How We Win

[ZakCarter]

When I first realized that things were wrong in our world, I immediately wanted to fight to make things right, and I got involved in politics. I worked on a few campaigns and managed a congressional campaign.

I eventually noticed a pattern - all of the campaigns were completely ignored by the media no matter how much work we put into them, and I came to believe that until we changed the media, we’d always be on the losing end of things.

I had that belief reinforced when told that most movements that won the day in the past, had won because of something in the media that became popular with a majority of the people, and they pushed the culture, and then the culture pushed the political class.

The hippies had their music, the environmentalists have had their issues championed in everything from cartoons like Fern Gully and Captain Planet to best selling books and songs to smash hit movies like Avatar, the Occupy movement was started by the magazine Adbusters, and the American Revolution had a pamphlet.

I have no problem with anyone running for office or working on a political campaign, but if you’re just focusing on promoting liberty via political candidates and campaigns you’re putting the cart in front of the horse.

We have to find liberty media projects that have that kind of potential to reach mainstream America, help fund them, and then help connect them with the right people to help make them a success to affect long term change - just as if they were a political campaign. So far libertarians have had a few books to point to as successes, but when it’s 2015 - books just aren’t enough!

If we want to win, we have to put just as much time, money and effort into finding liberty media with mainstream potential as we do into vetting candidates and helping them win - and if we don’t we’re bound to continue being the minority that we’ve been for the past 40+ years!

So, which liberty media project are you going to adopt as your campaign and help win?!

[CaptUSA]

Understand this... The liberty movement has the best medium in the history of media. We have the internet. It's a many-to-many medium. Which means it will stay decentralized. It will take a full generation in order for it to affect the culture enough for it to change voting, but it's going to happen. It's inevitable.

Rest your mind at ease. The future is ours.

[ZakCarter]

Not a chance I'll rest my mind - if you look at which news sites are in the top 50 when it comes to online traffic - it's largely a who's who of the MSM. Even CNN, which is struggling for an audience on cable television, has massive amounts of online traffic, and sites have even more traffic, like Google and Yahoo, promote news stories from the MSM sites.... speaking of, if anyone has a Yahoo account, vote this up?

https://yahoo.uservoice.com/forums/206380-us-homepage/suggestions/6887036-feature-emmy-winning-independent-journalist-ben-sw

[tangent4ronpaul]

and sites have even more traffic, like Google and Yahoo, promote news stories from the MSM sites....

It's automated. If you catch keywords that are trending they show up in he wrong places. I've seen this done deliberately and accidentally. For example, there are coaches and college sports players named Greenwald, Snowden, Dorner, etc. What you think might happen, happens.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carriage_dispute

The issue was finally resolved with the 1992 Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act. Among its provisions, the act mandated that distributors must carry local stations who make their signal available for free, but must also get retransmission consent before a signal can be retransmitted. Mandatory retransmission consent gave broadcasters the ability to seek compensation from distributors and established the basis for carriage disputes going forward. At first, the larger broadcasters negotiated not for higher fees, but for inclusion of their newer, lesser known, non-terrestrial channels. Fox, for example, obtained distribution for FX; NBC for CNBC.[1][5] The practice has complicated carriage disputes by making bundled tiers not just a marketing choice, but a contractual obligation.[6]

Setting up a TV station can go from reasonable to very expensive. Getting a license to broadcast is the really hard part.
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/156149.html
http://www.ntia.doc.gov/legacy/otiahome/ptfp/application/EquipCost_TV.html
From the first link -- note that a set that will broadcast 10 miles should be easier to pull off, both in terms of cost and legal BS, but should still have to be picked up by distributors.

The way around the licensing is to rent, "rent" and volunteer.
Find a small station for sale and offer to rent it.
Buy infomercial/infotainment air time. In blocks it gets cheap. terrestrial distributors and sat.
Many colleges have TV stations. Get 6-8 people to enroll in the broadcast program and petition the department for their own show. "rent" in this case is tuition.
Same deal with public broadcast stations where locals propose a show and volunteer to produce it.
In the last 2 cases there are specific windows when things have to be done.

On renting, there are regional news networks that are going to be more expensive than local stations, but less than national:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_cable_news

Regional 24-hour cable news television channels that are primarily concerned with local programming and cover some statewide interest are News 14 Carolina (which operates out of North Carolina), NY1 (which operates from New York City) and Northwest Cable News (NWCN) (which operates from Seattle). New England Cable News covers the six state region of New England, while the primary core of Time Warner Cable News covers the numerous regions of Upstate New York.

Set up a web site that acts as a schedule and channel finder. Also stream content.
Have each station if we produce, do local content but also syndicate "name" content and split 1 hour broadcasts with that.

Imagine one a day:
Ron Paul
Ben Swann
Freedom Watch
Adam vs the man
The Peter Schiff show.

The other factor that is going to go down this cycle is that the RNC is really cutting back on debates. It's expected that a bunch of all inclusive alternate debates will arise from this. It's a no brainer that the League of Women Voters would jump on this as debates got stripped from them or that C-SPAN wold cover and broadcast them. Most of the other major news outlets too.

We've got good organizing talent, so renting convention centers, inviting everyone and doing a lot of foot work and we could be the alternative debate people.

We'd want to follow the campaigns - what states are important when and when would everyone be in town anyway, then focus on issues important in those areas but with national candidates.

-t

[Working Poor]

Ron Paul
Ben Swann
Freedom Watch
Adam vs the man
The Peter Schiff show.

All could also air their shows on "cable public access" channels all over the country. All they have to do is apply for a show and once they are approved all they would have to do is turn in their taped shows. Most cable public access channels also have studios that you have to take a series of workshops to have use of but I think it is free and if not free it's not very expensive.

[tangent4ronpaul]

All could also air their shows on "cable public access" channels all over the country. All they have to do is apply for a show and once they are approved all they would have to do is turn in their taped shows. Most cable public access channels also have studios that you have to take a series of workshops to have use of but I think it is free and if not free it's not very expensive.

umm, yeah, but there are over 2,000 of them. Coincidentally, at our peak we had over 2,000 Meetups.

It also has to contain local programming and while there should be no problem including national news, it needs to contain local programming produced by locals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_public-access_TV_stations_in_the_United_States

The point of doing a network is getting the same reach as the big media outlets, but in a distributed manner. Kind if like a FOX affiliate station will have local and national news. there is also the issue of advertising. It doesn't do any good if only a handfull of people know you exist.

-t

[Voluntarist]

xxxxx

[Working Poor]

umm, yeah, but there are over 2,000 of them. Coincidentally, at our peak we had over 2,000 Meetups.

It also has to contain local programming and while there should be no problem including national news, it needs to contain local programming produced by locals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_public-access_TV_stations_in_the_United_States

The point of doing a network is getting the same reach as the big media outlets, but in a distributed manner. Kind if like a FOX affiliate station will have local and national news. there is also the issue of advertising. It doesn't do any good if only a handfull of people know you exist.

-t

They could distribute videos to people in the areas that have a CPA channel local people could make videos that include excerpts from liberty news people and also report on liberty issues in their areas.

[ZakCarter]

"We first have to define what "WIN" means. If you don't have the criteria for victory defined then you can never achieve it."

We're libertarians, anarchists, voluntaryists, etc.. we could debate forever on what winning looked like. For me it's ending the Fed, everything else will likely be easier to achieve once that is done..

And I really think the focus needs to be on helping to produce great content - if you're producing great content it's going to open doors and get watched - I'm guessing not as many people are watching local access television as are watching HBO, Netflix and Hulu.

[Matt Collins]

When I first realized that things were wrong in our world, I immediately wanted to fight to make things right, and I got involved in politics. I worked on a few campaigns and managed a congressional campaign.Which ones, if you don't mind me asking?



I eventually noticed a pattern - all of the campaigns were completely ignored by the media no matter how much work we put into them, and I came to believe that until we changed the media, we’d always be on the losing end of things. The media isn't always against us, but you have to know how to get their attention. Ensuring that your candidate is viable is a good start. The media doesn't like to cover non-stories, or candidates that are not perceived as serious. Candidates are always taken at least somewhat serious if they raise enough money to be in the ballgame. There are a few exceptions here and there, but by and large this is a general rule.


It is important to note however that media doesn't win campaigns (although it can cause you to lose campaigns). Again, there are a few fringe exceptions, but by and large campaigns are won through direct mail and door-to-door.



I have no problem with anyone running for office or working on a political campaign, but if you’re just focusing on promoting liberty via political candidates and campaigns you’re putting the cart in front of the horse.If you want to change policy, the ONLY way to do that is by either getting liberty candidates elected, or putting enough pressure on the politicians to get them to do what you want (which means you have to be strong enough to threaten their reelection).




We have to find liberty media projects that have that kind of potential to reach mainstream America, help fund them, and then help connect them with the right people to help make them a success to affect long term change - just as if they were a political campaign. So far libertarians have had a few books to point to as successes, but when it’s 2015 - books just aren’t enough!

If we want to win, we have to put just as much time, money and effort into finding liberty media with mainstream potential as we do into vetting candidates and helping them win - and if we don’t we’re bound to continue being the minority that we’ve been for the past 40+ years!This is a fallacy. The only people who matter are likely voters, specifically for what we are doing, likely Republican primary voters. That is usually less than 10% of any given population. So if you have a town of 100k individuals, you'll likely have less than 10k Republican primary voters. You only have to win half of them to get elected (assuming it is a Republican district) so you only need 5% or 5000 out of 100,000 people.

This is called direct marketing as opposed to mass marketing. To get elected a campaign must identify voters and their issues, segment them, and then target them. Mass media is rarely necessary to win an election, statewide or Presidential elections are the big exception to this.




And I really think the focus needs to be on helping to produce great content - if you're producing great content it's going to open doors and get watched - I'm guessing not as many people are watching local access television as are watching HBO, Netflix and Hulu."Build it and they will come" is a marketing and political myth. Ron was the exception to that, but a politician like Ron only comes around every 30 years or so.

We don't win because our cause is just or because we are right or put forth the best argument. We win because we out work and out market the opposition.

[tony m]

It's automated. If you catch keywords that are trending they show up in he wrong places. I've seen this done deliberately and accidentally. For example, there are coaches and college sports players named Greenwald, Snowden, Dorner, etc. What you think might happen, happens.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carriage_dispute

The issue was finally resolved with the 1992 Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act. Among its provisions, the act mandated that distributors must carry local stations who make their signal available for free, but must also get retransmission consent before a signal can be retransmitted. Mandatory retransmission consent gave broadcasters the ability to seek compensation from distributors and established the basis for carriage disputes going forward. At first, the larger broadcasters negotiated not for higher fees, but for inclusion of their newer, lesser known, non-terrestrial channels. Fox, for example, obtained distribution for FX; NBC for CNBC.[1][5] The practice has complicated carriage disputes by making bundled tiers not just a marketing choice, but a contractual obligation.[6]

Setting up a TV station can go from reasonable to very expensive. Getting a license to broadcast is the really hard part.
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/156149.html
http://www.ntia.doc.gov/legacy/otiahome/ptfp/application/EquipCost_TV.html
From the first link -- note that a set that will broadcast 10 miles should be easier to pull off, both in terms of cost and legal BS, but should still have to be picked up by distributors.

The way around the licensing is to rent, "rent" and volunteer.
Find a small station for sale and offer to rent it.
Buy infomercial/infotainment air time. In blocks it gets cheap. terrestrial distributors and sat.
Many colleges have TV stations. Get 6-8 people to enroll in the broadcast program and petition the department for their own show. "rent" in this case is tuition.
Same deal with public broadcast stations where locals propose a show and volunteer to produce it.
In the last 2 cases there are specific windows when things have to be done.

On renting, there are regional news networks that are going to be more expensive than local stations, but less than national:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_cable_news

Regional 24-hour cable news television channels that are primarily concerned with local programming and cover some statewide interest are News 14 Carolina (which operates out of North Carolina), NY1 (which operates from New York City) and Northwest Cable News (NWCN) (which operates from Seattle). New England Cable News covers the six state region of New England, while the primary core of Time Warner Cable News covers the numerous regions of Upstate New York.

Set up a web site that acts as a schedule and channel finder. Also stream content.
Have each station if we produce, do local content but also syndicate "name" content and split 1 hour broadcasts with that.

Imagine one a day:
Ron Paul
Ben Swann
Freedom Watch
Adam vs the man
The Peter Schiff show.

The other factor that is going to go down this cycle is that the RNC is really cutting back on debates. It's expected that a bunch of all inclusive alternate debates will arise from this. It's a no brainer that the League of Women Voters would jump on this as debates got stripped from them or that C-SPAN wold cover and broadcast them. Most of the other major news outlets too.

We've got good organizing talent, so renting convention centers, inviting everyone and doing a lot of foot work and we could be the alternative debate people.

We'd want to follow the campaigns - what states are important when and when would everyone be in town anyway, then focus on issues important in those areas but with national candidates.

-t

You have good strategy here. I am interested in further discussion on this. Just left a voice mail with Zak.

[tony m]

https://www.ci.buffalo.ny.us/Home/OurCity/OtherInformation/BuffaloMediaOutlets/PublicAccessTVManual

Public Access TV Manual

MISSION STATEMENT

It is the mission of the Buffalo Municipal Telecommunications Center to bring to all citizens the ability to communicate their message, to be assisted in the creation and distribution of that message and to be exposed to the workings of the government, which those citizens have duly elected. Furthermore, this mission includes ensuring to elected government official's access to communicate with the citizens of Buffalo in times of emergency, to interact with the public via available technology and to offer information that will affect the general population. Furthermore, this mission includes dissemination of knowledge in the form of classroom training, televised courses and the widest range of educational information that given resources allow.
Non-Discrimination

BMTC shall ensure that no individual is discriminated against with regard to services, information, facilities or program distribution because of race, national origin, sex, age, sexual preference, religion, physical disability, political affiliation, or economic status or the nature of their programming This section of the Rules and Procedures does not guarantee a right to any person or organization to have any program distributed over the channels governed by BMTC.
Eligibility

Training, Equipment, and Facilities
Eligibility for public access program distribution, equipment use and training courses is limited to residents of the City of Buffalo over the age of 18.
Producers under age 18 must have an adult co-signer in order to use BMTC equipment and facilities; the adult accepts full responsibility for loss or damage of equipment on behalf of the minor.
If the producer is 18 or younger, the adult co-signer must attend an orientation meeting prior to equipment checkout or facilities use.

Channel Time

Public access channel time shall be made available free of charge on a first-come, first-served basis to individuals, organizations, institutions, and groups represented above. Any programming originating outside of the City of Buffalo requires a sponsor (who accepts full responsibility/liability for program content) from within the City of Buffalo and shall have lesser priority than programs produced locally.

Submitting and Scheduling Access Programs

The producer shall submit a standard application form, which can be obtained through BMTC management.

The applicant will sign a waiver acknowledging that his or her material may be subject to preemption, review and/or rescheduling and agree to abide by the policies set forth in this handbook.

Applications will not be accepted more than 90 days nor less than 14 days in advance of the requested date of communication.

It is in the spirit of public access that viewers are exposed to the most varied programming available. For this reason BMTC management has set, and will review as necessary, programming policies that will adhere to this spirit. BMTC management reserves the right to place any program in time slots that most applicable to BMTC programming policy. Although regard will be given to long-standing producer time slots, no guarantees are given that said time slots will remain unchanged.

[ClydeCoulter]

@Matt Collinz

Can you keep your crap to yourself if you don't have anything to offer but your usual crap?

(oh, and that +rep was supposed to be a NEG rep, enjoy it)

On topic:

I support the effort, and I hope that @tangent can be of help in the effort.

[tod evans]

@Matt Collinz

Can you keep your crap to yourself if you don't have anything to offer but your usual crap?

(oh, and that +rep was supposed to be a NEG rep, enjoy it)

On topic:

I support the effort, and I hope that @tangent can be of help in the effort.

I don't give neg rep, even to Collins, but I sure as hell plus repped this post!

[ClydeCoulter]

I don't give neg rep, even to Collins, but I sure as hell plus repped this post!

I never did, either, until @phil's campaign... :D

[Matt Collins]

Can you keep your crap to yourself if you don't have anything to offer but your usual crap?

You're free not to read it and continue doing ineffective things that will bring liberty to no one.

[ClydeCoulter]

You're free not to read it and continue doing ineffective things that will bring liberty to no one.

Shall I bow....before those that have advanced freedom? How's that going? Care to notify me of those freedoms you have restored via your rhetoric?

Whether you like it or not, it will be "the people" that will make the major difference, not a top down restoration of freedom.

[tod evans]

Shall I bow....before those that have advanced freedom? How's that going? Care to notify me of those freedoms you have restored via your rhetoric?

Whether you like it or not, it will be "the people" that will make the major difference, not a top down restoration of freedom.

Yeah Clyde you should be ashamed at getting elected, Matt with all his experience and influential friends has certainly surpassed your meager efforts...




































PUKE!

[Matt Collins]

Shall I bow....before those that have advanced freedom? How's that going? Care to notify me of those freedoms you have restored via your rhetoric?

Here is an example:



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BOdsiB-kds

[ZakCarter]

I'll argue with you later Matt - right now I just want to give you and every other lover of liberty a hug - Happy New Years Y'all!


and if you have a minute, vote this up at Yahoo? :)


https://yahoo.uservoice.com/forums/206380-us-homepage/suggestions/6887036-feature-emmy-winning-independent-journalist-ben-sw