All talk

© 2016 Jim Spence - Successful business people understand that you must “talk” to communicate your goals. Talking to teammates each day is part of the normal course of executing tasks to achieve goals.

There is nothing wrong with "talking" per say. Local sports broadcasting became a hobby of mine more than thirty years ago. I worked high school football and basketball games as well as women’s basketball and baseball games for NMSU. There was plenty of talking going on with those radio broadcasts. The toughest game to broadcast was baseball. With so much time between pitches, you had to do plenty of talking. We armed ourselves with mountains of statistics and stories to fill the downtime.

When you have to “talk” about something every day, as the news media does, it is a trap for audiences. The news media “talks” every day because their business is to “talk.” Their business models require millions of people to listen and more important, partake of the commercials. I remember my late great mother-in-law getting angry at Dan Rather thirty-six years ago. Rather would interrupt her soap opera almost every day at the same time. The music and the graphics on the lead in to Rather would indicate that he had “breaking news.” When the dramatic music stopped and the graphics came down, Rather would then say, “There’s no news about the hostages in Iran.” CBS must have had a daily sponsor paying for the right to be featured for breaking news on the hostages.

The truth is we have a twenty-four hour news cycle, but there is not something significant going on all the time. Much of what gets covered is noise or nonsense that gets repeated over and over with spin.

Politicians talk too. Sometimes politicians execute, but most of the time they talk. Trump has been executing, but this weekend he made the decision it was time to go to Florida and talk to the people....and the cameras. He blasted the mainstream media......again.

Consider the House Republicans. They have all done plenty of “talking” about Obamacare. They passed bills on six different occasions to repeal Obamacare over the last seven years. Of course the GOP knew if the bills got through the Senate, Obama would veto those bills. In effect it was all talk. Recall how quickly Paul Ryan and the GOP were going to do things with Mr. Trump ready to sign their bill. At least that is what they “said” back in November. Think again. That was all talk too. The GOP has had four months to pass yet another Obamacare fix. We have seen nothing from Paul Ryan. Ryan is like a barking dog that caught the car he was chasing. When I watch how Ryan and Mitch McConnell operate at one quarter speed I am reminded that the Democrats, who did more to ruin this nation over the last eight years, aren’t the only problem we have. The GOP, which claimed it was powerless to stop Democrats, now seems hesitant to do anything except confirm appointees now that they have the majority. It is pretty clear the GOP Congress is carefully weighing what is really and truly best……..for their re-election hopes. They are by and large, a conspicuous collection of gutless politicians.

I found it interesting that HBO Democrat Bill Maher actually went off on a fellow progressive over the weekend. Apparently whacked out author and Michael Moore wannabe Jeremy Scahill did not like it when Maher booked Brietbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulus on his show. Yiannopoulus is the man that California Berkely protestors decided to silence with a riot last month. Yiannopoulus had been booked to give a speech at Cal a few weeks ago, but protesters turned violent and his presentation was cancelled.

It seems that Mr. Scahill couldn’t riot on the HBO set, so he simply boycotted the show rather than debate with Milo. And as goofy as Bill Maher is, he is not in Scahill’s league. Maher to his credit, has cautioned Americans about the dangers to women’s rights of bringing in fundamentalist practitioners of Islam into America. He like anyone else with common sense realizes that women are treated like livestock by most Muslim men in the Middle East. Maher has also challenged the strict Islamic culture for the oppression of minorities, curbs on free speech, and the commingling of religion and government policies. Of course all of these warnings fall on deaf ears with American progressives, who practically lionize Muslim refugees, while demonizing any Republican who offers warnings similar to those of Maher.
Maher’s response to the refusal of Scahill to tolerate free speech at Berkley and elsewhere drew this stinging rebuke: “Liberals will continue to lose elections as long as they follow the example of people like Mr. Scahill whose views veer into fantasy and away from bedrock liberal principles like equality of women, respect for minorities, separation of religion and state, and free speech. If Mr. Yiannopoulos is indeed the monster Scahill claims — and he might be — nothing could serve the liberal cause better than having him exposed on Friday night.”

There is a real problem with 21^st Century progressives and free speech. They are indoctrinated in grades one through twelve to be progressives. Colleges and universities often behave as if they believe their missions are to serve as left wing boot camps for young adults rather than a broad menu of ideas. News media outlets minus Fox affirm everything Scahill would like for young Americans to be told. Any open and free debate that challenges Scahill's ideas are to be squelched.

As we move deeper into 2017 two realities emerge. Progressives like to talk and they don’t like to listen. And by the way, the very same statement applies to the GOP Congress. So far they are all talk with their new found majority.

All talk