Originally published April 19 2014
The mainstream media's shameful abandonment of freedom fighter Cliven Bundy
by J. D. Heyes
(NaturalNews) If you know more about freedom fighters in Ukraine than you do about freedom fighters and government-caused animal atrocities at a remote ranch in Nevada, you can, once again, blame your lack of knowledge on a mainstream, corporate-owned, lockstep media that is so ideologically corrupt as to be less than worthless.
There has been a virtual media blackout of what has transpired at the southern Nevada ranch of Cliven Bundy. I say "virtual," because scores of so-called "alternative media" like Natural News have been covering events there, including a recent report about how a number of Bundy's cattle have reportedly been killed and buried, allegedly by agents and thugs of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which sent a small army of heavily armed agents there to enforce a court order.
Now, I've been a journalist for more than 20 years. And I can tell you that when a government agency -- especially one like the BLM, which does not routinely involve itself in Special Forces-like operations -- shows up at an American citizen's property with hundreds of agents with body armor and assault rifles (these are real assault rifles, not just look-alike semi-automatics), scores of vehicles and air cover (helicopters), just to enforce a "court order," that is a news story.
This is not an unimportant event or issue
Why? Consider this basic journalistic example.
Who would normally read a headline that said, "Dog Bites Man"? A few people would, sure, but not many, because a dog biting a man is pretty routine stuff. Just ask a postal worker.
But what about this headline: "Man Bites Dog." That's compelling stuff, because that is out of the ordinary. It doesn't happen very often. It's unique. It's "news."
That example most certainly applies in the Bundy ranch stand-off. Here, we had a reported 200-plus federal agents, hired guns, park rangers and contract "cowboys" descend on a single ranch in a remote part of Nevada -- home state of the current U.S. Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid (which is its own news story in and of itself) -- with orders to remove several hundred cattle from land that the rancher's family has worked, grazed and used, with permission, since the late 1870s. And it's being conducted by the BLM - not the FBI, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the DEA or any of a half-dozen other, more well-known federal "law enforcement" agencies.
The descending band of federal agents then draws a substantial crowd of local residents, who have showed up to help ensure that nothing "bad" happens to Bundy and his cattle (more on that in a moment). There are tensions. There are Taser incidents. There are arrests. There is fear of escalation. And, as our editor-in-chief, Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, has reported, there have been cover-ups regarding mass graves of Bundy cattle, allegedly killed by the BLM contractors and/or agents.
And the bulk of the mainstream corporate media virtually ignores this?
'This is a national outrage and should be covered as such'
Granted, if this incident had been occurring in Zimbabwe or Tunisia, I could understand American media largely ignoring it. Then again, networks like CNN have spent weeks breathlessly reporting nothing new about a Malaysian airliner that nobody can seem to find.
Now, why ignore what's happened to Bundy, his family and his ranch and cattle? What's the purpose? Doesn't the media love a good underdog story?
Apparently, only when certain groups or demographics are being affected. And apparently not, when such coverage would cast a pall on their favorite political figures, up to and including the President of the United States, with whom they are in lockstep with ideologically.
What has happened to Cliven Bundy and his ranch and cattle is a national outrage. That our own "mainstream" media organizations have largely ignored it, and him, is a worse outrage. Because as an experienced newsman I can tell you, when a federal agency shows up with hundreds of paramilitary troops to any location and for any reason, especially one that is not normally engaged in such operations, that is what we in the news biz call a story.
Indeed, a story in and of itself is why an agency of the Interior Department even has paramilitary forces in the first place -- let alone why, in tough fiscal times, American taxpayers should be on the hook for a multi-million-dollar operation to execute a court order -- even one that transformed from executing a court order to executing a man's cattle.
Pathetic.
Sources:
http://www.naturalnews.com
http://21stcenturywire.com
http://www.naturalnews.com
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