‘I don’t accept the insinuation,’ said Andrei quietly. ‘Much less the imagery.’
Sweetman shrugged in disgust.
‘Are you saying, Mr Sweetman, that the same kind of communication that Buckett and Hodgkin were said to have had on Fishbowl – which, by the way, they didn’t – couldn’t have happened on Homeplace?’
‘Of course I’m not saying that.’
‘Then what are you saying?’ said Andrei. ‘I don’t understand your point.’
‘You don’t have to come out beating your breast like Robert-frigging-Oppenheimer and saying “Oh, my God, I have been the medium of evil.”’
‘“I am become death, the destroyer of worlds,”’ murmured someone. ‘That’s the quote, Mike.’
‘Who gives a fuck?’
‘That isn’t what I said,’ said Andrei. ‘You should read the statement.’
‘I have read it. Made me puke.’
‘I think we should take responsibility. It happens. That’s the kind of business we run.’
‘No, that’s the kind of business I run. You just sit on the back of it.’
‘Mike,’ said one of the other guys, ‘maybe your attitude here is a little influenced by your … you know, your business attitude towards Andrei.’
‘Hell it is!’ said Sweetman – but the opposite was true. He had tried to ruin Fishbowl, he had tried to buy it. Most recently, he had tried to compete with it. That was probably what was hurting him most. The Denver bombing had nipped his relaunch of Worldspace in the bud and so far, in the furore that had followed, there hadn’t been any point in even trying to get it back on the agenda. It now languished with a couple of million active users that were reducing in number by the day, and everyone knew it. The brand stank so badly that it probably never would be salvageable. It was Sweetman’s first significant business failure since he had conceived of Homeplace a decade earlier. ‘I just want to know what value he thinks he adds.’
‘Mr Sweetman,’ said Andrei, ‘I have three hundred million people who think I add some kind of value.’
‘You’ve taken my users and Jerry’s users and Ed’s users and the users of half the people in this room, and done nothing to originate them yourself.’
‘I offer them something different. It’s a deeper connectedness than you offer.’
Sweetman snorted in disgust.
‘OK, guys,’ said Jerry. ‘This isn’t getting us anywhere. This isn’t what we’re here for. If everyone wants to sit here attacking each other then, frankly, I’m going home.’
Sweetman snorted again. ‘There’s only one person who needs attacking.’
‘All right, Mike. Enough, OK? You’ve made your point. Take it outside if you want to continue.’ Glick paused, looking around the table. ‘Does anyone else want to take a shot at Andrei? Because if that’s what you’re all here for, maybe we ought to call it quits. Look, I took a risk getting you all together so, seriously, if that’s all this is about for you guys, I’m going.’ He waited. ‘OK. So let’s try and be positive. Whatever the role of Andrei’s statement, whether this was a fight that was always coming or whether the statement brought it on us – whatever – the statement’s been made. Nothing in it was false or misrepresentative. Each of us might have an opinion about whether it was better to have made that statement or not, but it’s been made. And right now it’s one piece of ammunition – only one piece – that’s being used against us. And I want to know, do we think there’s any way that we as a group, as an industry, should respond? If you guys feel that, no, we should continue individually, then thanks for coming and grab a bagel on your way out. But if there is a way, then now’s the time we should talk about it. You know, if this is a fight we always had to have, maybe we can turn this around and use it as the opportunity to win it.’
For a moment no one spoke, as if everyone was deciding whether they wanted to leave or to give the meeting a chance.
Then Marc Edwards, CEO of a video and file-sharing site called Hoola, cleared his throat. ‘Our problem is we have all these people who are strongly opposed to what McKenrick’s doing, millions of people, but they’re posting messages on their home pages, they’re joining group pages, they’re blogging … it’s all inside the online community. But the people who are driving this, they’re outside that community. So they don’t hear it or see it, and if they do, somehow the fact that it’s online kind of robs it of credibility. And the people we have to persuade, those people aren’t in that community, either. They’re the soccer moms and the judo dads that McKenrick and her like need to get re-elected. They’re the people McKenrick is talking to. And I think the outrage that’s happening amongst our people, our community … it’s not getting through to them. So at the moment for that big group, it’s the McKenrick argument, it’s the panic security argument that they’re hearing.’
‘Marc, soccer moms and judo dads use our networks,’ said someone else.
‘Sure, Raj, but they’re deep in what they’re doing. They’re not sitting there reading the comments every day. They’re exchanging photos, they’re sending recipes! As far as they’re concerned, they don’t care if we’re forced to shut down stuff that some agency in government deems subversive. They’re not about to do anything wrong. And if that keeps little Johnny or little Susan safe, they’re happy. McKenrick is winning this argument.’
‘So what’s our counter?’
‘Well, its free speech, right? You shut the medium, you shut down the exchange.’
‘No one’s talking about shutting it down.’
‘Which is exactly why McKenrick’s argument is winning. Because she’s not talking about shutting it down. She’s talking about using criminal responsibility on our part as a lever to create censorship.’
‘Which is absurd,’ said someone else. ‘Stuff gets said on the phone every day that’s more obscene and abusive than anything that happens on our networks. Has anyone ever talked about holding phone companies responsible?’
‘People are really concerned about this kind of restriction,’ said Andrei. ‘I’m seeing it on Fishbowl all the time.’
‘But we have to get it out of Fishbowl!’ said Edwards. ‘We have to get it out of Homeplace and Charitas and Hoola and get it right into the faces of the soccer moms and judo dads so they can see that people are concerned about this, people like them, and that if this happens, this is a fundamental change to our way of life. And the people in Denver didn’t die for that. They didn’t die so some senator could rip up one of the greatest freedoms underlying our Constitution.’
‘That’s it,’ said Jerry, snapping his fingers. ‘That right there, Marc. I really like the way you put that. They didn’t die so some senator could tear up the Constitution. That’s exactly the point – so how do we make it? Because it’s the truth, right? That’s what the bombers wanted to do, tear up the Constitution. McKenrick is continuing the job of the bombers – she’s just doing it by different means.’
‘She’s using them.’
‘How do we get that message out?’
‘I’ve got a great PR agency.’
‘No, how do we really get it out? Into the real world.’
There was silence.
‘We can’t be the ones to say it,’ said Mandy Rikheim, the only female in the room. ‘It’s got to come from people.’
Glick nodded. ‘How? How?’
Someone suggested a petition, someone else a concert.
‘What about a march?’
All eyes turned to Bill Rosenstein, CEO of a major crowdsourcing site.
‘My mother marched in Selma in 1965,’ said Rosenstein. ‘She bussed in from Philly. Twenty-two years old. I don’t know how many times she told me about it when I was a kid. It was the formative experience of her life. And that was what brought the message home to the nation, wasn’t it? That march in Selma.’ Rosenstein paused. When he resumed, his voice was quivering with emotion. ‘That was about freedom. That was about the Constitution. Isn’t that what this is about? I s
ay we march. We march to commemorate the Denver victims. We march to protect the freedoms they died for.’
‘Where, Bill?’ said Rikheim. ‘Denver?’
‘Everywhere. In every city where we can organize it. It’s, what … six weeks now, since the bombing? Let’s say on the eight-week anniversary, if we can get it organized that quickly, we march.’
‘We could never organize it that quickly.’
‘What about July 4?’ said Glick. ‘People will be out already. Let’s use that, let’s channel it. Let’s show the soccer moms and the judo dads that this really matters, that people are concerned enough to come out on the streets to protest it, that the country their kids are going to grow up in is going to change if they don’t do something to stop it.’ He looked around the table. ‘What do we think?’
‘I like it,’ said Rikheim. ‘It would be awesome if it works.’
‘The tricky part is to bring the two things together,’ said Edwards. ‘What was done to those poor people in Denver with what McKenrick is trying to do. The thing is, is it in poor taste?’
‘Why did they die, Marc?’ replied Glick. ‘They died because they were federal workers doing their job to uphold what this country is about. They died because they were firemen and ambulance drivers and policemen and public servants who came to the aid of their fellow citizens. What’s in poor taste, what’s appalling, is Senator McKenrick trying to use their deaths to do the exact opposite.’
‘I’m not arguing with you, Jerry. I’m just saying that we need to get that across.’
‘That I agree with. We need to build it up like that. We need to find speakers who will make that point. We need to make sure we get all that across.’ Glick paused. ‘So what are we saying? Are we saying this is it? Are we saying we’re with Bill? We organize a march to commemorate the victims?’
‘And defend our constitutional freedoms,’ said Rikheim. ‘The best way we can commemorate those people is to defend our freedoms.’
‘Right. So that’s what we’re saying?’
‘We should talk to our lawyers,’ said Mike Sweetman.
‘Sure, we talk to our lawyers, but apart from that … is it a yes?’
Someone nodded. Then someone else.
‘Andrei,’ said Glick, ‘what about you?’
Andrei nodded. ‘Fishbowl’s in. We’ll help organize. We’ll do anything.’
‘Mike?’
‘I’ve got to talk to my lawyers.’
‘Sure, but … yes or no?’
Everyone in the room waited on Sweetman’s answer. His network alone had more than double the number of users of all the others combined. Homeplace’s involvement would be critical both to give credibility to the marches and to stimulate turnout. He was, by some measure, the most important person in the room.
And Sweetman, who knew it, didn’t want to have anything to do with Andrei Koss or anything in which he was involved. Just allowing Koss to be associated with him, he felt, gave Koss a status he didn’t deserve. But Sweetman also had a very clear understanding of the needs of his business, and he felt that his network, in the current fevered environment, faced a genuine existential threat from Diane McKenrick. Even if the full extent of her absurd proposals wasn’t implemented, Congress might compromise on constraints that would severely impede his growth and profitability. And the idea they had just come up with to counter her, he had to acknowledge, was smart. There was almost a touch of genius to it.
At length he turned to Jerry and nodded.
Glick gave a smile of relief. ‘So what do we call it?’
‘Just what you said, Jerry,’ said Rosenstein. ‘We’re defending freedom. July 4. Let’s call it the Defence of Freedom marches.’
Rikheim smiled. ‘Let’s see McKenrick oppose that. Let’s see her stand up and say she’s opposed to defending freedom.’
‘You know, there is a risk,’ said Sweetman. ‘There is a way this could actually work against us.’
‘Which is?’
‘We’re sitting here all excited in this room, we think it’s going to be another Selma, and then we do it, we organize it, we hype it, we build it up – and no one turns out.’
There was silence.
‘We’ll look like idiots.’
‘People will turn out,’ said someone.
‘Let’s not kid ourselves, it’s high risk. We’re upping the ante. Just so we’re aware. If the turnout’s low – McKenrick wins.’
25
THREE-QUARTERS OF a million marched in Denver. The city that had lost so many of its sons and daughters two months previously gave itself over to a great sighing catharsis of grief. It wasn’t the biggest rally in the country, but it was by far the most emotional. Denver Honours Its Martyrs proclaimed one banner stretched behind the podium in City Park where the march ended. Denver Says No To Senator McKenrick said a second.
The nation joined with Denver. Over a million wound their way through Central Park in New York, while 800,000 converged on Washington, bussing in from all over the country. Los Angeles saw an estimated 600,000; San Francisco a similar number. In Chicago, a million descended on Grant Park. Houston saw 400,000. In Oklahoma City, where the wounds of Timothy McVeigh’s bombing were never far from the surface, it was estimated that 40 per cent of the city’s population thronged the area around the Oklahoma City National Memorial. In cities and towns across the country, Fourth of July celebrations were transformed into Defence of Freedom gatherings. Speaker after speaker on podium after podium, in parks, in stadiums, in fairgrounds, in front of town halls, said that the only fitting memorial for those who had died in Denver – people whose basic and most fundamental constitutional right, the right to life, had been snatched away by Buckett and Hodgkin – was a reaffirmation of the constitutional freedoms guaranteed to all Americans.
Around 300,000 turned out in Papago Park, in Diane McKenrick’s home town of Phoenix, to affirm that message. Combatively having accepted an invitation to speak, she was listened to in stony silence until a wave of slow handclapping built up and drowned her out.
That day marked the turning point of public opinion. The sight of 20 million or more Americans marching in avenues, malls and parks across the country had an impact, and not only on soccer moms and judo dads. Politicians from the left who hadn’t distinguished themselves for their courage began to find their voices on podiums from which the sight of people who had come out in their masses emboldened them to say more than they had intended. The president, being given reports of the numbers descending on Washington, suddenly found time in a schedule that had been too busy for attendance at the rally to speak live by videolink to the crowds in the Mall. At a pre-scheduled press conference with a visiting head of state the next morning, he described the day as one of the proudest in American history, when the American nation had affirmed both its deep compassion and its unshakeable fidelity to the constitutional foundations that were still as right and relevant as when the Founding Fathers had first enunciated them.
The sentiment spread in the following days. While the more extreme elements of the right wing of the Republican Party and their media sympathisers sneered at the lefties who had turned out to provide aid and comfort to terrorists, more moderate Republicans sensed that the time had come, if they had ever been on McKenrick’s bandwagon, to jump off quietly. In sight of the sheer number who had turned out, it just wasn’t tenable to say this was a loony minority. Just about everyone in the country had a friend, relative, workmate or acquaintance who had marched.
In private, Diane McKenrick began to get apologetic calls from people who, only a fortnight previously, had been encouraging her to push ahead. In public, their silence was deafening. But the thing that really did for McKenrick, more than the number of people who turned out or politicians on the left finally finding their voices, was a single image – the image of her standing on a podium, a suddenly small, impotent figure with a look of confusion on her face, struggling to be heard. Those who saw footage on the news t
hat night heard the rounds of slow handclapping reverberating like thunder in the natural amphitheatre of Papago Park. Those who didn’t see the footage saw the image, which was carried on the front page and website of just about every newspaper the next day. Some papers carried it as part of a montage of images from around the nation, others displayed it in isolation. The paper edition of the New York Times had it in a six-column box, judging that it summarized the upshot of the marches better than just about any other photo that had been taken that day.
Sometimes an image is so powerful, so evocative, that it tells not only what has happened but what is about to happen. Comparing it to the ‘Ceausescu moment’ of 1989, when the Romanian dictator, who would survive only another four days before being summarily executed along with his wife, was photographed staring in perplexity at the unprecedented sight of a crowd of his downtrodden people jeering him to his face, the Times editorialized that it would be surprised to see Senator McKenrick’s bill last another week and that, to all intents and purposes, her presidential bid was over before it had begun.
Her bill, in fact, lasted another two weeks before it was formally withdrawn. Her bid, as she knew herself, was finished before she had even stepped down from the podium in Papago Park and the sound of the slow handclapping had stopped echoing in her ears.
The CEOs who had come together with Jerry Glick to organize the marches on that Fourth of July didn’t speak at the rallies. In the runup to the day, hostile voices from the right of the political spectrum had, as expected, accused them of exploiting the tragedy of Denver to garner publicity for their businesses. As part of their strategy to defuse the claim, they stayed in the background and allowed the event to speak for itself. The message came from others, from local leaders impassioned to speak out. But the CEOs did march, not in Silicon Valley, but dispersed across the country, back where they had come from, in the places where they had grown up.
Andrei marched in Boston, his home town. It was the culmination of two weeks of frenetic activity, during which he and half the Fishbowl organization had taken on the responsibility of organizing the marches in fourteen states.
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