Cluster*

A Tale of Organizational Woe

Ever watched a school of small, darting fish? Or clouds of bison lumbering like small island nations cut free from the ocean floor in wandering traverses of unconstrained spaces? What you’ve got is a lot of movement without much consequence. Such is the organizational cluster*.

When you go full bore into the bowels of stupidity alone you get to bend an elbow and laugh about it later. One-upsmanship with a wry laugh and a chaser. Buddies laugh and play the game: “Think that was stupid? When I was….”.

There's no sense of ownership in a clusterfuck...you can't even laugh at yourself.

Clusterfucks are like the naked Emperor. Everyone involved realizes, or should, that somebody is bare-assed, but nobody calls it. So it gains momentum.

There are two essential elements to a good cluster*.

First an idea. It can even be one of your own. Later it’s always somebody else’s. Second, you’ve got to add too many people and leave out leadership. Like steam power, the idea is slow to build…extremely powerful…and not as easy to control as we’d like.

People “buy into” the idea, “get on board”… and remain clueless. They feel great to be moving, and damn the direction. They’re part of The Team and Making a Difference! Probably have cute little sloganeering buttons or banners that say so.

Then, into the vacuum created by lack of forethought comes foreplay. Group, orgiastic, hedonistic foreplay. “I know what!” shouts one. Another reveler cries “Yeah!! And then if we…”. Oooh, the ripples of pleasure!

Eventually somebody raises their head. Looking around over the shoulders of the rest they suddenly cry “We have to change direction!” The fish (or bison… you remember the bison/islands) jerk onto a new heading. And then somebody else does it. And then a couple of people have their heads raised shouting conflicting courses.

And it's back to the original idea….

Examine. Examine. Discuss and discuss. The idea’s carcass is beginning to bloat. Rot is lingering behind, unformed but casting a stench.

So people slip their best ideas into their pockets waiting to see how the wind blows; agree (and glance sideways…) or disagree with others' comments (but look statesmanlike for the Good of the Project).

Then comes the denouement (or climax, if you want to be that way): realization that nothing is going to be accomplished.

Next comes damage control, personal-style.

Drift away from center. Speak around your hand…. “Knew this was a bad idea.” “If Charlie or Marilyn had just gotten On Board instead of wasting everyone’s time….”

In some versions a hero type takes the stage to redeem the mission. The hero gets the faintly illuminated smiles and the “Nice Try’s” that come with the unuttered “… , loser.” Eventually everyone slinks away licking their wounds.

"Goddam it, this would have been different if it hadn’t been for Those Others!"

Separation of Church and State

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS should not be displayed on publicly funded property. They are unique to the Judeo-Christian belief system, and their explicit promotion by our government is directly contrary to the core principles of that government.

Some argue our Founders were Judeo-Christian people, and since our nation was founded on their beliefs the display of the Ten Commandments in publicly funded settings is appropriate. In fact, one of their principle tenets was that government should not follow their, or any other, particular faith.

In fact, the issue of religious freedom was incidental to the founding of our country, although perhaps not to the settlement of it. The Declaration of Independence was crafted after many perceived wrongs, but the wrongs were primarily economic and political. The colonists were disenfranchised by England. Without the same political voice guaranteed to other British subjects they were nothing but a source of income, unable to fund their own advancement or have petitions to their government heard.

Our Founders realized that despite differing religious backgrounds (even though largely sheltering under the same “Judeo-Christian” umbrella) they had something in common. They wanted to be free to live, work, and worship as individuals, bound by a social contract for the good of all.

The First Amendment forbids Congress to pass laws that standardize on or promote any specific religion. ("Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.")

To display the Ten Commandments with public money, in government buildings, is to subvert the Founders’ wishes by another means: it is an official, paid-for recognition of Christian ideology.

It thus disenfranchises all but Christian faiths and confers on the disenfranchised a second-class status. It confers upon the Christian faiths a more influential, more powerful status.

Frankly I don't care to get into the Constitutional arguments because I think it's just plain wrong to do. I am just one lonely example of how millions must feel when someone appeals to me through an appeal to my belief...in their God.

Exactly what the Bill of Rights, with the First Amendment as its first entry, was meant to prevent.