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 America in the American 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 Gary Johnson and Donald Trump both support Citizens United and its 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 America?
And when was the last time you heard about the role of corporations in education? Gary 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 Gary Johnson's America, 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.
Donald 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 healthcare 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 American life that the mainstream corporate television media completely ignores.
And then there's the banks. They can borrow at about 1 percent but lend to us at around 30 percent on our credit cards and 5 to 10 percent on student loans. Their profits are also at all-time highs, and we could be facing another banking crisis like 2008. But is anyone over at CNN talking about this? No, they're not.
