A car dealer uses balloons to bring shoppers to his lot. (Photo Bankrate.com)
Lococentrism is something richer and better than the standard Civic Forum and chamber of commerce variety. It is full of our specific place on the map. But also more. It is about ideas, about free markets and free minds, of people submitted gladly to God who are bringing benefits to other people. Here’s my pitch to a potential advertiser on the radio station AM 1240 Hot News Talk Radio. Would you buy advertising from me? Please give me some feedback and help us find new local businesses to serve. — DJT
By David Tulis
Sir, I’d like to tell you about a Chattanooga radio station that is uncompromising in its argument for local economy and in serving its advertisers.
I own AM 1240 Hot News Talk Radio with Sean Hannity, Nascar and CBS radio news — a station that is all talk 24 hours a day. I am a former Times Free Press copy editor who quit that field to take up entrepreneurial journalism as writer and editor and also as broadcaster. I’m the blogger whose pen is a 180-foot radio tower. My goal is to help liberate the mind of my listener with an apology for the free market and family enterprise. I defend marriage, capitalism, profit, honest money, farmers markets, small business and whole wheat bread.
Our talk show greats help fulfill this goal. They oppose liberalism, big government, etc. But if you’re like me, you want the conservative and limited-government theory from a LOCAL perspective vs a Washington perspective. Sir, that’s what I offer my listener. A locally based argument for the marketplace generated every day on shows such as Digital Drive and the David Tulis show.
Only local solutions
I doubt a national solution will forestall the financial disaster ahead that will parallel the moral bankruptcy of the American people and their states. All yield to gay theory, to welfarism, interventionism and lawless exercises of power. No political solutions exists to prevent the great reckoning, whose rumblings are already in the record. The solutions are local, and they suppose the verities of Christianity and the revival of the genuine free market. So my station, particularly my show (9 to 11 a.m. weekdays) makes the argument for “local economy and free markets.” My argument is not conservatism, really. It is localism, Noogacentrism, if you will. You could also call it classical liberalism.
If we take an interest in other people, in our neighbor, our customer, we will survive. In families, in districts, in the town itself, Chattanooga will get through the other side of the crisis. The more readily if we can think constantly about making THE OTHER GUY succeed. The financial disaster will be an accounting of the trillions of dollars of malinvestment created by the Fed’s free money, and that of the banking system worldwide. The great liquidation will be a restoration of reality to the market, a way once again to discover real and accurate price. I have no doubt your businesses will be hurt, just as in 2008 you lost half your revenues. To get my listener ready to lose 50 percent of his net worth, I argue for local economy — and hope for the best. But more than that, we propose remedies.
My argument in short: Divest national, invest local. Sell stock, invest in yourself, in liquidity. “Love your neighbor — buy local.” If we apply the promises of Christianity, the directive by Christ to put our neighbor first, to put the widow and orphan first, we will be damaged less in the great undertow that will suck to sea all those sharing in the fantasy of endless prosperity through borrowing and inflation. Our hope and security is God, honest living under God’s law, charity, small business, thrift and the sort of human capital generated in local economy. If we lay aside the idol of the dollar, we can build local economy one relationship at a time, and be a good example to others. We did it 20 years ago in closing the abortion clinic. We have a 20-year head start in receiving God’s blessings on that point alone.
Now I say these things to suggest my media outlet is not about making money; it’s not about me, it’s not about a particular lineup of talk hosts. It’s about my listener — and my advertiser. From your perspective, it’s about whether my aggressive AM 1240 Hot News Talk Radio can move your products and services.
That’s where you as a business owner prosper. If you think my listener might be your buyer, ask me what we can do for your business.
‘We’d like to meet with you’
I own the Hamilton County station with a partner who specializes in bringing results. We’d like to meet with you to discuss our ideas, our argument for local economy, the great benefits we have brought to city listeners. In our audience are people of means, particularly if they listen to my show. The David Tulis show is very high end, fit for NPR, only it makes all the wrong arguments and is shameless in its confidence in the marketplace.
These listeners are your potential customers. I don’t want you to suffer the disservice of not knowing about them. Please contact me at your convenience. We would be happy to chat with you about how we can help each of your stores do more business.
Respectfully yours, etc.
Encourage independent media by supporting this website and 1240 AM Hot News Talk Radio — on the real airwaves in Chattanooga, on your smartphone via the TuneIn radio app, or online at Hotnewstalkradio.com. Also, buy me a coffee at the tip jar.
