Yawn. Another mass shooting, this one clearly aimed at Black people and just as clearly mixing in some ugly white supremacy with easy-to-buy killing instruments.
Oh, and a young white male is the villain. Shocking!
Heaven forbid that anyone take any responsibility or that anything substantial will be done. America has "voted" as a society that these frequent mass killings are simply the price the nation must pay for, well, freedom. Abortions are just not "sporting," I guess, while gunning down adults and young children is part of our trade-off for being able to live as we wish.
Video game violence is not the root of the gun violence epidemic, but lonely young males pushing each other to more extreme expressions of violence are likely mixing game violence with the real world.
America now possesses nearly half of all guns in the entire world, more than one gun per American. We are quite crazy, and we are paralyzed, unable to do anything to reduce gun violence, not to mention rising racist conspiracy theories. Hearts and prayers, everyone.
There is no one solution to be pursued, but there is a clear connection between the rise of FOX News and its increasingly racist underpinnings to at least consider one practical action: put pressure on Fox advertisers to simply spend their ad dollars elsewhere.
Fox may be home to America's most insidious media racists, but the owners of the network value money more than any ideology. No television network is immune to advertisers taking their dollars elsewhere. Forget freedom of speech. If the network starts losing money as advertisers flee, changes will occur. The worst voices will be silenced or modified.
A TV network is not going to "stand on principal" once the principal threatens financial gains. The same may be true of entire countries.
McDonald's invested billions in Russia and is now selling its franchises, withdrawing its global branding, etc. Many other American corporations have already managed to do the same, at least for now. When in doubt, follow the money.
When corporations buy ad time for, say, the Tucker Carlson show on Fox, they are de facto endorsing his racist, radical views. Corporations can claim that they are doing whatever they can to reach potential customers, but even a highly rated show like Carlson's brings in about 3 million viewers per night. That is a significant number, but still is less than one percent of all Americans.
We need some sort of organization to help people keep tabs on companies that continue to keep the Fox opinion machine running. Then consumers can take action.
I feel the same way about Twitter, BTW, despite it being dominated by liberal posters. If a large number of people deleted their accounts, the company's leadership would immediately take notice. I see that Musk is holding off on his purchase of Twitter until he is satisfied that their reported total users are not artificially inflated by "bots."
We should find it quite appealing to consider undermining a multi-billionaire's purchase of Twitter by just not using the platform. Humans love to see the mighty brought low.
Twitter is a cesspool. But so is Facebook. And Fox News? Duh.
My quick research shows that Tucker Carlson already has very few sponsors left, but a wider boycott by American companies might get Fox executives thinking of their future.
Anything would be better than nothing at this point.
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