I recently took part in an interesting political exchange on Shane Nickerson’s blog. The link is here. I responded to Dave’s “passionately” worded blog post and eventually I had to deal with his aggressive start by laying the ground rules of electronic intellectual exchange.

I have spent over a year facilitating a daily operations meeting with the senior leadership team of a major corporation and I can now read people’s faces, their tones, their gestures and body language as well as their electronic communication as well–I can sniff out the attitude in the most mundane of electronic exchanges and this naturally gives me a leg up when posting and responding to blog chains like the one Shane began with his moderate yet controversial political remarks that only the most bold of authors and artists are willing to make with their audience.

During the recent US Presidential election, I scathingly attacked artists like Bruce Springsteen, Michael Stipe and Dave Matthews for interjecting their politics to their audiences. The reason I did this is because as an artist, you will automatically be dividing your audience into thirds–those who agree with you, those who don’t agree with you and those who could care less. You might keep 2/3 of your audience but how many did you lose and for what? The people who agreed with you already are just further justified in their beliefs, the people who don’t care are unaffected and the ones that left will no longer be supporting you by coming to your shows and buying your CDs.

This all happens because in the music industry, the wrong thing has been being sold for a long time–the music. The music is the bait to be given away to develop a following that will support the artists in their art. Fans pay for the experience of joining the artist in a moment of artistic production and get to know and appreciate that artist when their work is at first given away and then partitioned out to an elite audience that has been built through time and trust.

In case you were wondering, I am a true Libertarian meaning I would never join any organization that would have me as a member. I have studied democracy under the tutelage of Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, George Washington (the intellectuals) as well as the later “critical juncture” Presidents that led the United States further and further into world empirical ruler (here, I am speaking about Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, FDR and, of course, George W. Bush). But I have come to believe that it was Richard Nixon who had the deepest understanding of the American populace with his conception of the Great Silent Majority.

The world has become a bunch of loudmouths squawking at the same time. My audience will come to consider the brand of Joshua Minton as a bullhorn in the fog of ignorant ranting and screaming that global debate has become.

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