Posted on 02/10/2010 9:30:42 PM PST by SpareChange
Perfect Storm: My Two Cents On Convergences
By David J. Aland 10 February 2010
This last weekend, a perfect storm was brewing over the East Coast as well as at a Nashville conference center. Refugees from a Defense conference, stranded by flights cancelled in anticipation of the blizzard shared the hotel complex with a conference of feminist bloggers as well as the national Tea Party convention. Talk about a perfect storm. Merely imagining the varieties of friction that could occur along the seams between the groups sharing those facilities was mind-boggling. Worse yet, what if members of these disparate groups actually found common cause?
The expression “perfect storm” was popularized in 2000 by a movie of the same name that documented the impact of the Halloween storm of 1991 where a low-pressure system, a nor’easter and an unnamed hurricane converged to create one of the most monstrous Atlantic storms of the 20th century. It has come to indicate any convergence of forces whose product far exceeds the sum of its parts.
To a certain extent, that’s exactly what might have happened last weekend. Consider the sum of the parts there assembled:
- Department of Defense cyber-warriors stranded by a simple fluke of nature that their laptops could not sweep away. Worried about their families, their travel budgets, and the incipient sense of dread that comes from trying every day to defend military computer networks with few resources and even less popular support – that is, smart, but frustrated online people – they were fighting the cabin-fever of being stuck in a really nice hotel while their families were digging out from a legendary storm.
- The “MotherBloggers”, a loose coalition of cyber-savvy women, liberal and conservative, who employ computer networks every day to make their thoughts and opinions heard. Ranging from feminist-left to religious-right, these women came together to share not so much their individual agendas, but collaborate on how to use the Internet as a tool for being heard and heeded – that is, smart and motivated online people with an agenda.
- The Tea Party convention, a not-so-loose coalition of the most rapidly-growing grass-roots political movement since, quite possibly, a bunch of British colonists decided to quit being British. Growing like a planetary body, this movement has gone from being fringe to a veritable center-of-gravity for conservative disaffection, now struggling to define a national strategy. One of the possible outcomes of this weekend may well be the emergence of a new political party at the hands of these smart, but frustrated people.
There are, of course, yahoos in each group. Tonight I listened to two Defense types arguing quietly on arcane and possibly classified issues, oblivious of their surroundings. In another corner, feminist outrage was circulating amongst diners like sharks around a side of beef. At the bar, a gent who was plainly neither bragged about being a Marine and Special Forces sniper, and how the President doesn’t understand people like him. There are always yahoos in every group, and while they may not define the group, they certainly spice it.
Yet, in each of these groups, I could hear a common complaint – that they were not being taken seriously enough. Whether the DoD security types, the feminists, or the tea party partisans, they all seemed to believe that they were not being taken seriously, and that they needed to take action to change the situation.
Disenfranchisement is a powerful emotion. Left out of the discussion, many are motivated to shake up the game, often in pyrotechnic ways. We ignore the angst and frustration of all of these groups at our own peril.
There is a lesson here our President needs to heed. If the elections in Virginia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts were not sufficient evidence, this perfect storm should serve as a warning. The longer the White House continues to discount the voices of disaffection – across the aisle, in his own party, and across the country – the deeper the disaffection will fester. And such feelings have a tendency to accumulate. The voters have already demonstrated that they can take action to change the situation. The longer the White House ignores this, the more likely the voters are to demonstrate it again. Like a perfect storm, this growing unhappiness with hope and change is not a change the President should hope to face.
It’s not enough to talk to the American people, Mr. President. Sometimes you also have to listen.
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David J. Aland is a retired Naval Officer with a graduate degree in National Security Affairs from the U. S. Naval War College.
Too bad we have a POTUS who is deaf to anything but himself.
Of course, animals have more sense than humans!
That story just came to mind after reading your post. The animals’ truce was temporary; after all they have to eat. The wolf stalked and killed itself a deer, etc. But people finding common ground when faced with a real danger—after they solve the problem together, what can ever stop them from reverting back to their original ways? Each side gave a little ground in order to achieve the goal, but how long wold it stay that way? It may take an awful calamity such as all out civil war or anarchy, deaths & destruction, before we could call a truce. We live in interesting times.
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