USA: ELECTIONS

makethemaccountable: THE SCREAM

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.