- 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.
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- 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
-
- By mid-December, the news divisions of the four major
television networks were reporting as fact that Dean was unelectable. The
print media echoed the theme; on December 17, the Washington Post printed
a front-page story that posited Dean could not win the presidency. The
Post quickly followed up with an onslaught of articles and editorials reasserting
that claim. Before the month was over, Dean's lack of electability had
been highlighted in The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Boston
Globe, the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, and every other major
paper in the United States.
-
- As 2004 began, Time and Newsweek simultaneously ran cover
stories emphasizing that Dean was unelectable. In the weeks before the
Iowa caucus, the ongoing topic of discussion on the political panel shows
was that Dean was unelectable. National talk radio shows repeatedly stressed
that Dean was unelectable. The corporate Internet declared that Dean was
unelectable. And the mainstream media continued with the storyline that
Dean was unelectable right up until Iowans attended their caucuses. Iowa
Democrats could not watch a television or listen to a radio or read a newspaper
or go online without learning that Howard Dean was unelectable.
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- It was the classic Big Lie. Through the power of repetition,
the corporate media ñ which has been wrong about who would win the
popular vote in two of the last three presidential elections ñ inculcated
the public with the message that Dean could not win. Pollster John Zogby
wrote, "Howard Dean was the man of the year, but that was 2003. In
2004, electability has become the issue and John Kerry has benefited."
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- The unexamined factor is how electability became "the
issue". It had never before been the dominant consideration in Democratic
primaries, because voters had focused on policy rather than crystal ball
gazing. Electability was this campaign's version of "Al Gore claimed
to have invented the Internet": it was a media contrivance that was
used to manipulate voters.
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- On January 19, Democratic caucus goers in Iowa ñ
who were the initial intended audience for this propaganda disguised as
reportage ñ overwhelmingly repudiated Dean, telling pollsters they
believed he was unelectable. Later that evening, Dean yelled encouragement
to his supporters at a pep rally, an incident that provided the pretext
for the coup de gr,ce.
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- During the week leading up to the New Hampshire primary,
the media obsessed about Dean's "bizarre" rally incident, adding
"un-presidential" and "emotionally unstable" to its
descriptions of the governor. The unified message was that Dean had self-destructed.
When he finished a distant second in New Hampshire, journalists and pundits
hailed the defeat as confirmation of their premise that Dean had always
been unelectable.
-
- Yet there had been no tangible basis for that assertion.
At the beginning of 2004, a poll conducted by Time magazine showed that
Dean trailed Bush by only six points. That was a smaller deficit than Gore
faced shortly before the general election in 2000, and he wound up getting
the most popular votes. Undaunted by this evidence to the contrary, reporters
adhered to the motif that Dean had absolutely no chance.
-
- Matea Gold of the Los Angeles Times is one of the many
deceitful corporate scribes who obediently supplemented the "Dean
is unelectable" message with its companion lie, "Dean is emotionally
unstable", although she was a little slow on the uptake. In a report
she authored the night of the pep rally, Gold wrote, "We will not
give up!" (Dean) declared, his gravelly voice barely audible over
the din of applause inside the '70s-style disco hall. "We will not
quit, now or ever! We want our country back!"
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- But twenty-four hours later, when it had become clear
that the official corporate media version of events was to be Dean had
gone berserk, Gold omitted all reference to the noise over which the Democrat
had been shouting: "Dean leapt onto the stage, tore off his suit jacket
and rolled up his sleeves. His face beet-red, he punched his fists in the
air and spoke in a near-guttoral (sic) roar. The frenetic response to his
poor showing struck many as inappropriate."
-
- Gold's colleague at the Times, Ronald Brownstein, joined
the chorus of supposedly objective journalists who expressed relief after
witnessing Dean's apparent demise. Brownstein has written that it is "reassuring"
to see Democrats abandon Dean. And to whom is it reassuring? It is reassuring
to Brownstein's employers at the Tribune Company, which recently reported
record earnings as a result of media deregulation implemented by Bush.
-
- Howard Fineman, the author of the Newsweek attack on
Dean, has now written an analysis of why Dean fell so far, so fast. One
of the reasons Fineman cites is that Dean has been too "defiant".
And whom has the former governor of Vermont been defying? When Dean advocated
breaking up the media giants, he was defying Fineman's employers at the
Washington Post Company, which recently reported record earnings as a result
of media deregulation implemented by Bush.
-
- Those Democrats who have been hoodwinked into believing
Dean self-destructed by yelling at a pep rally should recall how the major
media handled Bush's drunk-driving arrest that a small Maine newspaper
revealed right before the 2000 election. It was an incident that on the
surface seemed as though it should have been politically fatal ñ
the candidate who had based his campaign on the vow that "I will restore
honor and dignity to the Oval Office" was proven to have lied about
drunkenly driving off a road.
-
- Demonstrably, it is never what a politician does that
creates a scandal; it is always whether the television networks and major
metropolitan newspapers respond to the incident with saturation coverage.
When a presidential candidate who was committed to deregulating the corporate
media got caught lying about breaking the law, the importance of the event
was minimized. When a presidential candidate who was committed to breaking
up the corporate media got caught shouting at a pep rally, the importance
of the event was maximized.
-
- The scream that had the greatest impact on the Democratic
presidential campaign was not Dean's gonzo yell in Iowa, but the deafening
roar of deceit that emanated from Corporate America's media subsidiaries.
The downfall of the Democratic frontrunner was not self-induced; it was
self-defense. Dean had threatened to mess with General Electric, Viacom,
Disney, the New York Times Company, the Washington Post Company, et al.,
so they messed with him first.
-
- Such corporate vigilance is inconsistent with the principles
of American democracy, but welcome to the real world. In a dictatorship,
the tiny minority of well-armed people maintains absolute power by intimidating
the vast majority of unarmed people. In a democracy that is populated by
citizens who get their information from a few greedy companies, the tiny
minority of well-informed people maintains absolute power by manipulating
the vast majority of misinformed people. When you control what people think,
there is no need to point a gun at them.
-
- In recent years, corporations have dramatically increased
their power at the expense of the average citizen (and with the apathetic
complicity of the average citizen). Big Business has evolved from merely
being a vital part of society into being master of both the political system
and the means of communication. As a result, the boundaries of the national
debate are now defined by the interests of the Fortune 500, and the malefactors
of great wealth have become increasingly brazen. Americans used to laugh
at banana republics, where the ruling elites are so shamelessly debauched
that judges go on duck hunting trips with the politicians whose cases they
are scheduled to review, but it doesn't seem quite so funny anymore.
-
- After the last presidential election, the corporate functionaries
on the Supreme Court overrode the will of the people by empowering the
man who had lost. It was an awkward procedure, so the process has been
refined. In 2004, the mainstream media is rapidly disqualifying all the
candidates who fail to honor the business agenda, thus eliminating the
need for another controversial judicial intervention.
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- Howard Dean's campaign now lies in ruins because he chose
to confront the multinational conglomerates that run this country. If Dean
is so resilient that he fights his way back into contention, the Fourth
Estate will be ready to batter him again. In the United States of America,
people who pose a threat to the reigning corporate establishment are destroyed.
Or, as the Soviets used to put it, emotionally unstable individuals who
deviate from the party line are guilty of engaging in "self-destruction".
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- http://www.makethemaccountable.com/podvin/media/040201_TheScream.htm
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-
- Comment
- From M Johnson - Hawaii
- 2-12-4
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- I disagree with Mr Podvin's otherwise excellent article
on one point. Dean's demise was initiated before The Scream, though that
incident, blown out of proportion and aired almost 700 times, was used
to finish him.
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- No, Dean was a media darling until the fateful moment
he had the temerity to suggest "even-handed" polices regarding
Israel and the Palestinians. This moment of common sense, honesty, fairness
and human decency launched a series of shrill attacks from both Lieberman
and Kerry, who were beside themselves over the insidious idea that Jews
and Arabs should be treated equally, and in fact might even be the same
species. The Democratic party, with its funding coming in a large part
from wealthy Jewish contributors (some estimates make this 50 to 75% of
all contributions), immediately began to smear Dean. It seems the party
of human rights, equality and justice (to which I belong) has its limits.
Some people, apparently, are just not worthy of these ideals, especially
if it means getting in the way of Israel.
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- We can of course deny this, and will surely do so, but
it is dishonest and transparent. I have long ceased to wonder why "they"
hate us.
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