So long as news conglomerates are either run by investors who have a vested interest in propagating certain stories as the outcome makes them profit, or government shills, democracy will remain a sham. If the only thing people base their vote on is what they're told, and the people doing the telling are predisposed to spin a certain narrative, to editorialise and whip up whirlwinds for profit, their vote will be based on flawed information. The alternative...? To have the main print and news media be run outside of the realm of profit and the government- a separate wing which, outside of a few ground rules (which are written in the public's interest, not the government or industries), can't be interfered with by anyone.
The current capitalist system is the problem. I'm not saying it's the west's or east's fault (though industrialisation as a system began in England, before our stick-in-the-mudness lead us to pooh-pooh better machinery and America superseded us). If it's profitable to withhold aids medication from Africa, or induce wars, or to be in cahoots with the psychiatric industry to keep patients on medication, then some nefarious schwein will do everything in their power to make it so, and they have. It is not a state of affairs which works in our interest. I'm glad Greece have said bollocks to capitalism with their recent elections. It's heartening. It must take a bit of the ol' "If you ain't got nothin' you got nothin' to lose" before people are willing to try a new status quo than the current one.
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