Reply #36: Who killed Howard Dean? [View All]

[Gabi Hayes]

''On December 1, 2003, Howard Dean was ahead by twenty points in the polls when he appeared on Hardball with Chris Matthews and said, "We're going to break up the giant media enterprises." This pronouncement went far beyond the governor's previous public musings about possibly re-regulating the communications industry, and amounted to a declaration of war on the corporations that administer the flow of information in the United States.

It was an extraordinarily noble and dangerous thing to do: When he advocated a truly free press, Dr. Dean was provoking the corrupt media conglomerates that control what most Americans see and hear and read, and thereby control what most Americans think. The media giants quickly responded by crushing his high-flying campaign with the greatest of ease.

This time, they didn't even have to invent a scandal in order to achieve the desired result; merely by chanting the word "unelectable" at maximum volume, the mainstream media maneuvered Democratic voters into switching their support to someone who poses no threat to the status quo. John Kerry is a member in good standing of the feeble Daschle/Biden/Feinstein wing of the Democratic Party, a group of politicians whose disagreements with the mercantile elite tend to be merely rhetorical. Any doubts about Kerry's level of commitment to his stated progressive beliefs were conclusively answered in 1994 when he proclaimed himself "delighted" with the Republican takeover of Congress.

The media oligarchy knows that a general election race between Kerry and George W. Bush will insure a continuation of its monopoly, regardless of who wins. The news cartel had always been hostile to Dean; independent surveys revealed that he had received the most negative coverage of any candidate except Dennis Kucinich (the only other contender who strongly favors mandatory media divestment). But after his statement on Hardball, reporting about Dean abruptly came to an end and was replaced by supposition. The existing conjecture in political circles about his ability to win was transformed into a thunderous media mantra that drowned out all other issues.''

http://www.nationalvanguard.org/story.php?id=2096

it IS the media, stupid!

control of media is the control of ideas, the accepted currency of expression. instead of hearing about the FACT that the permafrost in Siberia is melting, we hear from Scott Peterson's step father, or whomever, or who got voted off the American Idol Island.

when/if the dems take action against the corporate media as the ENEMY of democracy and ENABLER of corporate fascism, THAT's when we might have a chance. don't hold your breath, cause those who hold the purse strings of that party aren't much different than those who hold them for the pugs.

until then