I find it ironic that the same conservatives who bemoan “Happy Holidays” and other such generic signs of the season are the same folks who believe that marketplaces and businesses should be completely unregulated, free to make whatever marketing decisions they think will maximize their profits. And if conservatives also feel that corporations are people, where do they get off telling those virtual corporate humans what they can and can’t say during this season? A bit hypocritical, perhaps?

I agree with Time’s selection of the Protester as “Person of the Year” for 2011. Just as important might be to consider the differences in the way the mainstream media has reported on domestic protesters compared to international protesters.

When reporting on Arab Spring protesters, we saw headlines such as “State security forces clash with pro-democracy demonstrators”, “Scores of protesters reported beaten or injured” and  ”Protesters demand democratic regime change.” Broadcast media repeatedly cited voices of international demonstrators, their spokespeople, and citizen video in their actions.

Compare this to reportage on domestic Occupy movements. Broadcast media continually focused upon and promoted official police pronouncements, usually issued as rationale leading up to enforcement actions. We saw headlines such as “Demonstrators clash with police” and “Several police officers slightly injured in Occupy clashes.” As to what was being demanded, generalized mention of the 99 vs the 1% was “balanced” with conservative attacks on the movement and their continuous parading out of wealthy progressives whom the right thought should be the focus of the protests.

In other words, media consumers were encouraged to view domestic protest as upsetting the status quo and from the perspective of law enforcement as the guardians of democracy in the US, while foreign citizens and their perspectives were depicted as representing democracy abroad.

I had thought it was just Fox News, but events in the past year have shown it to be more widespread: Many American media champion democracy when it’s a distant and academic practice overseas, but scoff and denigrate it when championed by fellow citizens at home.

Re: the now conclusive evidence that the industry’s “trade secret” cancer-causing fracking ingredients are polluting our groundwater supplies.

No wonder the Republicans try to attach kill-the-EPA riders to all appropriations bills before they’ll back them. Their oil and gas cronies would love to continue sickening our families and destroying our property values without questions being raised by such publicly-interested “big government” agencies. My only question is, why does the mainstream media continually focus on the non-citizen perspective, such as when the Denver Post highlighted Wyoming’s and the gas industry’s fears that any regulation might inhibit their business operations? Let’s get our priorities straight: citizens first, special and commercial interests later.