Crowd-sourcing, polling, and collective decision-making as a means of building support

CA: Five thousand fewer children dying every day. I mean, it dwarfs, dwarfs everything that is actually on our news agenda, and it's invisible. This must drive you crazy. JD: It does, and we're having a huge debate in this country about aid levels, for example, and aid alone is not the whole solution. Nobody thinks it is. But, you know, if people saw the results of this smart aid, I mean, they'd be going crazy for it. I wish the 250,000 people who really did march outside this very building knew these results. Right now they don't, and it would be great to find a way to better communicate it, because we have not. Creatively, we've failed to communicate this success so far. If those kinds of efforts just could multiply their voice and amplify it at the key moments, I know for a fact we'd get better policy. The Mexican G20 need not have been a bust. Rio, if anyone cares about the environment, need not have been a bust, okay? But these conferences are going on, and I know people get skeptical and cynical about the big global summits and the promises and their never being kept, but actually, the bits that are, are making a difference, and what the politicians need is more permission from the public.

30,000 days

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/304202/were-just-not-important-response-anne-marie-slaughter-david-french