Thread by @KumarSeshadri

Those of you still laboring under the illusion that Western democracies and their media are "free" need to wake up. Western states decide what can and cannot be talked about - not through forced censorship, but through ownership. (1/n) #ohiotrainderailment #OhioChernobyl A 🧵

The way it works is that politicians are elected via expensive election campaigns requiring huge corporate sponsorship. So they are beholden to big corporates for their survival. The same big corporates own the press. (2/n)

So the big corporates tell politicians (whom they own) what to do and they then tell the press (which they own) to run stories that support the things that the politicians do at their bidding. The system works smoothly and nobody is the wiser. (3/n)

That's because corporate control of the media is complete. There are very few independent media, and their reach is tiny. Broadcasting costs a lot of money. You may have the best ideas, but unless people can hear them, you cannot change a thing. (4/n)

So you flip channels from #ABCNews to CBS to #NBC to #BBC to France 24 to DW News - and they are all saying the same thing. Because they are all owned by the same group of people. The same group who control the politicians. If everyone says the same thing, it must be right. (5/n)

"But I am an informed voter!" you exclaim. So you read the #Guardian, the #NYTimes, the #wapo , the #latimes , the #Australian - and all the "experts" are still saying the same thing. Must be right. Right? (6/n)

Now consider this. Six days ago, a goods train derailed in the state of Ohio in the US. It was carrying an important industrial chemical called vinyl chloride. The vinyl chloride started leaking. Vinyl chloride is extremely toxic to humans. (7/n)

So the government decided to burn it. They made holes in the tankers to let all the vinyl chloride leak out into the ground and then set fire to it. There's a huge amount of vinyl chloride. This will take weeks. (8/n)

But burning doesn't solve the problem entirely, because burning vinyl chloride produces three extremely dangerous chemicals - chlorine gas, hydrochloric acid vapor, and phosgene gas. Both chlorine gas and phosgene gas have been used as poison gas in wars in the past. (9/n)

Hydrochloric acid is a corrosive acid that will destroy your lungs, eyes, and skin. So the government has told people in a radius of 2 miles to evacuate. But the poisonous gases have already spread over a radius of about 100 miles. (10/n)

Hydrochloric acid will also destroy all aquatic life and poison all water sources in the vicinity of the accident. The river nearby is permanently poisoned. The houses of everyone living for miles near the accident will be corroded by the acid. (11/n)

Wouldn't you expect such a major and consequential disaster to be on the front pages of US papers every day? To be discussed day and night on US TV channels? But turn on CNN and what do you see? I turned it on today, and this is what I got. (12/n)

Superbowl 57, UFOs shot down by F22s over America, earthquake in Syria, war in Ukraine, Chinese aggression, Rihanna. No mention of one of America's worst manmade environmental catastrophes in recent decades. (13/n)

Because it would hurt some special interests of big chemical companies. The people who own the press. And the politicians. Vinyl chloride is what is used to make the plastic PVC. And it's made from oil. It's worth billions. Can't afford outrage about it. (14/n)

So ask yourself: "Do I have a free press?" (15/end)

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