Yesterday's post on anger was quite popular, and that is c continuing this morning. These are the page views, and since it was the only post yesterday most are for it:
I am surprised: I posted it with some trepidation as it was more personal than usual; could have been accused of generalising a group (an issue some raised) and I took a while to get to the argument. But it seems it resonated.
There was one just difference in my approach, which was that this post was shared on Mastodon, where it seems to have really taken off. I am on Mastodon. I intend to share all posts there from now on. The link to my account is in the right-hand column, adjacent to this.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
There are links to this blog's glossary in the above post that explain technical terms used in it. Follow them for more explanations.
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Buy me a coffee!
Delighted you’re on Mastodon. It’s actual “taking back control” from a billionaire, ad free (I will donate), and vastly less toxic. It will be harder to “flood the zone” as the scrofulous criminal Steve Bannon put it. Hopefully, federation will be a turning point in online discourse and it will have some political spillover in the UK. We can hope.
I do donate
“I posted it with some trepidation as it was more personal than usual”
Most people have no interest in taxes and economics. But it’s called social media for a reason, and it exploits people’s reactions and feelings. “National debt” is of no interest to most, and means nothing. But “national wealth” that contributes to our holiday savings means something to most people. So “framing” is all important.
Agreed
If I understand it correctly government debt is the difference between government spending minus taxes and this is mainly savings. I wondered if we called it “our savings” it would change the peoples perception.
I try saying that
I try and call the “Government Debt” the “Nation’s’ Wealth” and further clarify that it is “our savings” or “money in our pocket”.
In his book, Voltaire’s Bastards (2013) John Ralston Saul writes about Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556, founder of the Jesuits): “Loyola was the first to recognize the force which specific words carried. It was therefore essential to control those words. To capture them absolutely for the use of the Church. Better still, by treating these captured words as icons, they could be packaged in order to produce a politically useful meaning.”
“In this century words such as or or are used in the same way. The very act of getting the word into the public domain on your side places the other side in a difficult position.”