What can a Producer Do?

You are a Producer, and it’s all about you. That’s a good thing because if you were unimportant, the story would be over. But you are important. You are the only one in our society that can make the trains. (Mussolini made the trains run on time, but all that took was shooting a couple conductors.)

There is more at stake here than your retirement income. You are being used by others to gain wealth, all the while your spirit is wasting away in the back of your heart, pining for fresh air but too afraid to be seen, afraid that if you speak up you’ll be fired. You need to put your spirit in charge, take control of your life, and the other things will fall into place as well.

But this is not a one person job. Do you see that Producers nationwide must move in the same direction?

That sounds like a tall order, since we Producers are so diffuse and scattered, so diverse and ignored, and many of us are plain Type B introverts. Every Producer, however, has the same spirit, the same spark, the same drive, whether for computers or graphic arts or construction. This inner flame resonates when it nears that of another Producer. Have you not felt this?

It thrills my soul when I see the creations of other Producers. My town has a festival every spring with a huge outdoor art show. I am no visual artist, and know little about art in general, but I love to walk the streets of downtown and glimpse the imaginations of other people like me, Producers who have not yet been beaten down.

This flame is what you need to seek in other Producers, for reasons I will outline shortly. Producers almost always identify themselves by occupation or hobby, so they are not hard to spot.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m no fool. I am not trying to change the world. Today’s world only changes for people who fan the flames of stupidity and pornography. I am, however, trying to change you, to activate your Producer instincts. If that happens to enough Producers, the world cannot help but improve for everyone, even the Consumers and (a few) Paraducers.

What I suggest is not some sort of rebellion, but it is a revolution. The computer revolution of the past couple decades has changed our lives, but slowly. The industrial revolution did the same thing, but not overnight.

We need to work together as Producers to change the way we interact with Consumers and Paraducers, and government. I’m not agitating for “societal change” or “rebuilding government,” or any other systemic change that has to be orchestrated from the top by laws or regulations or a new type of labor union or Act of Congress or tax scheme. This change involves only individuals like you and me. We can start now.

In no way should anything we do be destructive or violent. Our goal here is to preserve as much societal wealth as possible, wealth we have created, while slowly gaining control over it. Every dollar we control is a dollar others do not. Keeping our dollars, one by one, from government and Paraducers starves them by degrees and moves the world in the proper direction.

There’s a lesson we need to learn as taught by the news media. In their efforts to sway the populace one way or the other, they utilize the principle of compound interest.

The media do not have to bias every story and every report, but only a few percent of them, and then not much within each story. By selecting what they report and what they leave out, the bias is present but ghostly. Perhaps the subtitle is stilted their way, or they quote an “expert” who holds their view. Radio and television reports reveal bias in the tag line at the very end of the piece: “No matter what the President does, sources say that he is bound for defeat on this issue in the Congress.” That sentence tells us absolutely nothing, but leaves the listener with the subtle impression that the President is a certain loser.

My elderly father is losing his memory, but he is still pretty functional. He is susceptible to suggestions, however, and when he watches television news, his reaction shows the effect of undiluted media bias. “Boy that Bush is on the ropes,” he’ll tell me. “The war is such a mess and all our boys are getting killed for nothing.” He does not remember September 11, the facts, or names even, but the shaded information he is fed tints his thoughts as with a watercolor brush. This is happening to our entire nation.

We need to learn from this tactic and use it to our advantage as Producers. We do not have to change the entire world overnight. Change your corner and I’ll change mine. Educate your children properly, and I’ll do the same. In a decade or two, as Producers move into more positions of power and retain more of their own wealth, things will start moving in our direction. We will have re-colored our world.