Action

I'll leave the first attempt at action on 2nd March 2020 below Trump Lessons for the record. Too bad it involved music since the corona virus as we called it then wiped out all that.

(PHONE DISPLAY - SCROLL DOWN TO TWEETS)

I'll list 104 tweets of lessons about democracy from President Trump's term here, with the idea of tweeting one every Tuesday and Thursday - the "T days" - for a year, starting in October 2021. That'll be commencing Tuesday 5th October. I'll tweet them at my account TrumpLessons - @lessons_trump. I'll list the topics of the lessons now, and then get back to the detail of organisation.

TOPIC

1. American People Govern With Electorally Mandated Policy (Promises Made Promises Kept)
2. Democracy Founded on the People's Trust
3. Democratic Reform Against Establishment Elite Wealth Rule (Media Unis Political Parties)
4 Democrat Party Philosophically Decadent Opportunism
5. Draining the Swamp
6. Executive Policy Effectiveness
7 Exposure of Democrats' Denial of Citizens' Civic Equality
8.Greatness of US Not In Leadership Sentimental Symbolism but the American People
9. Law and Order
10. Loved By His Supporters
11. Love Of America and Its People
12. Mainstream Media Enemy Of The People
13. Reason In Politics
14. Rejection of Historical Grievance in Favour of Present Need
15 Rejection of Identical Special Pleading in Favour of Universal Equal Entitlement
16. Rejection of Political Exploitation of Black Identity Politics
17. Stood Against Constitutional Abuse
18. Trump Democratic Wake-up Call Echoes Global Democratic Regression

I SHOULD IN A FEW LINES TRY AND CLARIFY THE POLITICS OF THIS A LITTLE. THE TWEETS ARE CLEARLY A KIND OF ESSAY ON WHAT THE TRUMP PRESIDENCY TAUGHT US, AND WHAT IT IMPLIED THAT CODE SUPPORTS. THERE'S NO DOUBT IT'S PRO-TRUMP IN THAT SENSE. BUT IT SOULD BE CLEAR THAT THAT FOLLOWS FROM THE VIEW THAT TRUMP WAS A REALITY CHECK TO DEMOCRACY. WHEN YOU START FROM A VIEW THAT DEMOCRACY NEEDS SUCH A WAKE-UP CALL, YOU'LL SUPPORT WHOEVER PROVIDES IT. APPARENTLY TENS OF MILLIONS OF CITIZENS IN MIDDLE AMERICA AND THE DEPRESSED INDUSTRIAL "RUST BELT" THOUGHT THAT CHECK WAS NEEDED AND SUPPORTED TRUMP. THE OTHER THING THAT WILL BE CLEAR ALREADY ABOUT CODE'S POSITION IS THAT THE REQUIRED WAKE-UP MESSAGE WAS FOR GREATER EQUALITY IN THE US, INSEPARABLE FROM POPOULAR RULE IN THE DEMOCRACY, EVEN THOUGH POPULAR RULE IS NECESSARY FOR ITS OWN REASONS.  TRUMP'S REMEMBERING THE ECONOMICALLY DEPRESSED FACTORY AND FARM WORKERS WAS A MOVE TOWARDS GREATER EQUALITY, AND IT DOESN'T MATTER WHETHER SOME FOLKS SAY THE BILLIONAIRE MAVERICK PRESIDENT REALLY REPRESENTED THE WORKING PEOPLE OR NOT. REPUBLICAN GURU PETER NAVARRO IS ONLY ONE OF MANY COMMENTATORS WHO HAVE OBSERVED THE SHIFT IN POLITICAAL ALLEGIANCES WHEREBY CONSERVATIVE PARTIES HAVE A WORKING CLASS CONSTITUENCY WHILE PROGRESSIVE PARTIES ARE DOMINATED MORE BY UNIVERSITY EDUCATED PROFESSIONALS. IN AUSTRLIA IT WAS CONSERVATE PRIME MINISTER JOH HOWARD'S "BATTLERS". SURPRISINGLY OR NOT, TRUMP HAS HANDED THE GOP THAT CONSTITUENCY, IF IT TAKES THE OFFER UP. 

IN THE IMMEDIATE AFTERMATH - SEPTEMBER 6 2021 AS I WRITE - OF THE THE AFGHANISTAN WITHDRAWAL, THE REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP IS TALKING IMPEACHMENT OF ADMINISTRATION FIGURES INCLUDING PRESIDENT BIDEN. THEY COULD HARDLY DO LESS OF A WITHDRAWAL WHICH WAS PART OF THE IGNOMINY OF THE LOSS OF A 20-YEAR WAR AND THE COLLAPSE OF AFGHAN GOVERNMENT TO THE TALIBAN. BUT TRUMP SUPPORTERS WILL RECAALL HAVING BEEN AT IMPEACHMENT BEFORE, AS RECENTLY AS LAST JANUARY. THE NATURAL DISMAY ABOUT AFGHANISTAN DOESN'T ANSWER THE CONCERN THAT BOTH PARTIES ARE MORE INTERESTED IN PROVIDING A COMBATIVE SHOW OF ATTACKING EACH OTHER TO GIVE THE MEDIA ITS DRAMATIC CONFLICT AND THE PEOPLE THEIR DIVISIVE PARTISAN HOSTILITY TOWARDS EACH OTHER THAN GOVERNING THROUGH A POLICY DIALOGUE WITH THE PEOPLE. IT STILL LOOKS LIKE POWER FOR THE PARTY'S SAKE AND THEIR PAYMASTERS' MORE THAN FOR THE PEOPLE. POLICY IS DANGEROUS TO THE SWAMP AND IT IS FELICITOUS THAT THE TOPICS ABOVE BEGIN WITH PROMISES MADE PROMISES KEPT.  I MUST ADD HERE THAT GOP SENATE LEADER IS SAYING THERE WILL BE NO IMPEACHMENT, THAT BIDEN IS A MATTER FOR THE BALLOT BOX, CORRECTLY IN MY VIEW, AND DEMONSTRATING THAT THE RERPUBLICAN PARTY STILL STANDS FOR SOME KIND OF POLITICAL PRINCIPLE. 

TRUMP AS I SAY HAS GIVEN THE GOP A HEAD START WITH A WORKING CLASS CONSTITUENCY AND MORE EQUALISING ECONOMIC POLICY. THE DEMOCRAT PARTY ON THE OTHER HAND HAS THE PRESIDENCY AND MOST OF THE CONGRESS, AND THE CHANCE TO FULFIL ITS PROMISE TO ORDINARY WORKING PEOPLE AND THE POOR WHICH FOR DECADES IT HAS FAILED TO KEEP.  TRUMP'S VICTORY, AND THE POPULARITY OF THE OTHER MAVERICK, THE DEMOCRAT SENATOR SANDERS, PROVIDE REASON TO THINK THAT MORE EQUALISING POLICY WILL BE THE KEY TO POWER IN FUTURE. SO DO THE EXTREMES NEEDED TO DEFEAT TRUMP, EXTORTION POLITICS OF NATIONAL PROTEST AND RIOT, MEDIA TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, DEMOCRAT FIDDLING WITH THE VOTING METHOD TO GENERALISE MAIL-IN. AND THERE WAS THE POLITICAL  LIGHTNING STRIKE OF COVID.  TO CODE THERE IS OF COURSE THE FURTHER REASON AND HOEPE THAT EQUALISING POLICY WILL THE THE POLITICAL WAY FORWARD THAT, BROADLY, IF WESTERN SOCIETIES  DON'T CONTINUE THE PROGRESSION TOWARDS THAT GOAL, DEMOCRACY WILL NOT BE ACHIEVED, AND FREE SOCIETY WILL FOUNDER. BUT WE CAN PUT THAT MORE SPECIFICALLY, AND SAY THAT IF THE CLASSES WHOM THE DEMOCRAT PARTY MAY HAVE PERSUADED  ARE DOING WELL FOR THEMSELVES UNDER DEMOCRAT AND ESTABLISHMENT GOVERNMENT DO NOT COME TO ATTACH A HIGHER PRIORITY TO EQUALITY WITH THEIR FELLOW CITIZENS, THERE WILL BE NO NATION OF THE UNITED STATES,  BUT A CONTINUINGLY DIVIDED, VARIOUSLY SELF-CENTRED AND RESENTFUL, AND WIDELY POLITICALLY ALIENATED PEOPLE, WHICH WILL CONTINUE TO OBSTRUCT THE PROGRESS TO DEMOCRACY AND, BY THE SAME ARGUMENT, CAUSE ITS EVENTUAL FAILURE. 

IT HARDLY MATTERS TO CODE WHICH OF THE PARTIES TAKES UP THE CAUSE OF EQUALITY, AND INDEED, IF IT TURNS OUT TO BE A RACE BETWEEN THE PARTIES, ALL THE BETTER. NOR IS IT OF CONCERN TO CODE THAT PAST PROGRESSS TO EQUALITY HAS BEEN A MEASURE OF CONTROL OF THE PEOPLE TO SUSTAIN ELITE RULE. A MORE EQUAL SOCIETY, ONE THAT PLACES COMMON CITIZENSHIP ABOVE INDIVIDUALISM, WILL CONTINUE TO ERODE THE DIVISION OF THE PEOPLE, DIVISION  WHICH STANDS IN THE WAY OF THEIR RULE. EQUALITY WILL BE THE FRIEND OF FRATERNITY. GENUINELY POPULARLY SERVING POLICY REPLACING THE POLITICS OF PARTISAN CONFLICT WILL LEAD A MORE UNITED PEOPLE TOWARDS THEIR GOVERNMENT OF THE SOCIETY,  ALONG THE WAY TRUMP HAS SHOWN WITH PROMISES MADE PROMISES KEPT. THIS PROGRESSION, AND CODE, IS NOT ABOUT EXTINGUISHING ELITE WEALTH PROFIT, ONLY ITS GRAFTED - AND ALL OTHER - CORRUPT POLITICAL POWER OVER THE PEOPLE, DRAINING THE SWAMP. AS NOTED EARLIER, SOME WILL SEE THE DIFFICULTY OF THIS SHIFT OF POWER FROM THE ELITES TO THE PEOPLE AS REQUIRING A RELIGIOUS DEDICATION IN THE PEOPLE AND THEIR REPRESENTATIVES.  IF THE SHIFT CAN HAPPEN MORE READILY THROUGH THE MECHANISMS OF THE PARTIES SEEKING POWER, AND DOING IT IN THE NAME OF GREATER CITIZEN SOLIDARITY AND NATIONAL UNITY, OF CIVIC EQUALITY, THAT PROPER PARTY LEADERSHIP COULD ONLY BE A CAUSE OF CELEBRATION FOR CODE. THE PROOF OF THE NEED FOR THE DEMOCRATIC DISCIPLINES WILL COME, EVEN IF ONLY FROM THE FACT THAT THE PRCE OF LIBERTY IS ETERNAL VIGILANCE. NO POPULAR RULE WILL BE SUSTAINED WITHOUT DISCIPLINE. BUT THE REALITY CONFRONTING THIS OPTIMISM ABOUT THE PARTIES' ROLE IS THAT THE  EXTENSION OF PROSPERITY HAS ONLY EVER BEEN A MECHANISM OF CONTROL OF THE PEOPLE, BY AN ELITE WHICH IN 230 YEARS HAS SHOWN NO SIGN OF SURRENDING ITS POWER TO THE PEOPLE, AND MAY NEVER DO SO BEFORE DEMOCRACY COLLAPSES. WE SEEM TO NOW BE AT A FRIGHTENING POINT WHERE THE SECURITY OF US DEMOCRACY IS IN ITS NUCLEAR ARSENAL RATHER THAN ITS PEOPLE AND DEMOCRACY. FOR THE MOMENT, I'LL CONCLUDE THAT A SHIFT TO EQUALITY AND POPULAR RULE, HOWEVER DIFFICULT OR EASY IT PROVES,  WILL HAVE STARTED ITS NEXT, AND HOPEFULLY FINALLY SUCCESSFULLY DEMOCRATIC PHASE, WITH TRUMP.

Here are the first eight tweets, for October 2021, numbered, or sequenced, not by numerals but by date, which has the same effect, using the American convention of Month/Day, starting with the first listed topic and working down in the listed order. I think seeing the tweets will clarify some further organisational points below.

1. American People Govern with Electorally Mandated Policy (Promises Made Promises Kept)

10/5 Trump's election on on a comprehensive governing program of policy Promises Made Promises Kept  threatened to end the mass media's power over government by unelected journalists and their bosses by replacing it with the people's mandating of governing policy. 

10/7 Trump's Promises Made Promises Kept governing policy program threatened to establish direct popular rule of the US through the people's elected representatives, in place of ad hoc rule by politicians and their parties in their own and their paymasters' interests opposed to the people, 

10/12 Trump's Promises Made Promises Kept taught us that if the people wish to rule the democracy they need to be offered and to vote to support a governing program of policy promises and candidates who run on such a policy platform. 

10/14 Trump's Promises Made Promises Kept being a major step towards the people ruling the democracy with mandated policy points to one reason people despise politicians, that they persist, without offering concrete policy platforms, with the claim that the people rule, when the people know they do not rule

10/19 Trump offered the people policies and implemented those policies when he won, (Promises M P K) providing a mechanism of the most direct government by the people and the most powerful challenge to elite wealth rule in American history, if not the only such mechanism.

10/21Trump taught through Promises Made Promises Kept that democracy is mechanically simple popular rule through mandated policy of winning representatives as opposed to the current complex pretence of democracy which is a lie suppressing popular rule by elite rule

10/26 Trump's Promises Made Promises Kept demonstrated that introducing a ruling voice of the people caused all hell to break loose on the part of the Democrats and an uneasy quiet and inaction in the Republican establishment.

10/28 Trump's Promises Made Promises Kept poses for the Republican Party, and the Democrat Party, the question of whether it will become the party of a direct governing voice of the people through electorally mandated policy

That's October 2021 and you'll see the tweets are drafts which may have to be shortened to fit a tweet. To keep it simple, I've resisted the temptation to post from two different Topics each week, and two more next week. That novelty, minute by minute variety, is what I've been conditioned to by the media, and I think it's good to dispense with it here in favour of settling in for the 12 month haul. Very importantly, this isn't about clever cute tweets, but organisation, without which we are powerless. I'm recommending people not cherry pick the tweets they personally agree with to Retweet, but do the lot, on the basis of support of the overall project, whose effectiveness depends on organisation. It's all based on Retweet, and one of the things Trump has taught us is that Retweet is not endorsement. Nothing is more crucial here than whether we can get together on something. And of course it's not about my personal following. Sure, follow me to get the Tweets direct, but More important, try and persuade your own followers to Retweet, whether they have 1m followers or 10. You never know who might pick up on what we're doing.

TWEETS CONTINUED - STILL "American People Govern with Electorally Mandated Policy (Promises Made Promises Kept).

November

11/2 Promises Made Promises Kept exposed the problem that the parties want to be ultimately elected on vague criteria like whose leader projects the best image to attract support for the parties' sham ideologies and not be electorally directed on policy by the people

2.Democracy Founded on the People's Trust

11/4 Trump suggested postponing the November 3 2020 election, because of COVID, which after the Democrat unilateral generalisation of mail-in voting, also because of COVID, produced the November 4 six-state election flip from Trump to Biden all on mail-ins, and reportedly led to a third of Democrats and half of Republicans doubting the election result

11/9 The extremes to which Trump drove the media's Democrat-racism protest/riot national campaign, the Democrat change in the 2020 voting method, media declaration of election rigging claims as false without investigation, and the bipartisan doubt of the election result, taught that democracy depends on carefully nurtured popular political trust 

11/11 Trump's challenge to the establishment showed that political partisanship carried to the extremes from 2017 of rejecting unity around the people's electoral decision destroys the trust on which free nations are founded: democracy only works when people behave like democratic citizens

11/16 Trump's presidency of investigation impeachment obstruction riot unilateral change to the voting method and six-state mail-in election flip of Nov 4 against the President who wasn't supposed to win showed that in free society acceptance of leadership is not guaranteed by mechanical procedures without trust in the good faith of political opponents

3. Democratic Reform Against Establishment Elite Wealth Rule (Media Universities Political Parties)

11/18 Trump threatened the Democrat-media elites enough to drive them to the self-exposing discrediting extremes of of standover protest/riot politics of "Vote Democrat or we'll wreck your neighbourhood/house" in 48 US cities

11/23 Trump's rejection of establishment elite rule and of the political corruption of contemporary politics provoked warning signs of the danger of big tech platforms - Twitter and Facebook - entering public debate with views reflecting opposition to the views of the elected president

11/25 Trump's permanent suspension from Twitter for "inciting violence" when he told the rioters to go home, with no leading Democrats suspended over protest/riot in 48 cities, demonstrates Twitter alignment with "great symbol" America and media/wealth elite against the people

11/30 Trump threatened the ruling wealth elite because the popular mandating of governing policy in Promises Made Promises Kept and dialogue between the people and elected representatives undiverted by mass media dominance is classic democratic theory, Promises Made Promises Kept the most outstanding contemporary proof that the people can rule the democracy, threatening present elite oligarchy with real democracy

December

12/2 Trump's direct communication with his people via social media, his bypassing of an unelected biased media, and his consultation of the people about governing policy with Promises Made Promises Kept threatened to bridge the gap between the people and the remote central state on which elite exploitation of the people is based. 

12/7 Trump's Drain The Swamp was a reason the people loved him for taking on the corruption which caused much of the popular aversion to politics, loved him for asking them if they wanted that, and was a unique commitment to establish a proper democracy uncorrupted by the power of wealth and the motivations of actors in the political domain of self-enrichment and self-empowerment over the people

12/9 Trump's multiple assertion of democratic principles in remembering the economically neglected argues strongly in the context of Democrat party politics as to who would be best to give capitalism a democratically human face - the more capitalist party who should know how free enterprise works or those who have seen capitalism as an evil requiring correction by welfare statism or socialism. 

12/14 Trump by remembering the forgotten people of economically depressed regions of the US gave the Republican Party a human face for capitalism, the GOP's adoption of this the party's and US democracy's immediate challenge

12/16 Trump's successful revival of the US economy with record low unemployment including for blacks, income gains for ordinary Americans and reduction in wealth inequality of the poor support the theory that the economic strength of free enterprise can combine with equitable democratic government to produce the strongest society

12/21 Trump raises the question of whose interests the hatred of him in Trump Derangement Syndrome served other than the media he called fake. the swamp he had called out as needing draining, the political elites terrified of the people mandating specific policy, and the people doing well on the backs of the economically depressed farmers and factory workers

12/23 Trump appears the most notable case in history of political assault by the media, the opposing political party and its loyalists against the personality of a president rather than rather than his governing policies - disingenuously, in that electorally mandated governing policy is disastrous to all the elites. 

12/28 Trump's 2016 election, attack by the media, impeachment and other constitutional abuse by Congress, and obstruction in implementing electorally mandated policy, illustrates that the dynamic of US establishment politics is to resist the will of the people until the people change their minds

12/30 Trump, in comparison with the other US political "bolt from the blue" Sanders, exemplifies the capacity of capitalism to correct its inequality in a way Americans will accept where they won't accept socialism.  

1/4 Trump's nomination and election against establishment Republican and Democrat opponents, with his supporters' love of him, argues strongly that he showed the way forward for America. 

1/6 Trump showed that a personal manner "unpresidential" to some was irrelevant to his significance in giving the people a say on policy ("Promises Made Promises Kept") in declaring that the swamp of of politics that makes people despise politicians needed draining in calling out the fake media and in exposing the lie that the people rule. 

1/11 Trump demonstrated that America needed to be made great again by terrifying into Trump Derangement Syndrome the elite and their media muppets satisfied with the poorest 50% of the American people owning 2% of the national wealth, or those progressives who simply fear change

1/13 Trump's commitment to equality in remembering the economically depressed working class and to Christian/religious equality in the sight of God and to Reason opposing fake media emotional knee-jerk and university postmodernist irrational mysticism was an unparalleled threat to elite rule

1/18 Trump's election as an outsider to the political establishment with wins in primaries over Republicans and over Democrat establishment in Hillary asks how that can be interpreted other than Trump's responding to the people's discontent with politics which his opponents ignore, and his people loving him for it.

DEMOCRAT PARTY PHILOSOPHICALLY DECADENT OPPORTUNISM

1/20 Trump exposed, in the combination of Democrat-media-BLM riot, looting and killing in 48 cities which opposed him and the Biden election rhetoric of unity hope love and peace, which he could restore because Democrats were wrecking them, the hypocritical hate which permeates Democrat politics.

1/25 Trump's personal 2020 election campaigning exposed the "anything to win" deception of the Democrats in hiding Biden to conceal his frequent inarticulateness and using campaign surrogates  like the Obamas to get Biden elected - a betrayal of the people's trust

1/27 Trump, helped ironically by Sanders and the Democrat left, has demonstrated that the cleverness of progressives with ideas has been used to construct a dishonestly exploitative, irrationally counterdemocratic, big money compromised Democrat establishment, a left politically sick since the USSR collapse, to oppose the party of capitalism

DRAINING THE SWAMP

2/1 Trump's Promises Made Promises Kept established a precedent of popular representative government whose mandated policy could eliminate policy determination by favours in return for bribes and other swamp corruption of government

2/3 The incessant efforts to remove Trump, the manner of his defeat and persistence of Democrat attacks on him confirm that 'drain the swamp" confronted the elite-ruled swamp polluting US democracy and its establishment symbolic "great America" narrative which accommodates and conceals the swamp of political corruption. 

2/8 Trump with Drain the Swamp alone directly confronts the question whether politically and financially corrupt greed could destroy the US democracy and must be eliminated to make America great again

2/10 Trump's "Drain the Swamp" points unmistakeably to his being prepared to act from conviction in the interest of the American people against his own evident political interest by confronting the ruling wealth lobbyists. 

EXECUTIVE POLICY EFFECTIVENESS

2/15 Trump's rejection of globalism hurting American workers demonstrated his love of the people as did his consequently successful  lowering of unemployment and improvement in the position of the poor

2/17 The efficient execution of Trump's withdrawal of US troops from overseas wars, the control of illegal immigration at the Southern border, the development of COVID vaccines in record time as Trump predicted, the strong stand against totalitarian China North Korea and Iran including Middle East peace deals are at August 2021 striking policy successes in addition to Trump's economic effectiveness

EXPOSURE OF DEMOCRATS' DENIAL OF AMERICAN CIVIC EQUALITY

2/22 Trump's presidency showed that the majority Democrat fashionable E-W coastal states did not accept the equal right of majority Trump flyover Middle America states to elect a president, demonstrated by his interminable investigation, impeachment, executive obstruction, nation-wide protest/riot and lawlessness as Democrat extortion politics

2/24 Trump has raised basic questions about education associated with feelings of superiority over fellow democratic citizens including the phoney moral superiority of antidemocratic postmodernist academic elite philosophies like Critical Thinking geared to the media dramatics of Democrat identity politics 

3/1 Trump raises the question of whether a nation where the majorities in the E-W coast fashionable states opposed the president who remembered the people of the industrially depressed Middle America and rust belt can be can be a single democratic nation as in "United States"

3/3 The even greater hatred than normal political figures Trump attracted in Trump Derangement Syndrome raises the question whether his election against the establishment exposed a divide between half of America who think they are "doing well" embracing the establishment at the expense of the half of America cynical about a corrupt establishment that delivers economic inequality

GREATNESS OF AMERICA FOUNDED NOT ON LEADERSHIP SENTIMANTAL SYMBOLISM BUT ON THE ORDINARY AMERICAN PEOPLE

3/8 Trump stood for law and order through protest/riot in 48 US cities, inhabited by ordinary people who are apparently to the media and some Congresspersons of no significance compared to the Congresspersons who represent US democracy, in the building that symbolises US democracy, where you protest if you believe US democracy is malfunctioning, the Capitol

3/10 Trump's support of the city no 49 Capitol protest until it became riotous exposes the anti-Trump ruling elite narrative of "great symbol" American greatness masking establishment neglect of ordinary Americans in whom Trump believed the greatness of America lay

3/15 Trump and his Make America Great Again exposed the rhetorical "greatness" of America under other recent presidents as a fake oligarchy of media university political parties and superwealth riding on symbols of "greatness"  negligent of the ordinary people 

3/17 Trump, with his motto of Make America Great Again, expressed the view that America was great except for the depredations of elites on it, his removal prompting protest/riot at the Capitol saying that the elite symbolic narrative of great America was rhetorical window dressing of those depredations

3/22 The decisive factor in whether to believe Trump's analysis that America needed to be made great again or his enemies' critique of America is that Trump blamed an elite and his enemies blamed the people

3/24 The endless lamentation about the protest at the Capitol being an insurrection and coup expresses the desperate interest of the media, Congressional elitists and their followers in maintaining the symbolic "greatness" narrative of the Capitol, Congress, etc, against the view that it is phoney rhetorical cover for neglect of the people

3/29 Trump's improvement in the position of the economically neglected and the poor confirms he confronted an establishment whose idea of aa great America was a great elite establishment, themselves, while the poorer 50% of Americans own 2% of the nation's wealth

3/31 Trump teaches us that the business of politics is economic well-being, safety and security, which can be the subject of policy and debate, not moral distractions using what is sacred to the American people to window dress economic neglect of the people 

  Church of Democratic Enlightenment PRESENTS

TAMWORTH ONLY MUSIC

Dancers listen FREE!

STOP FOR A SONG AND GET A TOM SONG APPROVAL CREDIT

Tamworth Only Music (TOM) is a little symbolic gesture by me of concern about some aspects of the pop music industry. TOM is just a selection of songs written by me which I only play in Tamworth and aren't recorded (to my knowledge) that you can therefore only hear in Tamworth. I'm a little concerned at some effects of how the mainstream music industry operates. It seems to prefer to have a limited number of contracted performers for whom it achieves star status with large recording distribution, media and other marketing networks. My impression is of a shift from a relatively larger number of smaller record labels, which meant more artists were signed, to fewer big labels, though I may be influenced there by thinking that's just normal business process. It is a shift we can understand, as it is presumably easier to make more profit from paying a few stars than a large number of smaller names. It's all quite legal, so we can say good luck to all involved.

But any such change will affect elements of the music industry. Obviously, a shrinkage in the number of contracts means less musicians can make a living out of their music alone, and this can mean a big drop in the number of musicians applying their talents to recording based careers - basically to their music full-time. We can see that this can mean many less different artistic styles have the chance to develop, a serious source of decline in the music industry. Songwriting in particular is a basic craft that will wither, because a recording career is based overwhelmingly on original songs. Less creative talent aiming to reach the standard of recording success implies a decline in the overall quality of pop music. 

On the corporate side, the reliance of big music labels on distribution and marketing to promote stars means that other factors than musical quality are determining sales success. The incentive to write better songs and innovate performance styles is reduced where distribution and marketing of songs, and of stars themselves as of outstanding calibre, takes the place of quality. The concentration of the industry in these terms makes me worry that songs are written in corporate "factories" to formulae determined by the musical and personal star styles the marketing is making fashionable for consumers to patronise.

So, while the corporate operation will continue, and there will often be a couple of great new songs a year to download, I am suggesting that local community support - very Church of Democratic Enlightenment (CODE) - may be the only way to stop the pop music industry dying. Signs of its demise have long been evident in how much radio air-play is over twenty, thirty and forty years old, radio stations specialising in music of these past eras for what can only be one reason- quality, music that endures. 

That brings us to what forms this support of local musicians might take, and that is too complex for this leaflet. Clearly I'm asking for busking support, and though I'm unusual in that all my takings will go to CODE, that has always been a musical as well as a political and religious project, and in any case Just includes putting food on my table like any other musician's. What else we can say begins that local support for local musicians playing 'covers' - other people's recorded songs - is not changed by anything here, but further encouraged. The classics not only are and will remain crowd favourites, but any support of local artists will have the effect of freeing their time to work on their music. The hotels, with the clubs, the backbone of local live music, are themselves an industry apparently under strain. Live music needs support all the more there. But expanding local patronage and support of live music may need musicians to consider other ways of bringing it to the public, and smaller bar and restaurant venues already show this happening.

There can be no evading for me a focus on original composition and creative originality generally, because that is the life-blood of the music industry which I think the big corporations are cutting off, and, which is the same thing, is the key to better music being available to local communities. Musicians playing original songs do not of course need to have written the songs themselves. If local support for original work means songwriters with no performance ambitions become a larger extension of the industry, all the better. The contributions of such people through performers like Elton John need no further argument. 

Responsibility for the view of the industry here is entirely mine, since though I talk to musicians, none were consulted in writing this. 

I don't expect other musicians to go to the extremes of my Tamworth Only Music, as I say just a marketing gimmick of mine that suits me because, for one thing, I don't travel to other towns to play professional gigs. 

I'll finish here on a speculative note, starting with the idea of Council scholarships for original musical work. I can't recommend them here, because I'm not sure how they would operate, and I think we like to try private individual support first, though if we always rely on that, we wouldn't have public schools, hospitals or highways. It's all ultimately majority, and whether we'd see music as essential like education, health and transport. But Tamworth sounds like the town to give a lead in preserving music. 

More widely, again very CODE, I support the free market,, but that it offers the solution to all problems I see no evidence of, much against, and worry that that is an excuse for people to make lots of money for stuff that is inferior in what it offers society. The spin-offs of competition seem a mixed bag all round. On music, the sales of recorded music seemed a great idea, worked out well last century, may work well again. Now, with its corporate situation, I'm not so sure. Money itself is of course one of the earliest instruments of our civilisation, undoubtedly essential to us. While it's really handy to be able to express the value of so many things in money instead of having to take your wheat to the store to shop with, I'm a bit worried that the idea that everything has a money value might be biased a bit in favour of, well, making money. Now, um, that doesn't sound like I'm going to make a lot of money, but a bit, well, that's Ok, heh, but nobody is to give me more than a million dollars. Except Jeff Bezos.