Primordial Slack

Forbes magazine had an article recently describing a social engineering project from Darpa that entailed releasing ten balloons from random and secret places around the country. The prize for finding all ten first was a sweet little $40,000.

MIT won it handily within hours. They did so by spreading the reward amongst the ten spotters, decreasing down through the network of each spotter’s referrers. In other words, MIT got the word out by promising money for a successful network. Remember: the goal wasn’t the spread the wealth, the goal was to WIN. Self-organized, crowd-sourced networking with a cash incentive. Where have you ever seen that before?

That’s right: the Left. I don’t think I need to spell it out except with acronyms do I? ACORN, SEIU, CONGRESS. . .

I called the Republican Party dead the day after the election. And I saw it buried after the RNC selected Michael Steele. And now I no longer mourn it after it has shown itself to be a feckless, spineless, and hopelessly lost entity. I wrote the RNC Chair then and repeat it here: what does the GOP have to offer that is going to beat free stuff?

Nothing. (Yes, you really should read that.)They will continue to solicit funds from corporations to give to other corporations. I stated then that our U.S. strategy in Iraq knows far more about winning hearts and minds on the street than our own GOP. And it’s true. We got intel, friendship and loyalty with the money that was set in motion on the streets of Iraq. Money that finds its way into the hands of non-players who then become keenly interested in the success of your game, your vision, your goals.

I’m not saying that good people aren’t choosing the good for its own sake. They always will. There’s millions of them. But the disaffected observers have no tangible incentive to join. The Dems have used “walking around” money for decades and the Right is too self-satisfied with the purity of their intentions to ever imagine a little incentive even at that level. [Update: But they're not above nepotism.]

The GOP is so stupid; it has been voting all sorts of money to people already familiar with the game and how it is played. Such folk will always vote a straight D ticket and never give a thought to the outlandish idea that a Republican just voted to give them more of whatever. It’s ingrained.

The GOP tried, bless their hearts, to win the hearts and mind of an opposition that already had plenty of suppliers and allies– thus it has no urgent need to change its mind–  all the while turning their back on the middle class and small businesses.

The disaffected observers who are busy just trying to hustle a living and a bit of a future are not as glamorous as a manufactured outrage, so the Pubbies go whoring their votes to the victim-mongers.

Seriously, Glenn Beck can preach and teach, and it’s good. And the Tea Parties can fume and march for all the good it is doing. But if someone doesn’t figure out a way to convince the non-players or marginal observers of their need for such values–and perhaps Obama is doing that faster than anyone else– then why give another dime to the GOP?

Did you see those kick-ass ads their Study Committee put together? Oh yeah? Where? They were awesome and unwatched.

The GOP won’t put the money on the street, on the television, in flyover country homes. They pay it out to a few eggheads. The GOP talks a good game about trickle-down but they hang onto every dime for themselves and then have the nerve to ask fervent and motivated people who are willing to do whatever it takes to, “please write a check. . .”  For what? More obscurity? More distant replies? More of the same?

I refuse for my choices to continually be Stupid D or Stupid R.  If there’s a way that ten bright balloon ideas can bloom from around the country and  networks can be built to uncover and promote those ideas for mutual profit, then we’d better get busy finding a way to reach into the very heart (read, wallet) of the voter, to engage him in the game. I want to win, and I don’t see how feeding a dying elephant is going to help. You can argue the numbers, the math, the ideals, the percentages and electoral votes but the jaded observer is gonna sit on their hands and say, “Oh yeah? What’s in it for me?”

Hell, nobody works for free. Get over it.

*****

Next up: If your favorite campaign coordinator hasn’t heard of Groupon, fire him now.

Dear me but I had to wear the whole fru-fru choir outfit befitting Old Charleston with a black hassock cassock as tight as a bustier, mercifully covered by a white something with billowing sleeves that makes adults so bedecked look slightly . . . innocent? Is that the point? The J.R. wasn’t buying the look, but was certainly contemplating the whole choir-girl vibe in a way that made me uneasy. . .

In all my years of church music (no, singing does NOT make you a saint) I never had to wear the vestments of a choir as I was always on the guitar and vocals with the worship band. This choir robe deal is anachronistic at best to one who grew up in the Catholic “folk mass” era (tambourine and Peter Paul and Mary songs! in Church!) and left it for the non-denominational rock n’ roll sort of congregations. In those days everything we did in church was loud, loose and improvised– like Jazz. Church really was fun and full, and about 2 inches deep spiritually.

Well, if still waters run deep then I’m officially in over my head. I had the temerity to let loose with a few jazzy obligatos during the Communion “upbeat” songs while the ancient warblers around me struggled with the tempo. But we still had fun, laughed at the newly baptized infant squalling in protest at the outrage of a bit of water on her head, assented to abiding Truths and greeted one another warmly.

Hey, it was no Glenn Beck rally. . . just the seersucker suits and bow ties of an old Southern town.

Don’t tell the Left that we have black people in such a bastion of White Anglo-Saxon Protestants. America doesn’t care what color anyone is. America’s churches don’t care either.

Oh, I’m sure it was a room full of hypocrites like myself. Who better to cross the threshold of Grace than those sorely in need of it? Isn’t that the point?

And then I remember, it all comes back: the real love and humor, real care and sharing along with the gentle reminders of a better frame of mind, a better state of being, and a longer frame of reference than my present challenges, my awful history, my shortening future.

How about NINE FREAKIN’ DAYS?

I’m tempted to lump this under the file of NPR’s gushy insistence that everything in China is bigger and better. Like their infrastructure planners that assumed 60 miles of highway without any possibility of exit was a good idea.