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Back to ArticlesGNN: 'Countdown'
My first thought when watching "Countdown" – GNN’s newsvideo featuring 2000 Green Party candidate Ralph Nader sinking his teeth into American media and politics – was, "Damn. If this had been his campaign ad, ol’ Ralph might’ve won!"
And this is the beauty of Guerilla News Network, and its unique take on the images and sound-bites that invade nearly every hour our waking consciousness. Between Beastie Boy Ad-Rock’s samples and beats, footage from protests in Seattle and GNN’s own video-scratching techniques, Nader’s indictment of the nightly news suddenly hits home.
"Countdown" was created not as an endorsement of Nader or the Greens, but as a bookmark in time to rival inauguration coverage of George W. Bush, whom many saw as an illegitimate winner in a chaotic election.
Indeed, the past two years have seen Nader fade from the public eye, still ridiculed as a radical leftist by conservatives, and blamed by many Democrats as a spoiler whose 2000 run diluted liberal support for their man, Al Gore, costing him the White House in one of the closest presidential election in history.
While Nader’s return to the political landscape remains in question, "Countdown" shows Ralph at his best. A longtime consumer advocate, he captured national attention with his 1965 book "Unsafe at Any Speed", and has consistently sharpened his skill at revealing dark truths about Big Business and Big Media in America.
GNN takes his message and preserves it in a form that defies political spin and reveals the American media machine for the self-parody it is.