If you haven’t seen Naomi’s Wolf’s analysis of the nationwide, federally supported crackdown against Occupy encampments, that’s because you don’t read Reader Supported News or foreign newspapers such as Guardian. No way the corporate media in America will investigate stories that might reflect badly on the people who own the media, unless they’re embarrassed into doing so, as they were when the Occupy movement reached critical mass:

… We… already know that congresspeople are massively profiting from trading on non-public information they have on companies about which they are legislating – a form of insider trading that sent Martha Stewart to jail.

Since Occupy is heavily surveilled and infiltrated, it is likely that the [Department of Homeland Security] and police informers are aware, before Occupy itself is, what its emerging agenda is going to look like. If legislating away lobbyists’ privileges to earn boundless fees once they are close to the legislative process, reforming the banks so they can’t suck money out of fake derivatives products, and, most critically, opening the books on a system that allowed members of Congress to profit personally – and immensely – from their own legislation, are two beats away from the grasp of an electorally organized Occupy movement … well, you will call out the troops on stopping that advance.

Update: More than a few credible journalists, including Joshua Holland, have noted that Wolf’s piece is stronger on suppositions than facts, and that it reeks of conspiracy theorizing, and might therefore alienate skeptics waiting for more evidence of federal collusion with municipal police departments.

Holland’s piece is a reminder to build stories based on facts — i.e., don’t use phrases such as “it is likely” if you don’t have hard evidence — but I hope his article doesn’t discourage anyone from aggressively asking questions about the suspiciously synchronous attacks on Occupy, or Obama’s silence on police violence, or the corrupt relationship between Congress and lobbyists.

I’m sticking with the point I made in my opening paragraph: The corporate media has repeatedly shown that it must be embarrassed into reporting stories that reflect badly on the wealthy and powerful.