What they want you to think. Chapel Hill.

Last night three muslim students were shot dead in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The killings were carried out by a white, American, atheist male who claimed on twitter that, 'When it comes to insults, your religion started this, not me. If your religion kept its big mouth shut, so would I.'

You may not be aware of these events at such an early stage, although I hope that they will be well reported on the news across the UK and Europe, and the actions of this man scrutinised as seriously as the hate crimes of the Kouachi brothers who carried out the Charlie Hebdo attacks. Unfortunately so far this has not been the case.

It appears abundantly clear that this killer has acted upon anti Islamic feeling to carry out such a heinous act against three individuals who appear to have done nothing to him. There are clear parallels with the hate crimes of the Kouachi brothers, although arguably these victims are more innocent than the Hebdo cartoonists. These parallels have not however been covered by the Western media to nearly the same degree. 

When Hebdo happened, rolling news broadcasts focussed on footage of the shooting of a policeman. They speculated over connections to ISIS which didn't exist and then followed the obvious demand for increased securitisation leading Cameron to indicate he may ban or drastically increase monitoring of some forms of communication. When Chapel Hill happened (today), the story did not appear on the BBC News homepage, however a story discussing how Belgium have jailed Islamists did appear. Why is this?

The reasons for this are simple, fear of Islamism makes sense for Western governments; when these events happen, it helps to connect them to events in the middle east and promote fear of muslim culture among our communities. When events like the Charlie Hebdo killings happen, widespread news coverage helps to promote an anti extremist fervour and allow arms companies to make money from escalating war. Arms companies which ex government ministers, and government donors have stakes in. This propaganda, and that is what it is, allows the capitalist class to gain from war in the middle east and the subsequent securing of assets. It allows the political class to capitalise on our fear and increase security - as this blog correctly predicted following the Hebdo shootings.


The complete disparity in coverage in two very similar atrocities, which both happened in the West and both included multiple civilian casualties is a clear indication of the agenda driven corporate media. This man stands for atheists and the West as little as the Kouachi brothers stand for Islam or the muslim world. Making connections between the actions of ISIS in the middle east and the actions of a few lunatics in Paris is the same as making connections between the actions of a lunatic in North Carolina and you.

Many laugh at and ridicule the pantomime that is Fox News in America, their propaganda is transparent and easy to observe and ignore, but Fox is not the only organisation which puts across this message. It isn't even the only news organisation with that particular owner (a few of his papers in the UK declined to report on this incident today, it appeared low down on his news website's homepage). Observe this disparity in all of the mainstream media, understand why it happens. Capitalists in the UK have an agenda, it isn't one which benefits normal people either here or in the middle east. Until power is taken away from these people by turning your support away from the people in power (including the ones who aren't in government this minute) and forcibly taking power away from those who control these institutions our society will continue to make these same mistakes and hold onto this same hypocrisy.