On the Take

Mainstream media in Whatcom County–like everywhere–makes its creds covering local events and activities; they make their money covering up corporate crime. If you want to know which corporate criminals they are covering up for, all you have to do is look at the biggest advertisers–those who take out full-page ads, and produce slick, misleading PR campaigns so-called journalists cut and paste and call news.

This corruption of mainstream media–public radio and TV included–starts with corporate underwriting, and ends with malicious harassment of individuals and organizations by big business, all without a peep from so-called newspapers. Case in point, the smear campaign by the Washington Farm Bureau designed to intimidate RESources and their supporters.

As a lobby organization for major polluters at factory farms and feedlots–which contaminate streams and shorelines with fecal coliform–the Farm Bureau is part of the anti-environmentalist Wise Use movement. This movement, along with the Anti-Indian movement, has been a key player in American fascism for over 30 years.

In 1995, Whatcom Environmental Council published Wise Use in Northern Puget Sound, documenting the Wise Use/Anti-Indian corruption, malicious harassment, and terrorism that took place in 14 Washington counties–organized and financed by Wise Use organizations like the Washington Farm Bureau, the Washington Association of Realtors, and the Building Industry Association of Washington.

In January 2018, the Center for World Indigenous Studies in Olympia, Washington published Anti-Indian Movement a six-part special report on Wise Use/Anti-Indian terrorism in Whatcom County between 2013 and 2017. Don’t expect to hear a word about this corporate crime in your local paper; they’ve been on the take too long.