"Give Us Barrabas"

[CWebster]

"Not since 2000 have I been so loath to read, listen or watch the corporate media – the weapon of assassination not just of Howard Dean but also of the message he embodies. An insurgent populist who did an end run around the media that guard and hold hostage the popular consciousness, he was to be stopped. Anyone who speaks boldly with intelligence and vision and who can galvanize a large section of the population will be destroyed. Is it conspiratorial or an unconscious reflex? To be debated. But the fact is the distance between Palm Sunday and the crucifixion is a handful of days. The crowd is now yelling - Give us Barrabas. Kerry is both Barrabas - and Judas.

The message the media is sending to America and to any prospective future candidates is that they are to say nothing important – stand for nothing important. The more homogenized, the more passable. The botox for Kerry is not just cosmetic – it speaks volumes. The sash on Ms. Heinz-Kerry also speaks – it says royalty. The cool detached and queenly benevolent deference to the people is a favor more than a civic duty or passion. Kerry has appropriated and sanitized much of Dean’s original message. He has reduced it to something that sounds like a battle cry but is really an echo.

Kerry, as a congressman, spoke at my adult father’s graduation from college in the Berkshires. I thought then he had nothing to say – and he said it – and not much has changed. He voted for the war out of fear and calculation and those motivations are as deeply entrenched as his facial lines used to be. Nothing wrong with facial lines – sometimes they signal character. It’s interesting that someone in his makeover camp considers them liabilities.

The parental pantheons of our culture are not interested in what we think we want but in telling us what we ought to want. The ostensible free elections are more like a herding process. Men on horseback with whistles, yelps and ropes ride the herd in the direction that ultimately, as we all know, ends in confinement and sometimes slaughter. "



http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0202-03.htm

[ProfessorPlum]

1. Yeah, it sucks, but

counting on a fair media to help out is a losing game plan, and it isn't and wasn't Dean's. He knows he has to battle the media, his opponents, and Bush, and he continues to do it with energy and vigor.

If Dean can't survive this piling on, he wouldn't have been able to beat Bush.

Let's see how things turn out before we start getting too bitter.

[kayob1]

2. Thank you for posting.

Sad, but true.

[JasonDeter]

3. Gore was savaged and still won. You can't give Dean a complete pass.

I agree the media are whores who are traitors to our Representive form of govt but Dean played it to tame in Iowa and got his butt kicked and more importantly over estimated his support in that state.

[Casablanca]

20. Clinton was savaged on the Lewinisky affair, and the public ...

Still supported him.

The Rove corporate media is still very beatable.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

4. All too true.

Anyone who thinks there isn't a corporate/media/political establishment that protects it's own interests has been feeding botox to their brains to erase all those unsightly wrinkles.

[blm]

5. Bill Davis is a stupid idiot, if he doesn't know the historic impact of

John Kerry or acknowledge that Kerry has exposed more government corruption than ANY other lawmaker in modern history.

He thinks DEAN is historic? He never heard of Ross Perot or Jerry Brown. Dean's campaign is Perot/Brown united.

[AntiCoup2K4]

9. You keep playing that broken record about Kerry "exposing corruption"

...and yet the Bush Criminal Empire is stronger than ever. Why is that?

Guess Kerry didn't expose much after all, did he?

[ibegurpard]

10. That wasn't Kerry's fault

apparently

[blm]

11. No. History books will tell the story.

How do YOU know about the BFEE?

Would you prefer Kerry had NOT investigated and exposed BCCI, IranContra and CIA drufrunning?

Ever hear of the pardons Bush1 was forced to give to get out of the trials? You want to blame Kerry for exposing them or the system that allowed for them to escape?

You think people should be excited to hear smears against Kerry for the thousandth time but not hear about his place in history?

[goobergunch]

13. What has Kerry done in the last 10 years?

The historic stuff is all well and good, but what has he done lately? We should elect a President for the 21st Century, not the 20th.

[blm]

16. Then you should be glad he worked on the Kyoto Protocol for 10 years

with other world leaders.

You should be glad he helped draft the Hate Crimes bill and the CHIPS bill.

You should be glad he advocated for exfelons to get their voting rights back after serving their time.

Surely you must have known these things, goobergunch. Didn't you research the candidates thoroughly before you decided?

[goobergunch]

26. Okey-dokey

Ex-felons have not yet received voting rights, so that's hardly an accomplishment.

The Kyoto Protocol is also failing to be implemented almost anywhere.

I can't find information on either the CHIPS bill or the Hate Crimes bill on either THOMAS or Kerry's website.

It seems that Kerry has done most of his work recently on the Small Business committee.

[blm]

30. He SHOULDN'T have worked on Kyoto because Bush would take office in 2001

and reject it?

Is THAT your point? Noone should work towards solutions of global proportions because a later GOP president will just nix the whole idea? Will the work be worthwhile when a Dem president takes over and will you credit Kerry then?

Not many advocate for felons or exfelons, it's not a popular constituency. Just like he was the first Senator to advocate for gays in 1985, Kerry found himself mostly alone advocating for unpopular causes, but it moves the ball forward. Even to the point where 15 years later a governor can sign a civil unions bill.

So, you prefer Kerry work on issues that are popular and EASY to pass, and mock him for advocating for progressive issues?

[Atlant]

33. And look how well that's gone!

> Then you should be glad he worked on the Kyoto Protocol for 10 years
> with other world leaders.

And look how well that's gone! Why, only this year, the US is reducing
CO₂ emissions by, umm, err, nevermind!


> You should be glad he advocated for exfelons to get their
> voting rights back after serving their time.

Another shining example of how effective Kerry has been! It's
his work, afterall, that caused us to win in Florida!

Atlant

[JNelson6563]

28. Kerry the great BFEE expert

who had no idea the boy king would "fuck up" Iraq. Oy!

Julie

[kaitykaity]

6. Best article I've read so far explaining what has happened.

Spot on 100%.

If we nominate Kerry, we will deserve what we get. (And it won't
be pretty.)

[bigtree]

7. Smarmy attacks purporting to set the record straight

Crocodile tears about negative campaining. This article is nothing more than a petty attack on John Kerry, worthy of an RNC hit man.

This is a revealing quote from the article:

"The parental pantheons of our culture are not interested in what we think we want but in telling us what we ought to want."

Physician heal thyself!

[DemocratSinceBirth]

8. Why Would A Man Dis Somebody's Wife...?

That speaks volumes about the author

[Southsideirish]

15. Oh, please! She has put herself out there - she is, then, fair game.

n/t

[DemocratSinceBirth]

27. Would It Be Correct If The Author Said Some Of The Candidate's Wives Are

Double Baggers?


I don't think so even though there are at least one or two in the race..


It'a a ugly, cheap shot...

[edzontar]

12. This pretty much nails it on the head...

And expresses the desapir that so many of us who hoped for a REAL change in this benighted country feel as we watch the puke-corporate steamroller do its work, and the empty, faded candidacy of John Kerry rise to embrace us in its cool arms of death, er, defeat.....

Kerry's rise is emblematic of this nation's decline......judt as his IWr vote and soulless message of nothingness sounds the death-knell for a once-great party.

I mourn for this nation, and for the rare opportunity we seem to have squandered...

[blm]

17. Yeah, for braindead but wordy playwrights who feel aggrieved

while COMPLETELY ignorant of any real history.

Dean is as historic as Jerry Brown and ross Perot.

Pure HOGWASH.

[Southsideirish]

14. Brilliant piece - I could grab this guy and kiss him. Kudos to Davis.

[poskonig]

18. I guess Dean would be *Christ* then...

:shrug:

[D G]

24. You hadn't figured that out yet?

Dean is the ultimate victim and martyr of the Democratic Party. :eyes:

The more I look at the whole Dean "movement" the more it seems to be about glorying in victimization.

[AntiCoup2K4]

25. Well, he's not the Son of God, but...

..they certainly are trying to crucify him, aren't they. And then, just as now, there's a Judas leading the way.

[blm]

31. The press MADE Dean. He was a false god created by them.

I feel sorry for those who devoted themselves to the false media god, like this poor deluded critter, Bill Davis who is completely ignorant of history.

[cthrumatrix]

19. funny how the "alternative media" see this and mainstream does not...

at the same time DU'ers alwasy complain about mainstream media

[Lexingtonian]

21. well....

Jesus didn't bear false witness about others. Watching Dean call other Democratic candidates Republicans, on the other hand....

[mzmolly]

22. Wow, how very interesting, Thanks C!!!

"Make the case – go after the frontrunner who really is more of a front than a runner..."

[jansu]

23. Republicans say they really don't want to run against Kerry...

Glad to hear such a well thought out post, from those who are questioning the "why" of the "Get Dean" reporting. It goes beyond getting the front runner. I posted a couple of ones on this subject, Vote your choice and who owns the media, which agrees with your views.

Since the Republicans have lied about almost everything else, why would anyone believe them when they say "We look forward to running against Dean and we would really hate to run against Kerry"?

[Cheswick2.0]

29. I guess this person really doesn't like Kerry

I have to say I agree with him. To me Kerry symbolizes everything I hate about my own party. I got an eduction working for several campaigns in 2002. There is a whole side of the democratic party which is both arrogant and stupid at the same time. Yet people continue to accept being herded.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

32. DU Needs To Start A New Room For The Kerry Bashers

Then they can holler back at each other what the other wants to hear....

Kind of like the Rush Limbaugh phenomenon...


<kisses>

Brian

[quaker bill]

35. Just like the way they started a room for the Dean bashers

Kind of like the Brush lintballs phenomenon...

[quaker bill]

34. Thanks for the link to the

excellent article

[Ripley]

36. I think it's funny how Kerry sends his relatives here to defend him.

I guess it's like him sending old man Kennedy around to defend him...

What's that word I'm looking for...apathy...that is what this next election will be covered with. Kerry does and says nothing that will bring anyone to the polls except the regular party flunkies. Too bad it won't be enough to win.