General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: KRUGMAN: "California" [View all]calimary
(81,678 posts)Glad you're here! SO many of us here "get it." I just wish we could share that knowledge with more people outside of here. It's just so incredibly important to connect the dots!!!
I was just reading yet another article aimed at musicians and bands and band management (since I manage my kid's band). And again and again they make the same recommendation: BE MINDFUL OF THE "WHAT'S IN IT FOR ME."
For example, when you're trying to build a fan base, it's helpful to understand that most people go to the internet looking for something THEY want or need. Recommendations for a new restaurant. Tips on new music. The goods on the new movie. Where they can get something for free or cheap. What benefits them personally. What's in it for them. And the best advice always goes toward "Don't be about 'buy my album,' 'buy my concert tickets,' 'come to my show,' etc." The best advice always stresses "make them feel like YOU are THEIR fan!" Engage them in some way. Offer them something. What's in it for THEM?
Seems to me that's the key here - everyone's been programmed for years - indeed, BRAINWASHED - into thinking that TAX = BAD.
And if that's all you hear - "taxes bad, taxes bad, taxes bad," in all its many permutations, that's all you're going to think. You've heard the saying before - "garbage in, garbage out." Which is the Holy Writ of such outfits as Pox Noise and the whole limbaugh-and-clones madness. They pump NON-STOP GARBAGE into their listeners and viewers minds. They offer nothing BUT that same NON-STOP GARBAGE. They certainly don't offer any other view or different opinion or alternative outlook. So with nothing else for the listener or viewer to vibe upon, take in, kick around in his/her own mind, sit with, sleep on, or otherwise absorb, then what else is he/she to think or conclude or process, or trust? Indeed, in the truest sense, you are what you eat, literally AND figuratively. You are what you take in.
We are only beginning to deprogram America. For example, look how long it's taken for ANY OTHER VIEW than the NRA's to start breaking through on the gun violence issue? Look how long it's taken!!! Like all the other bad-guy entities out there, the NRA also has had DECADES of head-start on this. They've been allowed - by idiocy, naivete, and fear - to monopolize the conversation for FAR too long. Our side is seriously just now waking up. We have DECADES of catching up to do. And most of it starts with explaining why taxes are NOT bad.
The bad guys (and I label them as such because they ARE. What they do is bad, what they want is bad, what they believe in is by 'n' large bad, and what they want to do to America is BAD!) have succeeded in demonizing and undermining government, taxes, and everything that contributes to a beneficial collective that focuses on the greater good for all, rather than just a pinched selfish good-for-an-elite-few-who-already-have-it-disproportionally-good. Thank ronald reagan for that. "Government isn't the solution to the problem, it IS the problem." Okay. Tell that to the Hurricane Sandy survivors whose meager state coffers and services were instantly overwhelmed and only an entity as big as the feds could deal with what needed to be dealt with. God, I despise ronald reagan. Unfortunately, California foisted THAT seemingly-benign fiend upon the rest of an unsuspecting America, too.