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May 19 , 2004 - Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Valley&State Backpage O&E Sports Archives Classifieds Faith&Beliefs Obituaries Revels February 25, 2004 Media is choosing Kerry, losing key ideals of others By Ron Hulteen Ashland I wish more of my fellow Democrats would wake up and realize how they are being manipulated by Republican media moguls. This manipulation is made possible by the frightening concentration of media outlets in the hands of a few billionaires. Our very democracy is threatened by these conglomerates. Thomas Jefferson often stated that our democracy would not last without a free "press" and an educated, well-informed electorate. Mass media is anything but free. Voters ceased to be properly educated when TV news organizations became part of the "Entertainment Divisions" of the broadcast networks. The downside of freedom of the press is that mass communicators do not have to tell the truth. Now that mega-corporations own and run TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, movies, and even Internet portals, they can - and do - foster the collective ignorance of voters. Now they are trying to manipulate Democrats across the country into nominating the presidential candidate that the corporations want Bush to face. Before the Iowa caucuses, both Dean and Kucinich pledged to stop the mergers and acquisitions that lead to the concentration of media power. Did the corporate media moguls take this lying down? Hardly. They did not see Kucinich being high enough in the polls or getting enough money to consider him an imminent threat, so they simply turned him into the man who was not there. You had to make an extreme effort thereafter to see his name in print or even to see what he looked like. Dean, however, was then the front-runner, so his train had to be derailed. First came the repeated mantra that he was "unelectable," which is the kiss of death to undecided anti-Bush Democrats. Their propaganda ploy was intensified a few days before the Iowa caucuses. Then when Dean gave his pep-talk to supporters after the disappointing showing in Iowa, the media - AOL Time-Warner's CNN; News Corp's Fox; GE's NBC, MSNBC, and CNBC; Viacom's CBS; Disney's ABC, and others - dampened the sound of his supporters' chants, referred to his Vermont Green Mountain Boys' cheer as a "screech," replayed a tiny portion of his "screech" over 600 times in two days (just before the New Hampshire primary), and put out headlines asking if Dean has trouble with his "temper." I would bet that most people who heard about Dean's "screech" never heard about its context or the fact that "temper" had nothing to do with it. After the media turned Kucinich into The Invisible Candidate, they made Dean The Unstable Candidate. When Kerry, the candidate who did not take on the media, won a few delegates here and there but was still more than a thousand short of the nomination, he was repeatedly crowned as the "likely nominee" in all the media, and daily headlines asked "When Will Dean And Kucinich Quit?" I am not opposed to John Kerry per se, and I will work for his successful bid if he is the nominee. However, not only do I resent having the Republican media decide the Democratic candidate, but I fear all that this implies for the future. If Kerry is going to be the nominee, then it is essential for supporters of Dean and Kucinich to apply, and keep applying, pressure to Kerry to refuse to be further manipulated by the Republican propaganda mill. If Kerry and the rest of the Democrats do not wake up, he will end up like McGovern, Mondale, and Dukakis as a footnote to history; and if, despite Republican manipulation of the election, he takes the White House, it is absolutely imperative that he embrace the "trust-busting" philosophies of Dean and Kucinich while it is still possible to do so. DailyTidings.com Home Page Valley&State | Backpage | O&E | Sports | Archives | Weather | Classifieds Columnists | Faith&Beliefs | Obituaries | Revels | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2004 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Site Search: .:Advertisements:. RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams