be a few neckings – figuratively speaking -before that’ll happen).
Business as usual, keep the majority of people misinformed, thus ignorant and lulled into consumerist self indulgence and stupid social media chatter.
You’ve overlooked the revelations about the corrupt OPCW report on the false allegations of Assad using chemical weapons on his own people and the subsequent illegal war crime committed by the USA and its lackeys when they bombed Syria to ‘punish’ them.
The death british propaganda spook and founder of the white helmets has been kept pretty quiet “White Helmets Whitewash: founder’s death, OPCW scandal lift mask on al-Qaeda’s ally in Syria https://youtu.be/h8kK1I8on3k
“Exposing the fascist forces behind Bolivia’s US-backed coup – with Max Blumenthal ” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXG9ncKGMsg
Just curious, what abuse in Hong Kong are you referring to? As I recall, we had HK on the box and radio day and night for months, at the same time as real abuse and maiming of people was happening weekly in France and never mentioned. The “abuse” in HK was incredibly restrained, considering it increasingly looks like US interference and financing of protesters?
Now the strikes in France are actually getting coverage, but the protests have been going for over a year, every week, and never mentioned in the media. The numbers of people seriously maimed and injured hasn’t been talked about at all in our media, but HK was blown out of all proportion. If those sort of protests had happened in the UK, US or even NZ, the response would have been swift and brutal. Remember the anti TPPA protests and the traffic police dragging a protester by the hair?
And your “Chinese muslim abuse” reference is also the subject of some conjecture. Part of a constant US China bashing rhetoric, as with the Russia bashing. Basically anyone they can’t overthrow with bully tactics then smear and propaganda seems to be their thing.
https://off-guardian.org/2018/09/19/no-the-un-did-not-report-china-has-massive-internment-camps-for-uighur-muslims/
But you are correct in that our media, certainly in NZ, has a bias towards US friendly stories. Nothing that reflects badly on them is allowed to be mentioned. As Allan pointed out above, don’t forget the OPCW cover up being ignored. Or the fact the US and allies are illegally occupying parts of Syria.
The huge problem is that Martyn Bradbury is the only voice afbalance in the entire media landscape-and he is only read by the converted…so no-one is getting a balanced view.Thia is both dangerous and unconstitutional…but no-one seems to care.
Because no one cares about the stories on the list! Certainly no one cares what the author thinks because he is full of bile.
The day the “corrupt rigged nature of capitalism” is covered by the mainstream media will be the day we can all celebrate the downfall of the capitalist system as we know it. The current corporate owned media is never going to ever openly admit to the real nature of our glorious economic system, though it is possible the observant bystander can read between the lines of the business pages and various stories that emerge (such as the ANZ CEO scandal etc.) ad nauseum and come to their own conclusion the system is corrupt, houses and protects corruption and is run by oligarchs with no moral compass. Climate change and the corrupt and rigged nature of capitalism are linked of course, with the continued push for economic growth, the madness and absurdity of ever bigger realms of consumerist consumption (Westfield mall) etc. etc…..The media tends to expose all of this in its sheer stupidity with, for example, the juxtaposition of stories about enjoying the beach in above average temperatures and full page ads for fossil fuel guzzling SUVs…but to be able to discern this kind of madness demands a certain degree of skill in deconstruction, and our education system is not geared for this, so nothing will change. As John Key said on the beach at Mt Maunganui after the Rena oil spill, “Go the All Blacks”!
How about Chelsea Manning being in jail for over 6 months for refusing to comply with a subpoena while a whole gang of Trump-associated people have ignored subpoenas with zero consequences.
Electric cars: my partner pointed out that the news that half the government fleet now being electric is not put into the context of the scarce/few numbers of stations to fuel them. Why would we buy electric cars if they can’t run the distance? The real news is that climate change policy is farcical, not to be taken seriously
Also from my partner: where’s the exciting news of the uprisings in Ecuador? I’m fortunate that my household discussions generate more interesting news the MSM.
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