How Conservatism Can Triumph Quickly [vanity]

When a tree falls ... uh? How does that go again? A tree falls in the forest and no one hears it. Big 'duh', of course it's real. So is serious political punditry, about as real and unnoticed as that tree. Even big names might be broadcast far and wide, but people will mentally tune dreariness out. Not fair, very important issues but hey -- people are what they are. Which is why I think punditry is best handled these days in a roundabout way.

There's an episode about Mrs. Kravitz on Bewitched: Splitsville. [As a Christian Fantasy writer I actually study stuff like that.] She had the same problem we do. Few things are more important than health, and how Gladys Kravitz knew it! When she and her husband broke up she gave the Stephens family a crash course in her lectures about health food. It's so painful that it's funny. Was her husband sorry to see her leave? Well ... he was seen dancing while mowing his lawn. [More on them later.]

A little advice about how to study and/or research [that offers other insights]:

It's best to study to instrumental music. Lyrics demand attention, and so do people speaking. If you research by listening rather than reading you'll learn more slowly. [But you might be able to multi-task while listening.] And if you hear lyrics conflicting with your study, isn't it obvious what that does to the thought process?

Some instrumental music might distract as well -- it's good to have lively, powerful tunes shuffled in with mellow ones. Balance it just right and your mind will 'wake up, relax, mellow out, be roused to that perfect balance for a while ...' etc.

What about lyrics? Very different. 'Wordy' music is strictly for recreation or 'muscle-memory' moments, not for thinking. Some foreign songs you don't understand are fine at times however. It's the actual coherent word [or semi-coherent] that interrupts thinking the most. Even an instrumental tune that evokes lyrics you memorized tie in too closely with memorized lyrics can distract you. Some lyrics even qualify as Gitmo 'torture'.

If you have someone in your home who distracts you during 'thinking time' you have a problem. I hope you are respected enough that you can ask that person to use head phones, even while watching shows, cordless head phones. [If you are not respected, maybe ask them to read this and what follows...]

When I lived in apartments the noise was unbearable for thinking. I used to wear ear plugs, put headphones over the ear plugs with my own music as 'white noise' [the volume can that way be increased without hurting the ears], and sometimes I even wrapped a towel over that to stuff in ear padding. One time I strapped two pillows over my head phones.

But fool that I was I 'bought into' lyrics-based music at the time and couldn't concentrate worth a fig! A fair sized record album, and not one thing in the apartment that helped me think. [Good grief. I was doomed to cerebrally fail because my albums were exclusively 'cool' lyrics.] Please don't be a snob about albums the way I was. Take it from me or you'll look back one day and feel like an idiot. Toggling lyrics with instrumental tunes is a matter of sensible timing.

That's America right now -- an apartment with paper-thin walls, blaring TV sets, radios at high volume, and people shouting above the din to be heard. Our future generation is held in thrall by the 'cool music' or WORSE -- how do you hear yourself think while subjecting yourself to 'rap'?

And it MUST be 'rap' for a lot of kids these days. Be worldly-wise and 'study' to rap or be branded as a nerd or a geek. They just don't see it, do they? With ear buds who should care what you're hearing anyway? [Fools like me wanted to be 'permeated' with 'cool'.] Besides, their 'image' of the moment will be forgotten in the twinkling of an eye. If they just hear themselves think they could actually achieve far more.

In the meantime these young people who never get to hear themselves think do vote. They hear a few pop culture blurbs and 'wow', they 'know' who to vote for.

"When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe." -- Thomas Jefferson. [I believe that too much distracting noise is the reason why.]

We have a volcano of talent in talk radio just waiting to erupt. They DO connect with all ages at times. But why be satisfied? We need more growth at a faster rate, but that won't happen as things are now. Switch on a random segment of any conservative radio show and imagine kids tuning in on a lark. The odds are high that such a kid will tune out. We need every bozo we can scrape up to listen. It can be done, and some of those 'bozos' will end up being blow torches for truth.

A wave of enthusiasm sometimes starts up. One kid [or mature adult] tells another, and the 'tune-in factor' grows rapidly. At some point someone turns on the radio to hear this 'really interesting guy', but it's just the radio host hammering away about how important something is. One 'hammering of the moment' segment is all it takes for most kids. They call up their friends and complain. "But," the fan objects weakly, "you should have heard him yesterday."

Now the fan is discouraged from opening his mouth again. Instead he'll compensate and recommend new 'rap' tunes that keep people around from hearing themselves think. He might get razzed for the next year. "You know that guy listens to 'so-and-so'? He talked me into trying it out last year. Totally lame." The conservative kid goes underground and tries to be the best authority on 'rap' around.

The loyal audience has no sympathy for people who 'don't get it'. They grow increasingly alienated from everyone else -- defiant and angry. "We have serious problems in our nation. Time to be serious." [While Obama campaigned to save Big Bird.]

But don't expect these kids to march in lock-step with us. And for that matter, don't expect many 'mature adults' to either.

You get more flies with honey than vinegar. Entertainment is the honey. How 'serious' the topic is -- that's the vinegar. While the Left has more money to fund entertainment, nothing is more compelling or funny than something infused with TRUTH [like Rush always says]. For example...

Remember 'tax funded viagra for inmates'? That's entertainment! What about transgender bathrooms? You want blackmail [900 FBI files], strange deaths [Vince Foster and others], nuclear treason [Chinagate], adultery [everywhere you look], the Grinch [anti-Christmas leftists], human sacrifice [infanticide], satanism [Piss-Christ 'art'], slapstick idiocy [fifty seven states, corpse-men, Guam tipping over, a flag on 'Mars' -- these sparkling intellects which warn us of global warming], soldiers backstabbed for serving above and beyond the call of duty [Benghazi], blood in the streets [Fast and Furious], sleazy mobster cronies [Rezko and Clinton's 'buy a pardon' program], the evil Mr. Big [George Soros], wacko terrorists [Bill Ayers], real-life Wag the Dog [targeting Christian civilians in Serbia to help out Islamic terrorists], New Black Panthers getting away with intimidating voting places like SI Brown-Shirts, and over-the-top reverends cursing the US ['rev' Wright], it's all there. Marx Brothers, Rat Race, and Blackhawk Down all rolled together couldn't compete. We have the best entertainment potential in world history.

Only because there was too much 'serious talk' that watered it down. A little 'serious' goes a long way in entertainment. Too much 'serious' goes nowhere.

Remember when the UN wanted to regulate methane emissions of livestock? We had a thread about that wa ... ay back here in the FR forum. We had a great old time making all kinds of jokes about exactly how the UN might regulate cow-farts. It was so bizarre that a moderator [I shall leave unnamed] thought it must be some kind of a prank. [It was an invisible issue prior to that day.] He yanked the thread.

But it was powerful humor. The mere concept spread like crazy. What is the first instinct of a serious conservative? 'Yank it. Get serious.' Or worse: 'The Left can't possibly be that loony.' Few know exactly where the UN is now with their Master Plan on 'fart taxes', but I don't think lampooning them helped their cause any.

Another example -- I mentioned that Robert Byrd was in the KKK, and a serious conservative chewed me out royally for 'stooping that low'. He presumed that I was committing slander and even accused me of 'intellectual laziness'. That convinced me: pay dirt. And by the way, it was 'old news' to most of us at the time.

This lesson applies to all of us, and we help set the tone for all conservatives. Yes, we need to compile detailed and serious information. But the PRESENTATION can be more entertainment-focused.

Beck's Agenda 21 and 'Obama Pee-Pee' -- my Top Two all-time hits. Rush recently talked about the lady who wanted 'workers' comp' because she's afraid of chandeliers during 'the deed' [not part of her 'official' job description]. I still remember the naked tree sitter when Rush wondered how she went to the bathroom up on a branch. A radio guest host recently mentioned that Hillary could cure her 'gas bubbles' when she 'called in sick' to congress: “Just fart and testify.” Remember Flipper on Hannity when she kept the rubber bands on the lobster? Mark Levin has a quirky sense of humor, like when he asks writers if they crafted their romance scenes while wearing underwear in the basement [humor alone is enough if his heart can't take his famous rants]. As for Boortz [sigh], he's amusing when he talks about day-to-day stuff, like the time he survived a terrible ice storm by pumping hot water through dozens of hoses coiled on his floor.

Does anyone honestly think that more of these moments make conservative talk radio less powerful? That's the driving force of today's conservative movement. I am certain to the marrow of my bones that if a single top radio program starts or ends every segment with something entertainment-minded, even trivial humor half the time, we would do more than just grow, we would WIN [especially the segment 'end' part -- two out of three 'entertainment-minded' finishes would be ideal]. We owe it to the red stripes of Old Glory, we owe it to our war dead AND their families -- it's our duty to be funny and entertaining. Just as our veterans deserve clever officers to lead them into battle, those brave veterans deserve clever conservatives to defend hearth and home.

Talk radio hosts alone have more than enough researchers to dig up all kinds of weird news, and oldies can be recycled. Here's one example [warning - this is gross] ...

This moment of Radio History [made famous by G. Gordon Liddy] can be recycled now-and-then forever even though it's now classified as an urban legend.

“In retrospect, lighting the match was my big mistake. But I was only trying to retrieve the gerbil,” Eric Tomaszewski told bemused doctors in the Severe Burns Unit of Salt Lake City Hospital. Tomaszewski, and his homosexual partner Andrew “Kiki” Farnum, had been admitted for emergency treatment after a felching session had gone seriously wrong.

“I pushed a cardboard tube up his [you-know-what] and slipped Raggot, our gerbil, in,” he explained. “As usual, Kiki shouted out “Armageddon”, my cue that he’d had enough. I tried to retrieve Raggot but he wouldn’t come out again, so I peered into the tube and struck a match, thinking the light might attract him.”

At a hushed press conference, a hospital spokesman described what happened next. “The match ignited a pocket of intestinal gas and a flame shot out the tube, igniting Mr Tomaszewski’s hair and severely burning his face. It also set fire to the gerbil’s fur and whiskers which in turn ignited a larger pocket of gas further up the [yep], propelling the rodent out like a cannonball.”

Tomaszewski suffered second degree burns and a broken nose from the impact of the gerbil, while Farnum suffered first and second degree burns to his [you-know-what].

Why did G. Gordon Liddy believe it was an actual report? Was he the victim of a prank? Who knows? But even as a parable it exposes the perverseness of sin regardless of 'accurate reporting' ...

1:27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men [and gerbils] working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

Of course gerbil mutilation isn't everyone's cup of tea. But there's plenty of variety to choose from, such as stupid criminals.

I remember hearing about one gang of stupid bank robbers. [G. Gordon Liddy again?] They had a furious gunfight with police as they drove away at slow speed. Their getaway car was only able to travel at 15 MPH because the driver forgot that he was using the emergency brake.

It's fun to be fun. It's also empowering. People flock to you, and then even most 'serious' people begin to grudgingly respect you and flock to the flock. Our leading voices should be having fun by spreading fun to the point that even illegal immigrants will tune in [to spin-off conservative programs in any language you can think of]. At that point we win worldwide in a way the world has never seen before. By eliminating repetitious segments more content could be more educational AND entertaining. But more important than content is growth. We might not 'hammer the moment' as hard, but hammering is a short term strategy doomed to lose the war.

You bet defeating liberals is important. Health is important too. Speaking of which, here's more about the Kravitz spat in the 'Splitsville' episode:

Mrs. Kravitz was absolutely correct -- her husband needed to take his diet more seriously. It is, after all, a matter of life and death. But he would rather take his chances without hearing her go on about it. He wanted to enjoy his remaining years, play poker, eat junk food, and be in harmony with those around him. That's your typical 'mature' person: they don't eat much political spinach. And they will come up with every rationalization imaginable to convince themselves that they can't make things better anyway. Even when it comes to retirees, never underestimate someone's ability to think up lazy excuses.

If Ronald Reagan had been campaigning this year I'm curious if there would even be a demo-crap party anymore? He would have gotten on the horn with Rush, Beck, Hannity, and others [most certainly with Mark Levin] to mock leftist loons 'til there's no tomorrow. I'm even curious what Reagan would have said about transgender bathrooms? Who could have resisted listening to him?

It's important for each of us to find fun-loving people or conduits and keep in touch with the entertainment-focused mindset. There's no point in researching if no one really listens to you.

Now buttressed we need our titans to grow even larger. Please help discourage them from 'hammering the moment' for too long or from catching 'anal-ysis poisoning'. It takes more brain power to be funny on cue than dramatic or anal-ytical. But the good news? Smart people prefer a mental challenge [unless they're dieting].

It would help to have threads dedicated to the most shocking/funny/powerful moments in radio history, something that could be shared easily with casual, fun-loving people on the web. Threads are just testing grounds though. When it gets watered down don't hesitate to start a fresh thread or possibly a blog.

That should do it. If more FReepers just do those two things -- keep in touch with fun loving wellsprings and tweak a 'golden segment' thread just a little each week, we should be able to make a tremendous difference by the 2014 off-year.

[Now the 'political spinach' officially begins. I understand if you drop off at this point.]

1. Pinging is best done in cluster-links rather than one-at-a-time. Cluster information and rotate entertaining zingers. You should of course lead with one or a few of the day's hot headlines with a clear take. Below that, keep info-clusters tidy, and don't let dull details bury the more interesting ones. Golden Oldies trump 'new' mediocrity so long as the 'Oldies' are rotated by a good info-'DJ'. Then it never hurts to say, "At my/this website's index, there are seventy nine similar examples." The larger the number, the more impressive. And you don't have to waste the listener's time. Quick and easy to mention the count total.

2. Keep your entertainment moments 'fresh'. Did you ever program a music loop? If you hadn't, please do. Random shuffle doesn't train you to think a certain way, but programming your own loop expands your consciousness. Some favorite tunes could be shuffled in more often than others, and any tune can be overworked -- the question is when? With the proper rotation you can enjoy particular tunes off-and-on for the rest of your life. It's the same with 'Golden Oldies' moments. It's an art form, and it's better to 'plan it' than to 'wing it'. Brains are never truly 'random shuffle'.

[As for when a name linked to a 'Golden Oldies' is brought up in the news -- you bet you should tie the related zinger to it! It's like the perfect moment for a certain song.]

3. Please don't be too insecure to lean on others. Few people have voices or writing styles compelling enough to hold attention for any length of time, and rare indeed is the brain which does it better alone than with a little help from others now and then to break up the monotony, especially if that brain is half-starved from dieting. Ever hear a skinny vegetarian celebrity 'wing it' solo? [Protein helps BTW.]

God bless you guys for your hard work! I know that some of you read my posts, but my 'nagging' ends here. I don't have the time to listen much any more, but our country needs you [as pointed out above]. Please never let flatterers isolate you into thinking you're perfect just as you are. Flattery is poison. Grumpy critics like me might actually have a point.

Flatterers can have a variety of motivations. Lazy members of your staff don't want to rock the boat, nor do cautious ones. I know what such a workplace can be like.

I understand the need to 'hammer the moment' these days. It feels like "Battle of the Bulge". But it's not. This is more like Vietnam politically speaking, a constant series of skirmishes that never silences the other side's guns [unless we reach the point of international voting, hate speech laws, etc].

Too much segment-long hammering erodes morale because it's a sign of being brought to bay. The wolves will close in and mock you as you tire.

A good leader is rarely bogged down. Be willing to 'let go' and take 'vacations from your problems' [as Dr. Leo Marvin would prescribe]. It's not about feeding someone's ego: be glad when someone else is more entertaining. Harness that talent. But never completely unplug. Keep yourself free to take charge as quickly as possible, even by phoning in. Make yourself feel free, and you'll be more effective. You can even 'slum it' while a pair or trio have the pressure on to do most of the talking [one of them being 'first mate' while you are the 'captain']. Hold parody contests for your audience to enter. Set a goal that a certain percentage of your show becomes parody [rotated like giant music loops], and plan for fresh parodies to be rotated in. Or, if you thrive on competition, compete in a friendly way with them. Whoever wins, your program wins.

Your texting device can keep you in touch with the staff. You're free now. Go out and fish or ski or inspect your factory while calling in by speaker phone, or have your tweets read on-air. Even if your trainees are lame you can make that entertaining by offering 'on air' advice or have quick rants about whatever. Be up front ahead of time that this might happen.

Don't worry about losing respect. Let others worry about losing YOUR respect so long as you know your strategy will work. Of course you can spend a few days or weeks back in the seat now and then as a 'shakedown cruise' or to regain perspective [or while a 'head-hunter' seeks new talent]. Mix it up with standing invitations for guest hosts, etc.

As for random callers, there's something 'out of tune' about the way it's done lately. [Swamped by seminar callers I guess?] Perhaps your staff could compete by scouting emails, forums, and blogs for a large focused caller list to toggle with random calls every-other-time. That already seems to be evolving haphazardly. And wacko callers are always fun. Are they being screened out? They should be on their own 'focused' list so long as they're entertaining. [I would have preferred it if one third of the callers were on the 'wacko' list, one third were random, and one third were focused. That's not counting the specialist callers of course.]

Moments of political analysis. Yes, your analysis is important and often based on anonymous tips. Smart people realize that. But really, if you can't 'spell it out', you can make an op-ed and refer to a couple key sentences rather than torture your audience with vague hints that burn up half the show. It becomes anal-ysis.

I think there is a lot of good points here. This is perhaps how you begin to reach those “minds full of mush” (as Rush calls them).

It is an extremely delicate balancing act though. As far as my listening tastes with talk radio, I really get turned off by what I call the “Beck circus act”. I feel like I’m tuned into a constant comedy routine between him and Pat(??) and someone else. If I want comedy, I’ll tune into the Blue Collar Comedy channel. I don’t mind a decent balance of comedy or as Rush says “demonstrate the absurd with absurdity” or something like that. But you have to get serious and drive the point home without sounding like it’s the end of the world and laughing about it.

I know I’m starting to ramble but on the flip side, I also get extremely bored with the droning on of some of the talk show hosts that seem to do the same “spiel” day in and day out without any breaks. I like variety.

I like to say if someone stole my Ipod and listed to it, they would think I am crazy. I have some “high powered jazz”, rock, oldies, comedy, “spoof songs”, and country. I leave my Ipod on “shuffle” with all these coming at me randomly. I think that’s why I get bored with some of these talk shows that don’t mix it up.

A collection of stratagems that, I think, on aggregate are quite viable and attuned to the current political and social environment. It is about capturing an audience, and most of the people trying to represent Conservatism either are unable to communicate well (as in, deliver a cogent coherent message), or are otherwise to engaged in preaching to the choir (espousing the beauty and logic of conservative ideals to people who are already conservative, and thus having no impact in spreading the message). For example, Rush is a nice chap, but his audience really is the choir! On the other hand, the Left is quite clever in using all media under their control to propagate their view points ...e.g. (nearly) every sitcom, talk show, movie, music, ad, social media, etc is overtly and covertly advocating liberal perspectives to the extent that quite a number of conservative precepts have been made to appear stupid/obsolete/anathema.

The sad thing though is this. Your points will NEVER get accepted by the GOP. The one advantage Liberals have over Conservatives (be they RINOs or actual Conservatives) is that in their bid to 'accept' everything, and in the process inundating themselves with useless and stupid ideas, every now and then they stumble across something worthy of note. Eg the use of social media and tv programming by the Obama administration during the election campaign, and the sophistication of their GOTV program (especially compared to the totally useless analogue the Romney campaign tried to use). The Obama version was honestly spectacular, proving minute-by-minute updates. Thus, Liberals are more likely to look at new ways of doing things. Conservatives? Not as much ...by the time a new approach is adopted it is quite likely to be obsolete. This is not even about new ideas but even thought patterns. Look for instance how during the Republican Primaries the candidates were doing Obama's job for him ...smearing each other with mud and muck. Or how Conservatives refused to agree on one Conservative candidate to support, leading to Romney clinching the nomination. This will also be the case in 2016 ...you will most probably see some conservatives reject someone who could beat the GOP-elite, as well as win the general election, simply because he doesn't believe the world was created 6,000 years ago and men walked with dinosaurs. That alone is worth not supporting him. Think that is impossible? Check my posts of a couple days ago where I responded to some FReeper who was talking about the curses of Noah on Ham and Shem and how 'races shouldn't mix.' I'm sure his post is still there ...and yet we are trying to get non-White voters to consider the Republican party even though some of us think anyone non-White is 'cursed.'

The more I think about it the more I realize that the GOP needs to go back to it's conservative roots, AND to nominate someone who IS a great communicator (not just preaching to the choir ...Rush exists for that ...but able to effectively espouse conservative precepts to non-conservatives), and someone who is able to control the message (for McCain and Romney the media crafted the narrative, which was obviously negative ...we need someone who will control the narrative). Nominating a conservative who is able to communicate within the base and outside the base, and who doesn't let the MSM define his/her narrative, is NOT impossible to do ...but I doubt it will be accepted. You'll probably see a repeat of 2008 and 2012.

Regarding the rest of what you said after one bit of housekeeping:

If you found a racist post, its your duty to hit the abuse button. JimRob doesn’t put up with racism. I know, you’re probably like me and believe that freedom of speech is a two edged sword, but our forum considers racism to be a non-issue unworthy of our time. After Drudge beat us black and blue over one man’s post [totally unfair back in those pioneering days], I think that’s sensible of JimRob.

As for the rest, thank you for your time and shrewd viewpoint. Yeah, the Left won through entertainment areas. It might seem impossible to beat them, but truth makes humor more powerful.

We can eventually win unless a new voter block springs up from accross the border. It would be harder to educate people who don’t speak English and are new to our political history. And with Speaker Bone-whatever as our leader, that’s disturbing.

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