Monday, November 3, 2008

Nader Got 581,000 Votes In 1996

Of the minority (48 percent) of registered voters who bothered voting in the Media Monopoly-rigged 1996 U.S. presidential election, more apparently voted for Ralph Nader per campaign dollar spent in 1996 than voted for either the Democratic Party presidential candidate or the Republican Party presidential candidate. Although Nader’s campaign spent less than $5,000 in 1996, nearly 581,000 people voted for Nader—over 100 votes won for each campaign dollar spent. In California, for example, over 214,000 people voted for Nader in 1996, with 11 percent of all the voters in Mendocino-County, California casting their ballots for Nader in 1996.

(Downtown/Aquarian Weekly 11/20/96, 11/27/96, 12/4/96)

Time Warner/CNN/Time Inc.’s Post-1952 Political Influence Historically

Time Inc.’s C.D. Jackson, along with Time-Life’s European correspondent, Emmet Hughes, was loaned by Time Inc. Founder Henry Luce to the successful 1952 Eisenhower presidential campaign staff. Time-Life’s former European correspondent then served as U.S. President Eisenhower’s speechwriter for two years before returning to Time Inc. as a Fortune magazine staff writer, until he subsequently became former New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller’s political adviser. Luce had also contributed $13,000 [in 1950s money] to Eisenhower’s 1952 presidential election campaign.

During the 1952 Stevenson vs. Eisenhower presidential campaign, according to an article by Joseph Epstein in Commentary magazine’s November 1967 issue, titled “Henry Luce And His Time,” “the political bias of Time magazine “extended all the way down to photographs.” Epstein noted that media analyst Ben Bagdikian had pointed out that “in the 13 issues published during the campaign, Time printed 21 photographs of Eisenhower, all generally attractive, shaking hands, smiling that winning smile, looking altogether earnest and mellow and wise. But during the same period there appeared only 13 photographs of Stevenson…Four showed him in such infelicitous poses as eating, drinking and frowning.”

Although Time Inc. endorsed Richard Nixon during the 1960 Nixon vs. Kennedy presidential contest, Henry Luce was also a close friend of JFK’s father, Joseph P. Kennedy, and Luce had utilized his media empire during the 1950s to transform John F. Kennedy into a media-star and Democratic Party presidential nominee. According to Henry R. Luce And The Rise of The American News Media by James Baughman, in the 1930s “Joseph Kennedy began a family tradition of winning allies in the fourth estate,” Luce’s publications “had usually treated Joseph Kennedy and his family admiringly” and Henry Luce wrote the introduction to John F. Kennedy’s first book, Why England Slept. The Henry R. Luce And The Rise of The American News Media book also noted that on “the night John Kennedy delivered his acceptance speech before the Democratic convention, his father watched the event on Luce’s television set in New York” and at JFK’s inaugural ball Henry Luce and his wife, Claire Booth Luce, “sat in Joseph Kennedy’s box.”…

A former Time magazine staff writer, John Tirman, in an August 1981 Progressive magazine article, “Doing Time,” recalled how former Time magazine Editor-in-Chief Henry Grunwald pressured his Time Inc. editorial subordinates to turn an article on consumer rights advocate [and 2008 independent presidential candidate] Ralph Nader into a journalistic hatchet job:

“Earlier in the week, I had been assigned a story on what had become of Ralph Nader…The senior editor of the Business Section, George Church, had left the story largely intact, and we were waiting word from the `top’ editors, the final judgment for all Time articles.

“At about 9 o’clock, Associate Editor Jim Grant came to my cubicle to tell me the Nader story was in trouble: The `34th floor’ wanted the story changed. Even to a Time neophyte the message was clear: The company brass presiding over Time Incorporated from the 34th floor, corporate editor Henry Grunwald had spoken.

“`What does Grunwald want?’ I asked Grant.

“`A hatchet job,’ he said.

“I hurried to Church’s office…Church paused, swallowed a mouthful of Dewar’s White Label, and sighed. `Henry Grunwald,’ he said, `just hates Ralph Nader.’ And that was that. Church went to work on the copy, shifting sentences, honing the ridicule. And the sharpened ax of Time did fall on Nader…”

(Downtown 1/29/92)

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