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Hmmm, should I be pulpit-pounding mad that the TV networks want me to pay a tax to feather their already well-lined pockets?

The cable companies – who have some pretty deep pockets themselves – seem to think so. They’ve dropped a bundle on their “man on the street” TV commercials in an attempt to light a fire under us and make us all righteously indignant at this outrageous money grab.

Well sorry, but I’m particularly worried about that issue. In fact, it’s not anywhere on my radar screen at the moment. But let me tell you a few things that really do get me cranked up and loaded for bear.

Lobby groups who want to form my opinion for me and inundate me with messages in the hope of doing so. The mere fact that people get paid to sell a particular agenda – and get in my face about issues I don’t care a fig about – ticks me off.

Spin doctors take note: I’m quite capable of making up my own mind, thank you kindly. So dial down the rhetoric or I’ll tune you out altogether.

Then there are those people who quite frankly don’t know when to shut up. I understand that you have a need to communicate with me. But you need to understand that a few minutes of my attention is a privilege – not a right. You have to earn it to begin with and then respect it or you’ll lose it.

Tell me your viewpoint once and then leave me alone to make my decision. Every time you whisper in my year, or trumpet your message from my television screen, you push me farther away from your point of view.

And here’s the one that really raises my blood pressure. People who try to gain my support by telling me what the other guy is doing wrong. Politicians have a virtual monopoly on this one. It’s their stock in trade.

Tell me what you are going to do right or just don’t talk to me at all. I’m interested in anything you have to say that will make my life better. But save your breath if all you have to offer is a knife in the back of your adversary. I have much better uses for my time than to listen to you sling mud.

So where is the metaphor in this Thursday rant? Truthfully, I don’t have one. My point is this: Every time you tell me what the other guy is doing wrong, I see someone who doesn’t believe in himself.

“Don’t judge me by who I am. Judge me by how much worse that other guy is than me”. On that scale, you’re defeated before you begin and it puts you on the dark side of my moon with nowhere to go but further down.

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Michael Robert Dyet is the author of “Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel”. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog.

Tags:   cable companies · metaphor · Michael Robert Dyet · rant · spin doctors · TV networks16 Comments