Occupy the Media!

Occupy the Media!

January 4th, 2012

Friends and lovers of liberty,

This is a long post, but it has to be said. I want to make 100% sure I am doing everything and thinking of every way to help Ron Paul get elected. I am not personally attached to this idea at all. I just want to be effective and do what is best for Ron Paul and liberty. I am asking people in this community to read this post in its entirety and help further develop and vet the idea to see if it will even work.

I'm sure we would all agree the MSM has a blackout going against Ron Paul. In my opinion this is likely the single greatest threat to his candidacy other than the vote being stolen. If Ron Paul were to get balanced and fair coverage from the MSM then surely people would wake up to his message and he would be our next president (unless the vote is stolen, but that's a different conversation and strategy). Not only is the media blacking him out, they are actively trying to control the image that is being put forth and fed to us. You might be saying well it's the MSM and they are controlled by the 'powers that be' who controls pretty much everything so how can we possibly take on this Goliath and win? Is a lawsuit the answer? Boycott? Lots of letters and emails? I don't think so.

I have been a political activist and strategist for 20 years and have followed Ron Paul's career for many years as well. I am also an old Earth Firster, a Drug War activist and now activist film producer. I also call myself an Occupier and a Tea Partier. I am of the opinion that the Occupiers and the Tea Partiers are at such extreme polar opposites (far left and far right) that they actually are in alignment on several key issues such as war and the economy. And of course who doesn't love Anonymous!

I have meditated, racked my brains and talked to many of my activist friends to try and come up with an idea that would not only expose the MSM, but also help Ron Paul win the presidency. I would like the opportunity to present this idea to the Ron Paul community in hopes of further developing the idea and vetting it in such a way to make sure it is going to not only be effective, but also a positive thing for the campaign. In other words I would like to share this idea with all of you and ask for your help in making it a better idea and making sure that this will help and not hurt the campaign. The idea is well developed already but not fully developed to the point where I feel personally like it is 100% solid. Of course with activism you never know what will happen, but there are some 'calculated risks' that can be taken and certain assumptions can be made. More on this later.

I have come up with an idea that I think might unite both the Occupy movement and the Tea Party movement around Ron Paul's candidacy in a way which exposes the corporate media as fraudulent and gives both movements a target for their activism, which will not undermine Occupy's strategy of not having any agenda or stated goals. What I mean by this is that the Occupy movement does not have one particular agenda, which has been a huge part of it's success. It is all encompassing and non-exclusive. Anyone with a cause can be part of the Occupy movement. I think this was rather brilliant of Anonymous to set it up this way from the beginning. The Tea Partiers have more of an agenda, but theirs is still rather open and non-specific. They are very grassroots like the Occupiers and are loosely organized.

Both the Occupy movement and the Tea Party movement loathe the MSM. We know this for a fact. This is one of the things that can unite both movements around Ron Paul's candidacy. I am suggesting that by implementing this idea we can unite the Occupy movement and the Tea Party movement around the idea that the MSM is blacking out Ron Paul in one of the most important news events this year, which is the Primary election. Even if people were not Ron Paul supporters I think they would still be supporters of having Ron Paul get equal time in the media, and supporters of the concept of the MSM being unfair and unbalanced if we can clearly prove this to them. Even Rush Limbaugh suggested to his followers in 2009 that they make their next object of protest the MSM. He even called for Tea Party activists to hold rallies at the MSM corporate headquarters.

This idea is based in an assumption that the mainstream news media is blacking out coverage of Ron Paul. This assumption can be proven. Just on the Daily Paul forum alone there are enough posts and information that can be compiled to show proof of the Ron Paul media blackout. If we put the word out to people and have them contact us and send us links and proof of the MSM blackout then I'm sure we can compile quite a 'case study'.

The next thing we do is to develop a website, which can have information on the MSM about how they are controlled by a few corporations, control everything that we think, etc, etc but we can have Ron Paul as a case study on why this is going to affect everyone negatively. I think we could get almost everyone to agree with the concept that all four of the remaining (or however many there would be when this happened) candidates should get equal and fair coverage. I know some people will try and say "but Ron Paul isn't going to win anyways so why should be give him any coverage at all". The argument that Ron Paul could win if he was to be given equal and fair coverage would be like asking which came first the chicken or the egg. On one hand you will have people saying that he won't win anyways so why give him equal coverage. On the other hand if he's not given equal coverage how can we say with any degree of fairness to the process that he can't win?

Back to the website. It should be simple and not too overwhelming. We can't make it just about Ron Paul because then people will think that it is a campaign tactic. This is much bigger than that. Yes Ron Paul is our case study, but that is because one of the single most important events on TV today (the GOP contest) is not being covered in a fair and balanced way and here's proof of that. The Ron Paul case study would be an easy argument to make to anyone who took the time to read the proof and see for themselves what is happening.

This website should be at; www.occupythemedia.com hence the name of this action! The guy who owns this domain name lives in NYC (check the whois info) and needs to be contacted. Right now he is doing nothing with the domain name. He hasn't built a site as far as I know. I think it is likely that he is an Occupier and also supports Ron Paul so I would guess that he could donate the domain name. I could build the site myself or maybe someone else out there could do this. I know we could get funding for this if we can get some kind of agreement amongst enough people on this website and others who would be willing to participate in this action. I will contact him soon unless someone else can get to it first. There are other names we can use that are free such as blackoutthemedia.com and others.

Once people went to the site and saw for themselves proof of the media blackout of one of the most important news events today then we could ask them to take specific action. One of these specific actions would be 'sign waving', which I am about to explain. But there could be other things we ask of people like help with the Ron Paul campaign, fundraising, etc.

So how do we get people to come to this website? Here is part of what I think the beauty of this direct action is. Here is what we do;

In every state from now on wherever there is a GOP primary or caucus we inspire people to make signs that say 'www.occupythemedia.com'. Once they make (or print off the website) the occupythemedia.com sign then they follow around the three major news media outlets. This would be CNN, Fox, MSNBC. I would not suggest doing this to local media even if they are an affiliate. Only the biggest MSM media. The more simple our action the more potent it will be. We will dilute our action if we go after every news organization we can. We have to be specific about who we go after. I am suggesting going after the biggest three MSM.

All we have to do then is to position ourselves directly in back of the reporter when they are doing live interviews. You already see this all the time. There are countless people in the background during live MSM broadcasts holding Ron Paul and other signs. I am suggesting that we get as close as we can and hold the same sign with only one message on it;

occupythemedia.com

If you got too close or in front of the reporter you might get arrested. I am not suggesting this. That would be disrespectful and surely feed into the bad image/stereotyping the MSM already tries to conjure up about Occupiers and the Tea Party. A person would just need to position themselves in the background of the live broadcast. Talk about free advertising!

This action is completely non-violent and legal. All we have to do is get people to go back to our website. If we can do this by using the MSM against themselves then I think this is pretty ironic. We use them against themselves by holding up signs with our website during their live broadcasts at GOP events, and also by the stories that would come out about this specific form of activism (the sign holding itself). They will not be able to do anything about this just like they couldn't ask people with Ron Paul signs to get out of the background of their live broadcasts right now. Of course this would need to be coordinated somewhat to make sure people knew where the MSM was broadcasting live. I'm sure we could figure this out. It could be like a flash mob. We could post on the Daily Paul forum and others the schedule of the candidates and where they were going to be. Then all someone would have to do is follow the MSM around each day while they were in a particular state.

This wouldn't take that many people or that much effort. I know that many people on the Daily Paul and other websites would be willing to spend an afternoon following the MSM around with a sign if they knew that it was a powerful form of direct action that could help the campaign. By follow them around I don't mean stalking them, but rather trying to position yourself strategically in back of a reporter from one of these three MSM outlets who was doing a live broadcast. What would we do if they stopped doing live broadcasts and let's say they moved all interviews indoors and we couldn't get in. Well there are still ways to get the single message out of; www.occupythemedia.com

So how do we unite the Occupy movement and the Tea Party movement around this idea? I haven't figured this out yet but I have some ideas. I think the Tea Party movement will be easier to get support of this idea from and to support Ron Paul in general since Ron Paul is considered the intellectual founder of the Tea Party movement. I'm afraid that many of the Occupiers would still vote for Obama over Ron Paul, but this could easily change by November as more and more people feel betrayed by Obama. This requires two separate strategies and different tactics. Here is my idea for uniting the Occupy and Tea Party movements around Ron Paul;

If we could make a video that went viral, which would explain why Ron Paul is the Occupy and Tea Party movements best chance by far to give back to the 99%, then they would get it. It would have to be explained like they are kind of polar opposites and in this case opposites truly do attract. Or even that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". And that Ron Paul is the person who can give both movements what they want. I think many people already know this, especially politically savvy ones, but both movements have not been brought together around Ron Paul yet so this is troubling to me. I would say that if both the Occupy and Tea Party movements aren't able to unite somewhat under Ron Paul then he will have very little chance to win against Obama in November. Since there is no way the MSM will broadcast our message to the Occupy and Tea Party movements the only option we have is to make something that will go viral and that specifically the Occupiers and Tea Partiers will want to check out.

Who in the world could make such a video that not only would go viral but would also convince and sway even Obama lovers in the Occupy movement to come over to Ron Paul's side? Here's who could do that. They are a couple of brilliant video/music activists that might be willing to make such a thing. They have the knowledge, tools and vision to do this. I'm just not sure how much time they have or if we would need to pay them anything. They already love Ron Paul. These guys are called 'Juice Media' and they make episodes of what they are calling 'Rap News'. This stuff is amazing and these guys are still way underground. Their stuff has not even gone viral (it's about too though). Because they are not yet famous and they are Ron Paul fans they could be the perfect people to create this. Check out two videos specifically that they have made. There is a whole series, but these two are the most relevant to this idea. In order to understand this part of the idea you need to watch both these videos;

http://www.youtube.com/user/thejuicemedia#p/u/0/j-rxe9Ayb8c

http://www.youtube.com/user/thejuicemedia#p/u/1/ELEwjVRxxGE

I have not yet contacted them. I wanted to vet this idea within this community before I even approached them. But time is not on our side. It takes awhile to make the kind of videos like they do.

I think by making a video that would essentially explain why the Occupy and Tea Party movements should support Ron Paul would be powerful tool. And I think that it will also take some real face to face meetings with the organizers of the both movements to really explain to them what we need them to do. We wouldn't even have to ask the Occupy movement to do a specific action like sign waving. But if they did end up deciding that even though they had no agenda this one particular action would be worthy of their time then WOW amazing things could happen.

The Occupy movement is concentrated in four main locations; New York City, Washington D.C., Portland and Oakland. I live in Southern Oregon and can go talk with the Occupy people in both Portland (where I am from and well known for my activism) and Oakland (where I know many people who are high level activists). Someone else would need to go to NYC and DC to talk with the Occupy movement there. What would we say? Well I'm not exactly sure. But we could make a case for supporting this action and challenging the MSM. This is another area where I would really need the help of this community. I am sure there are enough brilliant minds on Daily Paul and other sites and in the campaign itself who could help develop a strategy to talk with both movements around supporting this specific idea of direct activism.

Again it is my personal belief that if Ron Paul got equal time in the media, or even if people became aware of the blackout against Ron Paul and therefore were even more curious to learn about him, it might give us a scenario where he could win enough states and pick up enough delegates by the time of the convention that it could earn him the nomination, especially in the context of a brokered convention.

If he got the nomination and at the same time the media could no longer black him out, both because they can't get around giving equal coverage at debates if it was just Obama and him, and also because they will have already been exposed for blacking out RP in the first place, then he would likely win against Obama in November.

I am grateful to this community for being able to share this idea and see if it can gain traction here. I am not attached to any outcome except Ron Paul being our next president. Please feel free to give me suggestions, constructive criticism and just plain reasons why you don't think this idea will work. I want people to try and shoot it down with everything they've got. If the idea is still left standing and fully developed then I will move forward to make this happen. Nothing will stand in my way then!

Thank you,

Occupy the Media!

Chris Iverson
Ashland, Oregon

libertyloveroregon@gmail.com

And no, I'm not scared of the government at all. 20 years of hardcore activism and being thrown in jail for breaking bad laws will do this to you I guess. It is my duty to stand up to this tyranny. I use my real name and location to inspire others to not be scared to speak out against this oppression. Google me if you want to know more.