We’re all angry about FOX News excluding Ron Paul from the forum because they don’t like his political views. We’d love to poke FOX News in the eye, but let’s be realistic about our options.
Someone suggested we all sell shares of News Corp, but that will neither hurt FOX News nor help Ron Paul.
Most of us don’t own any shares, but some of us could shift funds in our 401k accounts to eliminate any holdings,
and others can sell shares short.
I’m skeptical, but let’s say we manage to get 10,000 people to sell an average of $10,000 each, a total of $100,000,000.
That’s one hundred million dollars.
News Corp has a market capitalization of $20 billion, so we’d be selling 0.5% of the outstanding shares. The stock might go down a point. Someone else would notice that the valuation was slightly improved, and they would buy the shares. We all lose a bit of money, other people gain a bit of money, and News Corp laughs at us.
We could try to buy News Corp — not the stock, the company. If we could purchase 5% of News Corp, we might have a small influence on their programming. We’d need $1,000,000,000 to pull it off. That’s one billion dollars. Probably beyond our means.
Someone at News Corp has to be laughing by now.
Threatening to boycott FOX’s advertisers is a waste of time. 10,000 out of 300,000,000 Americans is 0.003%. That’s three thousandths of one percent — not a huge threat. Let’s say thousands of us write hundreds of letters each. We could conceivably influence a company or two to stop advertising for a while. Is that going to change their programming?
We could get 1,000 supporters to fly to Los Angeles and hold a rally at the News Corp headquarters. For a few hundred dollars each, a few hundred thousand dollars in total, we could probably get a brief mention on the non-FOX evening news. The juice just isn’t worth the squeeze.
If we waste our time bashing FOX News instead of promoting Ron Paul, then FOX News gets what they wanted. No one hears Ron Paul’s message.
Let’s do something productive.
If 100 of us take our “vacation” volunteering in Florida during the 3 weeks between the New Hampshire and Florida primaries, if we each work an average of 40 hours, and if each hour brings 10 additional votes, that’s 40,000 additional votes for Ron Paul. Assuming turnout similar to the 699,317 who voted in the Republican primary in Florida in 2000, we could increase Ron Paul’s percentage by 6%. That could be the difference between fourth and second place, which would dramatically improve Ron Paul’s coverage during the critical week before super-duper-Tuesday.
Hey, that could actually work!
Of course, we can probably get more than 100 volunteers, and it doesn’t have to just be Florida. Improved vote totals in any of the early states — Michigan, South Carolina, Nevada, Florida, Maine — can make a huge difference.
This is a unique and amazing moment in history. We have the technology to wipe ourselves from the surface of the Earth, and we don’t yet have the political systems in place to stop us from doing so. Our leaders say the answer is perpetual war and totalitarian control — throw away the Constitution — and the masses blindly follow. Of course, if you’re reading this you already know that liberty is the solution, and the Ron Paul R3volution might be the only chance we get.
As in the first American Revolution, our early battles have gone badly: Iowa, Wyoming, and most dishearteningly the “Live Free or Die” state of New Hampshire. Nevertheless, we cannot give up, as the stakes are just too great. Those who fought the first American Revolution risked their lives with absolutely no certainty of success. They look so proud in all the paintings. How do you stack up against the founding fathers? What are you willing to risk?
Rather than thinking about FOX News, think about your place in the history books. Will you take vacation time right now to volunteer in one of the early primary states? Each person can legally contribute $2,300 to the campaign and a total of $40,000 to various Political Action Committees (PACs). Will you borrow against your 401k or take a second mortgage on your house to do so? You might have to retire a year or two later than planned.
Forget FOX News. Let’s win the second American R3volution! Let’s put Ron Paul in the White House!
This article should in no way be taken to suggest any illegal action by anyone. This is a peaceful r3volution.