I have long despaired at the numbers of deaths related to the destructive policy agendas of the billionaire media. It is something that is never spoken about, because the media billionaires control almost all of our media.
So when I was invited to speak about the capture of our democracy by billionaire media owners at the Media Democracy Festival, I asked my co-director, Caspar Hughes, a question.
Should I dare take the emotional risk of inviting the souls of all those who have been killed by the media billionaires into the conference hall?
He said I absolutely should.
When it came to it, I ran out of time and was unable to.
But then a respected activist in the audience asked me how we could persuade campaigners who had given up on the political process to believe that a petition to trigger a debate in Parliament was worth backing.
I said that, as someone who has been arrested repeatedly for peaceful protest, I really got the question. But that the way to do it is to bring the emotion of all those losses into the debate.
And so I invited into the room:
The souls of all the indigenous peoples killed in the rainforests by the meat and oil industries promoted by the billionaire media, especially the Brazilian Yanomami, of whom I am an honorary member.
The souls of all the children and adults killed on our roads, because of the war on children waged by the billionaire media, which opposes every measure that would make our roads safer for children to walk or cycle to school.
The souls of all the Iraqi civilians and British soldiers killed in the illegal Iraq war that the billionaire media advocated for.
The souls of all the refugees drowned in the English Channel, after the billionaire media demanded the closure of every legal route to the UK for people fleeing the wars they had championed.
The souls of all the tens of thousands of British pensioners who died of winter cold, after the billionaire media demanded the destruction of the government’s home insulation programme.
The souls of all those who have already died in the climate crisis, and the millions who will die in the coming years, while the billionaire media wages a 24/7 propaganda war against climate action.
The souls of the Palestinian children and their parents in Gaza.
The souls of the millions dying in the global south after the billionaire media spent years demanding cuts to our international aid budget.
The souls of the prisoners who died in British jails after the government slashed prison budgets at the urging of the billionaire media.
And the list goes on.
Our petition closes tonight.
We will not reach 100,000 signatures. We have always known that a campaign to end billionaire media power would be given no coverage at all by billionaire media — and that is exactly what happened. Every name on that petition was gathered by people sharing it, one at a time, past a total blackout.
That number is now evidence. It goes with us into the next phase: to trade union branches and trades councils, to party branches and conferences, to student unions and NGOs, and back to Parliament.
In their name, please add yours before midnight, and send it to four people who have not signed.
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Please sign and share our petition to ban foreign media ownership: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/760061
And help us cover Campaign costs by donating to our Crowdfunder: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/crowdfunder-for-polling-the-publics-view-on-billi