Call for crowd business
Regarding this:
What's probably wrong with it as idea: To simply turn and walk out would require a dollop of gumption that nearly everyone feels is currently unavailable to most of the elected officials allowed in the room. Besides, it wouldn't break any expressive ground. The silent turning-of-back schtick sends a sort of sullen thud. It's the feckless "just walk away" ploy advised by mothers to children who are debating whether 'tis nobler in the mind to cry, run, or slam Jake the Booby with the nearest sledgehammer. Rove would yawn.
What would work better? I don't know, but in a vision I see the familiar coiffed heads behaving counter-to-type. E.g., as Bush toils through his Dogberry imitation, the camera surveys
George W. Bush's delivery of the State of the Union address will take place on Tuesday, January 31, a little more than a week from now. It is my strong belief that every single Democrat present in the House chamber for the speech should, at a predetermined moment, stand up and walk out. No yelling. No heated words. Every Democrat should simply stand silently and leave.What's right with it: The occasion is engorged with signifying potential. It is the World Trade Center of occasions. Its political theater, however, has long abided by tedious conventions involving feigned crowd enthusiasm, robotic applause, becks and nods and shows of joint sympathy, seated pantomimed demurral, etc.
What's probably wrong with it as idea: To simply turn and walk out would require a dollop of gumption that nearly everyone feels is currently unavailable to most of the elected officials allowed in the room. Besides, it wouldn't break any expressive ground. The silent turning-of-back schtick sends a sort of sullen thud. It's the feckless "just walk away" ploy advised by mothers to children who are debating whether 'tis nobler in the mind to cry, run, or slam Jake the Booby with the nearest sledgehammer. Rove would yawn.
What would work better? I don't know, but in a vision I see the familiar coiffed heads behaving counter-to-type. E.g., as Bush toils through his Dogberry imitation, the camera surveys
- Kerry sitting back, lighting matches and tossing them into the air. They fall onto the shoulders of people sitting around him, starting small hairfires in some.
- Lieberman dropping trou to reveal his "Blue's Clues for Big Boys" diaper.
- A group on the side playing roulette.
- Murtha watching "Le Samourai" on his iPod.
- That sort of thing.
posted by Tom Matrullo at Saturday, January 28, 2006
6 Comments:
Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton locks lips, prompting the anchor personalities to compare them to Madonna and Christina Aguilera. A wardrobe incident sets off a hundred thousand emails that, oddly, all come from the same IP. A disheveled and drunken Al Gore crashes through the doors to yell, "bring it on, monkeyboy". The Progressive Caucus produce instruments and start up a pretty fair bossa nova.
At first I saw Gore in a leather bomber jacket. Then in something like this. In any case, his entrance triggers a Walpurgisnacht in which omens grin, portents hover, imperial horses neigh, and harpies feed. Alito turns into a pubic hair. Twelve Scotsmen dance on the dais. A bloody bull paws the ground. Two-headed Lyndie Englunds hang from the ceiling.
I think what they should do is this. It's an old Saul Alinsky trick. For three days eat nothing but beans and bananas and soya and drink plenty of beer. Show up like nothing's different and start ripping farts. Just get the place humming. I have no idea what the reaction of anyone would be but...yeah turning and walking out does nothing...causing the other side to gag or hold their noses might be better.
Walking away is a great idea, a perfect idea, but it only makes sense as a tactic in line with a broader strategy that precedes and follows it, and since that strategy does not exist, they might as well fart.
-klaus
Whistle lillibulero in unison, like Uncle Toby in Tristram Shandy.
It was once explained to me in the heart of black Rochester that the Alinsky maneuver was a specialty there, utilized by some guy who used to hire a goodly number of portly black men to sit front & center.
So the dems could disappear and reappear as black people. And the next time, have extra appendages. Budding Briareuses and Kottoses. Whistling from their 100 heads.
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