Occupy the Airwaves [View all]

[Pab Sungenis]

http://cnx.com/?p=1668



With the Occupy movement forced out of its locations in America’s cities, the activists have been shifting their gears from long-term semi-permanent protests, such as flash mobs, “mic checks” at right wing speeches, and anti-foreclosure actions.

All of these are worthy actions and need to continue, but there is one area where the Occupy energy and tenacity should be brought into play, and that is opposing the radio stations that spew right-wing propaganda 24 hours a day. Even in “liberal friendly” cities like San Francisco the few remaining populist and progressive voices are being forced off the air by corporate conglomerates that don’t want any opposing viewpoints to their shilling for the entrenched economic and political powers that be.

So I offer a modest proposal: occupy the airwaves.

Identify the right-wing propaganda stations in your town and market (it shouldn’t be hard; they’re all over the AM dial). Make lists of their local sponsors. And then bring the good old American tradition of economic pressure to bear.

No, I’m not talking about boycotts. Boycotts don’t work. What I’m talking about is something more powerful. I’m talking about direct occupation of the sponsors of right-wing hate radio.

Once you have a good list of sponsors, start identifying the prime targets: the local businesses that run the most spots on the station. Especially high traffic ones like restaurants and car dealers. Then organize an occupation, protesting outside the businesses one by one during their business hours until they stop funding the right-wing message and pull their ads off of right-wing talk radio.

If we make it unprofitable for small, local stations to carry hate programming like Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage, then eventually some of them will have to drop those programs to survive. And bit by bit we will deny the 1% their propaganda outlets.

It’s an idea whose time has come.