In the U.S., where appeals (emails, letters, phone calls, public demonstrations, votes) to powerful persons and organizations to behave in rational and responsible fashion etc. are evidently having little or no effect, there remains one extremely effectively tool of resistance that we the people may yet wield against those who are hellbent on dragging the U.S. into the neo-Dark Ages: money.
For years now, Fox News has been at the forefront of the campaign to turn the majority of Americans into a bunch of ignorant and brainwashed flagwavers, in service mainly of distracting them from the facts that (a) the present system of unregulated corporate capitalism has screwing them over as a necessary concomitant of its primary goal of increasing and maintaining the wealth and power of the already obscenely wealthy and powerful few; and (b) the policies of the present administration, being constituted and controlled by the wealthy and powerful few and thus having the primary goal of unregulated corporate capitalism as its primary goal, have resulted in what is, across the board, the most incompetent squandering of resources and betraying of the public trust that has been experienced in the course of U.S. history.
Fox News, of course, has been guilty of the most astonishing jingoism and stomach-turning sycophantism vis-a-vis the criminally incompetent George Bush, his handlers and his lackeys, and part and parcel of their modus operandi is the dissemination of propaganda so grossly fact-impaired that when a New Zealand friend's father accidentally came across the station, he thought it was a satire. Anyone working for that network should be ashamed to show their face in public; but of course anyone working for that network has no shame. Now they are taking their insane campaign to destroy everything that makes the U.S. a decent place to live to new heights, in their present attacks on Ward Churchill, a CU Boulder professor, who had the temerity to point out that the trespasses of U.S. foreign policy might have had something to do with the 9-11 attacks (see here and here for info on how the regents and a certain law prof at Churchill's home institution---and one of my former alma maters---are despicably aiding in his persecution).
I've thought for some time now that we need to ALL hit Fox News in the only way it will feel the pain---by boycotting anyone who advertises on it. Thankfully, Ian Proops informs me that a boycott campaign has started: SkinTheFox. Each week there is a target corporation; this week it is Office Depot. To be sure, none of us should be shopping at any of these big box stores anyway; as one of the most powerful arms of unregulated corporate capitalism these stores have destroyed countless local businesses, with the result that our economy has turned into a pathetic service economy, consisting mainly of dead end, deadly dull jobs having poor wages and few benefits; and our cities and towns are fast becoming charmless uniform wastelands. Though it may take some effort, in general one CAN patronize only local businesses if one commits to doing so (as Benj and I have). But in any case now you have another reason not to shop at life-destroying national chain stores: they support Fox News and all it does and does not stand for.
Please take the time to explore the SkinTheFox site; take note in particular of this list of companies presently advertising on Fox News and first, DO NOT PATRONIZE THEM; second, LET THEM KNOW THAT YOU ARE NOT PATRONIZING THEM BECAUSE THEY ADVERTISE ON FOX NEWS. The liberty you save may be your own.
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