Something to think about

"Among the innumerable rights claimed by the dominating consciousness is the right to define violence, and to locate it. Oppressors never see themselves as violent."-Paulo Freire

A scary business

I mentioned earlier that I just got around to reading Laurence Leamer's The Price of Justice: A True Story of Greed and Corruption, about WV's adventures in Masseyland. Here's a paragraph that jumped at me:

Blankenship and his cohorts made it a scary business to live in West Virginia and dare to suggest that the state could no longer be so dependent on coal for economic growth. Not a single major politician in the state directly faced the realities of a declining coal industry and a future in which, if the state's leaders did not wake up, the historic coal fields would be nothing but wastelands of the lost and the left behind. Politicians knew if they offered even the mildest criticism, the coal industry would immediately vilify them as traitors and look for ambitious candidates to challenge them. There would be no easy solutions and no technical magic wand that could place mini-Silicon Valleys, for instance, up mountain hollows--but no one was asking the questions that had to be asked.

I would say there there were some exceptions, such as Senator Byrd in his last years or Senator Rockefeller as he approaches retirement. There are even some state legislators who want to move in a post-colonial direction. But overall the paragraph stands.

HERE'S A SURPRISE. The rich rule.

ON THE BRIGHT SIDE, nonviolence trumps violence when it comes to making revolutions.

SPEAKING OF VIOLENCE, this item argues that climate change is just that.

DOING THE NUMBERS. Here's a look at health care reform enrollment.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Happy 100, Albert

Today is the 100th birthday of one of my intellectual heroes, Albert Camus. Born in Algeria, he became a major force in the French literary and intellectual scene and won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1957. Camus called them like he saw them, infuriating the left and right in the process.

I was unaware of his birthday until I saw the NPR story linked above. By coincidence, I happen to be re-reading his novel The Plague for the umpteenth time. That novel played a huge part in my political formation. This saying by Tarrou, a central character, sums up my worldview pretty well:

"All I maintain is that on this earth there are pestilences and there are victims, and it's up to us, so far as possible, not to join forces with the pestilences. That may sound simple to the point of childishness; I can't judge if it's simple, but I know it's true."

SPEAKING OF WHICH, the plague of mean-spiritedness is alive and well. Here's a look at the cuts in food stamps.

NON-VIOLENCE BY THE NUMBERS. It holds up pretty well.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

By their fruits

A few weeks back, I scored a major find at a local library. It was, and, yes, this does show what a geek I am, a 24 part lecture series on Transcendentalism and I was totally jazzed. I was all over it and regretted when it came to an end.

I'm not sure still what to make of Transcendentalism, that name for a diverse and fractious movement of writers, poets, dreamers, cranks and crazies that came spinning out of New England in the mid 1800s. And what a mixed lot they were, ranging from brilliant to batty.

But still, for all the amorphous verbosity, this was a movement or a trend in American thought that spread far beyond this continent and it had a largely beneficial influence, as its ripples were felt in the anti-slavery movement, support for the Union cause and abolition in the Civil War, the early women's movement, environmentalism, the utopian community movement,spiritual egalitarianism and other social reforms.

You could make a good case that one of these guys (Thoreau) accidentally laid the foundations for the theory of nonviolent action, which did great things during the Civil Rights movement and in many other circumstances..

People like Emerson and Thoreau were also among the earliest cultural bridges, promoting respect for other religions. No history of Buddhism's migration to the West or of the dawning appreciation in this country of such Indian classics as the Bhagavad Gita would be complete without a nod to this movement.

Jesus said "by their fruits shall you know them" and I try to make it a point to avoid sharp disagreements with him. By that standard, as loopy as some of the Transcendentalists were, they did pretty good.

Much more on Ralphie to come.

LATEST RANT. Here's my call for WV Governor Tomblin to expand Medicaid coverage to working West Virginians.

HUMAN EVOLUTION. Game on.

IT HAS BEEN WAY TOO LONG since I ran something about zombies.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Scissorbills

Last night I had the opportunity of discussing health care with someone from a few counties away. The particular topic was the expansion of Medicaid coverage under health care reform to low income working people earning up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level.

The person in question, who was uninsured, underpaid and appeared to be a candidate for diabetes, hypertension and/or heart disease, didn't think this was a good idea. Apparently, some unworthy people might receive coverage as a result.

I remained polite, of course, but inside wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. Folks with this kind of attitude were referred to by the Industrial Workers of the World or Wobblies as "Scissorbills," meaning someone who would cut off his or her nose to spite the face (think duck bill). Joe Hill wrote two songs about such people titled "Scissorbill" and  "Mr. Block."

The second song is better known these days Here's the chorus:

Oh Mr. Block you were born my mistake
You take the cake
You make me ache
Go tie a rock on your block and go jump in the lake
Kindly do that for liberty's sake

(Note: I only quote that for the sake of historical and cultural relevance. I don't actually want such people to jump in lakes. At least not when it's this cold outside. Ask me again in springtime.)

The discussion reminded me of a dark saying that I think was said by Theodor Adorno to the effect that domination is perpetuated by the dominated. That may sound shocking but it is a basic axiom of the theory of nonviolent action that systems of injustice would be unable to function if people didn't cooperate with them. If that cooperation, sometimes called the "pillars of support," is removed, the whole thing comes tumbling down.

Alas, that's easier said than done, although here and there it has happened. Some folks may not get there this time around.

Of the 99% spring, nonviolence, civil disobedience, Plutarch and the Spartans

I've been reflecting lately on the 99% Spring campaign lately, which aims to train 100,000 people in nonviolent direct action in April. Earlier posts are here and here.

One good decision on the part of the campaign was to try to convey the range of possibilities for nonviolent action without really getting into civil disobedience. That is a topic of its own and requires a great deal of planning and preparation to be successful in the best case scenario.

While it can at times be a very powerful thing, in my opinion, civil disobedience is an option that is greatly and grossly overused. Some people apparently think that you get points for getting arrested. You don't. As I see it, you get points for winning. Some people use civil disobedience not as a last resort but as a first resort when they haven't even come close to exhausting alternative strategies. Sometimes it seems to me that it's the refuge of the politically inept.

This is the martial artist in me talking, but the value of a technique generally diminishes with its repetition. Habituation happens. If you overuse one technique you become predictable and your opponents can easily counter and/or dismiss it. The last reaction a group working for social change wants is for people to say, with a sigh of boredom, "there they go again."

Random classical digression....This train of thought was inspired yesterday as I was re-reading Plutarch's Lives. I'm on the life of Lycurgus, the ancient lawgiver of Sparta. The author states that the Spartans made it a policy that

"they should not make war often, or long, with the same enemy, lest that they should train and instruct them in war, by habituating them to defend themselves."

(Random historical digression...Eventually the Spartans failed to follow this advice, which resulted in them getting their butts kicked by the Thebans.)

More on the 99% Spring

Since I mentioned the 99% Spring campaign last time (click here for that), I might as well throw in a few more thoughts about this effort to take training in nonviolent direct action to 100,000 Americans Here goes...

*First, hell yeah. This is a good idea, long overdue.

*Second, let's deal with the co-optation question. I know that some people who are political purists are concerned about the involvement of many organizations regarded as "mainstream" in the effort, as if being mainstream is an evil in itself.  I tend to regard purity as the unforgivable sin in politics so I've never been able to work up much sympathy for it. (In fact, isn't the whole idea to make things like social justice or human rights a mainstream idea?)  I will publicly state that if co-optation means getting ideas out to a broader audience than a select few, I wish to God that more such ideas get co-opted.

*Third, I hope the people who planned this didn't go to all the time and trouble of developing a curriculum, training trainers, and holding gatherings all over the country just to do some actions on Tax Day, which probably would have already happened anyway. It makes a lot more sense to me if this campaign is an ongoing and possibly long term effort. It might even be cool not only to take the show on the road for a long time but also to develop additional trainings to help people develop skills in working for social justice. Otherwise, it seems like kind of a waste of good energy.

Of nonviolence, the 99% Spring, and such

Rev. Jim Lewis invokes the spirit at a Tax Day action in Charleston yesterday. (Note: he's the guy in front, not the big orange cat strangling a worker.)


All over the country, people gathered yesterday in nonviolent actions to call for tax fairness. This is part of a massive effort by many groups under the umbrella of 99% Spring, which has the goal of training 100,000 people in nonviolent action in April and mobilizing people to take it to the streets.

I attended one of the training events and found it to be a pretty good introduction to nonviolent action for people new to it. You can check out a lot of the materials and video at the website above. I do think, however, that the trainings would be stronger if they included a few other elements.

Specifically, these include


1. a good brainstorm about why to be strategically nonviolent to start with. Trainers should be sure that the following points get made:

*that generally speaking the wealthy elite have direct or indirect control over the state with all its machinery of repression, as in police, military, jails, courts, etc. and that it's pretty stupid to try to meet force with force when you don't have any;

*that generally speaking violence is a turnoff for most people; and

*that acting violently (or stupidly in general) gives the powers that be an excuse to dismiss, discredit and repress the group.

2. A basic understanding of politics in general. By this I mean that it's good to get across the idea that on any given issue a minority of people feel strongly about an issue one way or another while a much larger groups has no opinion at all or is somewhere in the middle. A good action or campaign is one that brings people your way and isolates your opponents. This is true of ordinary politics and policy work. of the arts of persuasion, and of direct action in general. There is nothing magic about nonviolent action: if it doesn't make sense politically it's better to do nothing. I have seem plenty of useless, stupid and counterproductive actions.

3. A basic understanding of power.  A central tenet of nonviolent theory (and politics generally) is that power isn't monolithic. It depends on the support and cooperation of all kinds of people and institutions. Even the most powerful dictator or ruling class depends on many other people to keep things running. These are often called "pillars of support." A good nonviolent campaign is one that withdraws the pillars of support (see #2).

Conversely, you can do all the nonviolent protest you want but if it is done without political sense and strategy it may just convince the pillars of support that you want to remove that your group is just a bunch of whack jobs.

It shouldn't take more than a few minutes to get these ideas across in any kind of training and I think it would strengthen the overall effort.

Diversity of bad ideas

Overwhelmingly but with some exceptions, participants in the Occupy movement have adopted, often explicitly, nonviolence as a method of action. However, in some places there are those who argue for "a diversity of tactics," which basically seems to consist of throwing things at cops.

Presumably such people believe that this is the best way to win over the hearts and minds of the 99 percent they claim to represent.

Sorry, but the most charitable thing I can say about that approach is that it is, in one of the Spousal Unit's favorite phrases, "dumber than dog ****." I say that not only as someone who works for a Quaker organization that promotes nonviolence, but also as a gun owning Gandhi-allergic Scotch Irish hillbilly with a black belt.

This has nothing to do with any belief on my part regarding the moral arc of the universe, the evidence for which is underwhelming to me most days. It comes down to this: as much as some seem to like throwing stuff as a method of change, the rulers generally have way more stuff to throw. And they can throw it harder. Second, most people are not all that turned on by the sight of people throwing stuff.

It seems to me but simple prudence to avoid giving one's opponent the excuse and/or ability to crush and/or totally discredit and isolate you unless there is a compelling reason to do so and I don't imagine that happens very often.

As a friend of mine once said about ultra "left" groups that engage in provocative action, "If they're not getting paid by the other side, they're getting ripped off."

IT'S MONDAY so it's gotta be Krugman bashing austerity.

HISTORY IS MESSY, so the Tennessee Tea Party wants to clean it up--by keeping slavery and such unsavory matters of American history out of the textbooks.

WHAT IS 24 MILLION GENERATIONS? If we were playing Jeopardy, that would be the number required for mouse sized mammals to evolve to elephant proportions assuming natural selection was favorable.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Loud silence

Compared to happenings in other places, the Occupy movement in West Virginia so far has been pretty tame. Not that I'm complaining. In case you missed it, here's a news story plus two videos from Occupy UC Davis. The first video shows sitting protesters being pepper sprayed point blank a by campus police officer.

The second video is even more dramatic. It features the silent protest of UC Davis chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi as she walked by students after defending the spraying. As a friend of mine put it in an email, this would be an example of "nonviolence done right."

UNLIKELY MESSENGER DEPARTMENT. Here's an item from Business Week, a periodical not generally known for its Marxist leanings, about how inequality hurts the economy.

MORE ON "creative protest" here.

A WOMAN'S PLACE is in the union. Another friend who sent me this link observed that "Among the most progressive union leaders I have worked with over the years, the women, by in large, have held out a great deal of hope for the future."

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Guess who's coming to dinner

I've been blogging off and on lately about Beowulf, along with current events. It really is a cool story with both ancient and universal themes.

One big theme in the ancient and medieval world was the problem of hospitality or how to deal with guests, hosts and strangers. It may well be that humans are hard wired to have an in-group/out-group orientation, which makes dealing with strangers, singularly or in groups, an ambiguous matter. New people might prove to be good friends or dangerous enemies and both host and guest posed potential threats to each other.

Issues of guests, hosts and hospitality were major themes in the Iliad and Odyssey and other Greek myths as well as in the Bible and other sources. It's no surprise that this is also an issue in the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf, which portrays societies that spend at least part of the time raiding each other.

What would you do if 15 heavily armed proto-Vikings showed up on your doorstep? Or, if you were one of the 15, how would you convince those who met you that you meant no harm? And, by the way, how much mead is there in the cellar, anyway?

Before any major monster-killing can be done, these kinds of details have to be sorted out. More on that to come.

WHAT'S NOT ON THE TABLE. Here's an op-ed by a co-worker of mine about what is missing from deficit reduction discussions.

THE LESS BAD PARTS of President Obama's proposed budget are discussed here.

STICKER SHOCK. A new Harvard study of the costs of coal finds a bigger bottom line.

AN ODD COINCIDENCE. It just so happened that just before the basically nonviolent Egyptian revolution burst upon the scene I started rereading a volume of Gene Sharp on non-violent action. I couldn't help thinking of him as events unfolded. Here's a profile of Sharp from today's New York Times.

OLD DOGS. Here's a look at the canine family tree from wolf to woof.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

This could happen to anybody

Goats could drive anybody to drink.

Okay. Every so often a news story will catch the eye. This week I ran across one from Poland about a farmer who was arrested for drunk driving while taking his lonely goat out on a date.

Lest there be any confusion, he was not dating the goat himself, but rather escorting it on a visit to a female companion. Apparently the goat was riding in the back seat. It is a truth universally acknowledged that goats dislike riding shotgun.

Apparently, when he got to the farm of his friend, whereat the female goat resided, the humans pounded back some vodka while the goats engaged in that delicate form of courtship for which they are so famed.

Actually, I've been in similar situations, minus the vodka. We don't have a buck (an un-neutered male for you goat civilians) so whenever our lady goats are in the mood to enjoy the converse of a caprine gentleman we put them in the back of the Spousal Unit's Matrix and haul them off.

Perhaps one reason we haven't indulged in vodka on these quadrupedal booty calls is because they don't take that long...

(For some reason, our lady goats tend to crave male companionship at awkward times and are often particularly demanding about such visits on or about Christmas Day, which kind of puts a damper on the whole manger story for me.)
While El Cabrero is officially opposed to drunk driving, the thing that really stuck in my mind is the idea of putting a randy male goat in one's car. They are odoriferous beasts and the odor clings to anything they come into contact with for a long time to come. Whatever happens to the driver, I hope there's a good stockpile of car air fresheners in the European Union. And, it goes without saying, I hope that the date was a felicitous one.

THE GREAT DIVIDE. Here's another call for debate without destruction.

THE LEGACY OF NONVIOLENCE. From the WV News Service, here's a story featuring a friend of mine and an associate of the Revs. Martin Luther King Jr. and Sr. on violent and nonviolent communication.

STRANGE BEDFELLOWS. Conservative activist Grover Norquist wants public debate on the costs of the war in Afghanistan.

DENIED. In a move sure to generate coalfield controversy, the EPA vetoed Arch Coal's Spruce Mine permit, which would have been the largest mountaintop removal mine in WV history.

CUTE LITTLE DINOSAUR UPDATE here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

This and that

There are a number of Buddhist ideas that I think are useful for people interested in social justice. Earlier this week, I wrote about the big three, also known as the three signs of being: suffering, impermanence and insubstantiality (dukkha, anicca and anatta).

Another one is related to all three but especially the latter. It's the basic idea of dependent origination, also sometimes called dependent co-arising. This basically means that nothing really exists in itself or is as solid as it seems. Rather, all things are dependent on a long series of causes and conditions and come into being and pass away according to those conditions.

As the Buddha put it,

When this exists, that comes to be. With the arising of this, that arises. When this does not exist, that does not come to be. With the cessation of this, that ceases.

The take home message I get from that is that the conditions that shape our world and social institutions constantly change. If we pay attention and act skillfully in accordance with conditions (or refrain from acting when conditions are inappropriate) then there is a better chance at attaining a positive outcome. Acting unskillfully or disregarding conditions is like someone trying to cross a busy street without looking at the traffic.

LIVE LONG AND PROSPER? Here's a snapshot about the effects of income on lifespan.

SIGN ON. The National Unemployment Law Project has set up a website to petition Congress to extend unemployment benefits, which are set to run out at the end of November.

SUPERMARKET SURPRISES here.

LOCKED UP SYNDROME. This Gazette editorial looks at the American tendency to warehouse way more people than most other countries.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

How's this for randomness?

Random mushroom picture.

A nearby city's newspaper has a feature whereby people can call in and vent about various topics. Many of these are mini-rants on particular topics or personal messages to some offender, as in "to the person who stole my dog, I hope you rot in hell."

Occasionally, however, there are cryptic messages of a truly transcendental character which could even serve as Zen koans upon which to meditate.

(Did you guys notice the elegant way in which I avoided ending that sentence with a preposition?)

Here's one the Spousal Unit cut out for the refrigerator which could serve either as financial advice or a means of attaining satori:

I have been playing the lottery faithfully for years in West Virginia, but I figured out there is no way to win here. You have to go to North Carolina. I have a friend in North Carolina, and I have been letting him buy my tickets for me.

GETTING IT RIGHT. Here's another item urging the Obama administration not to cave in on health care reform. And, from the same source, here's another on the climate change vote.

NONVIOLENCE. Gene Sharp, a major theorist of nonviolent action, has been getting major media attention lately.

URGENT WHALE INTELLIGENCE UPDATE here.

HIGH IMPACT. From Coal Tattoo, here's a post with multiple links about the impact of mountaintop removal mining.

THE FINE POINTS OF APPALACHIAN CUISINE are discussed here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

PROTESTING PILATE

The nonviolent toppling of dictators and repressive regimes has gotten a good deal of attention in recent years. The use of strategic nonviolence is even frequently studied by military personnel.

While many people sometimes think of nonviolent action as something invented by Gandhi and practiced by others such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in reality it has been practiced without fanfare in many places since ancient times.

Believe it or not, it was even tried with success on the Roman procurator of Judea Pontius Pilate. Yeah, that Pilate--the one who presided over Jesus' crucifixion. The incident occurred when Jews protested the presence of images from Roman military standards in the city of Jerusalem.

According to the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, writing in the Jewish Antiquities (18.55-59)

Now Pilate, the prefect of Judea, when he brought his army from Caesarea and removed it to winter quarters in Jerusalem, took a bold step in subversion of the Jewish practices, by introducing into the city the busts of the emperor that were attached to the military standards, for our law forbids the making of images.

It was for this reason that the previous prefects, when they entered the city, used standards that had no such ornaments. Pilate was the first to bring the images into Jerusalem and set them up, doing it without the knowledge of the people, for he entered at night.

But when the people discovered it, they went in a throng to Caesarea and for many days entreated him to take away the images. He refused to yield, since to do so would be an outrage to the emperor; however, since they did not cease entreating him, on the sixth day he secretly armed and placed his troops in position, while he himself came to the speaker's stand. This had been constructed in the stadium, which provided concealment for the army that lay in wait.

When the Jews again engaged in supplication, at a pre-arranged signal he surrounded them with his soldiers and threatened to punish them at once with death if they did not put an end to their tumult and return to their own places.

But they, casting themselves prostrate and baring their throats, declared that they had gladly welcomed death rather than make bold to transgress the wise provisions of the laws. Pilate, astonished at the strength of their devotion to the laws, straightway removed the images from Jerusalem and brought them back to Caesarea.

Who'd have thunk it?

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

WHAT WE HAVE HERE IS A FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE

Lately, El Cabrero has been thinking about what people who want a less violent and more just world can learn from studying strategy and the history of conflict, with a special emphasis on the teachings of Sun Tzu.

As mentioned previously this week, there are some areas in which The Art of War and the modern theory of nonviolent action dovetail.

As you might expect, there are also areas where it's a bit murkier. Take this passage from Chapter 1:

Warfare is the art (tao) of deceit. Therefore, when able, seem to be unable; when ready, seem unready; when nearby, seem far away; and when far away, seem near. If the enemy seeks some advantage, entice him with it. If he is in disorder, attack him and take him. If he is formidable, prepare against him. If he is strong, evade him. If he is incensed, provoke him. If he is humble, encourage his arrogance. If he is rested, wear him down. If he is internally harmonious, so divisiveness in his ranks. Attack where he is not prepared; go by way of places where it would never occur to him you would go. These are the military strategist's calculations for victory--they cannot be settled in advance.

Speaking for the moment purely as a martial artist, that's the way you do it.

In karate, for example, you may deliberately appear to leave yourself open to entice an attack for which you are prepared or feint in one or more directions to draw attention away from your main intention.

In judo, you might fake one throw to set up another. In grappling, you never reveal how close you are to tapping out. If someone more powerful than you attacks, the best tactic is to yield to their force and unbalance them.

Common ingredients to all this is controlling the perception of the opponent, applying energy where it has the most effect, avoiding superior force.

In the ordinary scuffles of life and in nonviolent efforts to make a difference, deception is a bad thing. Putting out wrong information can completely discredit a cause. Misleading people to do what you want them to do is not very nice either. Then, as Mark Twain put it,

Always tell the truth. That way, you don't have to remember what you said.

Having said that, however, there is an inescapable element of theater in all social life. The late great sociologist Erving Goffman called it "the art of impression management" in his classic The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life and it's something we all do just about all the time.

Most everyone tries to appear at ease when nervous, politely interested when bored, more prepared than we really are, etc. Every coalition in the world tries to present itself as more powerful and unified than it probably is.

And even the most honest people exercise some control over the information they convey. Most people probably wouldn't give bank account or credit card numbers to strangers. Honest coaches don't reveal their strategy to each other during a game.

Nearly every group chooses when and where to release information and what information not to release. Many people wait for the most opportune moment to try to accomplish something. Every rational person engaged in debate on an issue will take advantage of the weak points in an opponent's position given the opportunity.

Finally, to borrow from the German philosopher Jurgen Habermas, there are some situations where what he calls "communicative rationality" can work. Those are situations where all parties have a voice and access to information and decisions are arrived at by agreement. In an ideal world, that would be the norm.

But there are situations in life where one person or group has power over another and isn't interested in listening. Habermas noted that in cases where open and equal communicative action is blocked, people may have to resort to strategic action of some sort until the possibility of communicative action is restored or achieved.

NEEDED: A NEW NEW DEAL. That's the theme of this Washington Post column by Harold Meyerson.

ON THAT NOTE, Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute noted earlier this week that

both hourly and weekly earnings fell in 2007, a sharp reversal from the gains in 2006. After growing by about 2% in 2006, both hourly and weekly earnings fell, after adjusting for inflation, by about 1% last year.

THE LONGEVITY DIVIDE. Also from EPI, the latest snapshot shows that the growing economic divide is reflected in life expectancies. While people are living longer,

the increase in longevity is not balanced across the income ladder. According to a new working paper by Hilary Waldron of the Social Security Administration, a male in the top half of the earnings distribution who turned 60 in 1972 could expect to live 1.2 years longer than one in the bottom half. By 2001, the gap had grown to 5.8 years...

BIG BUSINESS AND PUBLIC TRUST are two things that have very little in common in recent opinion polls.

TWO ON MASSEY. Lawyers in a WV Supreme Court case involving Massey Energy have asked for the recusal of justice Benjamin, who was elected in 2004 with massive support from a 527 supported by CEO Don Blankenship. In a different court, Massey couldn't rely on...uhhh...fortune:

Federal environmental regulators believe a record $20 million fine, new pollution monitoring requirements and the threat of automatic penalties for additional violations will force Massey Energy Co. to change the way it does business.

STOP THE PRESSES!!!! According to this item from Wired Science,

Hungarian researchers have written a program that explains the meaning of dogs' barks.

El Cabrero has been working on similar research and recently cracked the code one sound emitted by the man in the picture. It came out as "Perhaps you would care to play a round of squeaky toy."

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

PILLARS OF SUPPORT

Lately, El Cabrero has been musing on how the study of strategy and conflict can help make the world a less violent and more just place (with help from Sun Tzu). If this is your first visit please click on yesterday's post. There's more in last week's posts as well.

Here's another quick review from Sun Tzu (repetition is good sometimes):

*The highest level of skill is to accomplish goals without a struggle.

*In a conflict, attacking one's opponent is one of the least effective approaches. It's far better to neutralize an opponent's strategies, which keeps them from being able to harm you to start with.

*Next best, is to weaken the opponent's alliances, as discussed yesterday.

A basic tenet of the theory of nonviolent action is that power is not monolithic but depends on many sources of support from many people and institutions. If one deprives the opponent of these sources of support, the power fades.

Good tactics are those which win people to your side and away from that of the opponent. As mentioned yesterday, this has been called removing the "pillars of support."

A classical example of this is involved the nonviolent tactics of the civil rights movement. Their example, combined with the fierce repression unleashed on the demonstrators, won public sympathy to their side. Even some people who were not inclined to support the movement had no stomach for the violence of the defenders of the status quo.

Most of the time, however, winning public support (and depriving one's opponent of it) are less dramatic. Some methods of doing this in America today would include such simple things as public education, coalition building, outreach, and working with the media.

Sometimes, all that is necessary to correct an injustice is simply to draw attention to it. I can think of two recent examples in El Cabrero's beloved state of West Virginia:

*A while back, the recently privatized workers' compensation system here started a policy of cutting off promised benefits for widows and widowers of workers killed on the job at the time when the deceased worker would have retired. This also happened to be in clear violation of state law. (The WV Chamber of Commerce, by the way, supported cutting off the widows.)

In the wake of the Sago disaster and the Aracoma mining fatalities, not too many people were in the mood to see widows and orphans jerked around. The more people learned about it, the more outraged they became. The pillars of support for this policy were removed and the noise level increased. In the end, Gov. Manchin ordered the benefits restored.

Score one for Sun Tzu.

*Something similar happened when the state Medicaid program began cutting off in-home services for seniors with disabilities. This program helped people stay in their homes and was much less expensive to the state than nursing home care. People who cared about the seniors drew public attention and the attention of the legislature to what was happening. Many people were outraged. The pillars of support for this policy collapsed and the cuts were reversed.

Score two for Sun Tzu.

CASUALTIES. The World Health Organization estimates Iraqi casualties since the invasion to be over 150,000. Some estimates from other sources are higher.

THOSE CRAZY COSMOLOGISTS are the subject of this article.

GREENER LIVING. Here are some steps you can take.

TWO WV ITEMS. First, the economy and state revenue growth may be slowing. Second, some are drawing attention to the connections between a state Supreme Court justice and Massey CEO Don Blankenship. Massey recently won a decision there. The story even made the NY Times.

URGENT DINOSAUR UPDATE. Here's one with a crocodile-like head.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

PILLAR TALK

Samson shows the way.

El Cabrero is convinced that there's a lot we can learn from the study of conflict and strategy that can help make the world less violent and more just. That was pretty much the theme last week.

This week I'm continuing in the same vein. Think of it as a peaceful person's guide to Sun Tzu's Art of War. People from all walks of life have been studying his writings for centuries for their application in many areas of life far removed from physical conflict.

First a little review. As I mentioned before, Sun Tzu believed that the highest level of skill in conflict is to accomplish your objective without a fight.

Sun Tzu also believed that attacking one's opponents is one of the least effective approaches. The best approach is to attack the opponent's strategy, as explained here. If one neutralizes an opponent's strategy, the opponent is neutralized without being attacked.

He taught that the next best policy is to attack the opponent's alliances. This is one of several areas where his thinking meshes perfectly with the theory of nonviolent action.

According to the latter, power is not monolithic and dominant groups are not as unified as they may appear to be. There are always tensions and contradictions. Even the most absolute dictator depends for his power on the active or passive cooperation of many people. Robert Helvey in his book on nonviolence refers to these as "pillars of support."

When the pillars of support--what Sun Tzu called alliances--are removed, the power collapses.

At a less extreme level, attempting to influence public affairs in a democracy involves trying to win over people to one's point of view and isolate one's opponent. Again, this is a matter of removing their pillars of support or attacking alliances. One mark of a good strategy is that it creates more support for your position, neutralizes some who were inclined to oppose it, and isolates one's determined opponents. Vice versa for a bad one.

More on this tomorrow.

SPEAKING OF PILLARS OF SUPPORT, this study of public opinion on the state of the economy shows that there's not much holding up the Bush agenda.

WHAT RECESSION? Here's an item from the AFLCIO blog about the current state of the economy with plenty of links that suggest what to do about it. And here's Krugman on the candidate's response to recession.

A NEW DIRECTION. In a new report, the Center for American Progress lays out an agenda for progressive growth. Here's an extract:

To grow our economy and ensure that everyone has an opportunity to benefit from this growth, we need to rebuild our infrastructure to support the transformation to a low-carbon economy, invest in human capital, and help support greater economic security. We believe our nation cannot afford to wait to make these necessary investments—in universal health care, education and lifelong learning, science and technology innovation, new green energy job training programs, and new wealth-creating opportunities for all Americans—if we want our economy to remain thoroughly competitive in the global marketplace.

THE MORAL SENSE. Here's a long but fascinating article on the scientific study of morality by Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker.

SAD HOMECOMINGS. This feature from the NY Times shows that the traumas US veterans faced in Iraq and Afghanistan have followed some of them home.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

WAR AND PEACE

El Cabrero is musing this week about strategy and what people who want to make the world less violent and more just can learn from the history of strife and conflict. For an introduction, see yesterday's post.

Two of the more interesting books on this subject I ran across last year are Scott Ritter's Waging Peace: The Art of War for the Antiwar Movement and Robert Helvey's On Strategic Nonviolent Conflict: Thinking about the Fundamentals.

Both books are written by genuinely progressive people concerned about making the world more just and less violent. Both were written by people with extensive military experience. And both discuss military theory and history at some length in the context of the nonviolent effort to end war, promote democracy, and struggle against injustice.

I imagine that some people find this to be rank heresy, but, as I argued yesterday, refusing to learn about things one labels as "bad" is probably not the most practical approach to dealing with the world's problems.

Helvey's book on nonviolent action features a discussion of the importance of developing a "strategic estimate" of a situation, which he borrowed from his military experience. There are also chapters on operational planning and psychological operations. There's a chapter on strategic thinking that discusses Gandhi--but also Machiavelli, and military theorists Clausewitz, and Liddell Hart

Ritter argues that

The antiwar movement needs to study the philosophies of those who have mastered the art of conflict, form Caesar to Napoleon, from Sun Tzu to Clausewitz. It needs to study the "enemy," learning to understand the pro-war movement as well as it understands itself. It needs to comprehend the art of campaigning, of waging battles only when necessary, and having the ability to wage a struggle on several fronts simultaneously, synchronizing each struggle so that a synergy is created that maximizes whatever energy is being expended.

Ritter notes that the British military theorists Basil Liddell Hart was said to have disapproved of the old saying "If you wish for peace, prepare for war." Rather, he suggested "If you want peace, understand war."

I think this isn't bad advice whether war is understood literally or metaphorically.

Next time: fun with Sun Tzu.

THE ECONOMIC FEAR FACTOR is the subject of this op-ed by Paul Krugman.

SNAKE OIL. Along the same lines, this post from the AFLCIO blog makes the point that more tax cuts for the rich aren't the best medicine for dealing with the recession.

ANYONE FOR JUNG? Robert Rupp, WV Wesleyan political science professor and frequent op-ed writer, offers a Jungian approach to analysing presidential candidates. Now that's something you don't see every day.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED