Not two

Off and on over the years, I've tried to read the writings of the late French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss. Don't ask me why. It's probably a self punishment thing or an effort to purify evil karma.

I never got very far. I think the only book of his I made it through was a little one about the Oedipus myth (Freud's take was way more fun to read).

However, I do think I agree with one of his main ideas, assuming I've got it right. He seemed to think that people are hard-wired to use binary classification systems like raw/cooked, civilized/savage, good/evil, us/them, etc. That kind of thing can be useful a lot of the time and probably worked best in the relatively simple environment in which early humans evolved. But it can also get us in big trouble.

One other useful idea from the Buddhist tradition is that of non-duality, which kind of grows out of the idea that all things are anatta or without self. Non-duality emphasizes the connectedness and relatedness of all things. As some Buddhists put it, we "inter-are."

Non-duality has shaped the way I look at working for social justice and made me a bit uncomfortable with some of the words you hear a lot in that context: organizing, education, leadership and service. Words like these seem to assume that humans can and should be divided into the organizers and the organized, those who educate and those who are educated, those who lead and those who are led, and those who serve and those who are served...which is kind of creepy to me.

I don't think things work too well that way most of the time. Non duality for me means that there should always be mutuality, fluidity, interaction and give and take.

ASTROTURF AND TEA. Here's another look at the Tea Party and its billionaire funders.

SPEAKING OF ELECTIONS, Holly Sklar points out here that Wall Street has already voted.

FEAR TACTICS. Deficit hawks are keeping fear alive.

CURIOUSER AND CURIOUSER. Rumors of a sale of Massey Energy continue to swirl on Wall Street. If it happens, a certain CEO would get a golden parachute, of course.

FAREWELL, SWEET PRINCE. An octopus that predicted the outcome of World Cup soccer games has died, apparently of natural causes. May he be reborn in the Pure Land of Amida Buddha.

SORRY, BEN FRANKLIN, but crows are tool using animals too. And they teach their young to do the same.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Softening up the target

The theme at Goat Rope these days is public policy and how it happens (or doesn't). If you're interested in this kind of thing, please click on earlier posts. You'll also find links and comments about current events.

Political scientist John Kingdon's Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies looks at the political ecosystem from major players like presidents and senators down to humble policy wonks. We're on the wonk part now.

One pleasant surprise for me in reading Kingdon's analysis is his assertion that ideas actually matter (to a degree anyway). This is especially true in what he calls the policy community, which consists of interest groups, think tanks, academics and others interested in this kind of thing.

You might think that policy ideas are developed as solutions to particular problems. Kingdon agrees that this happens, but also maintains that "people in and around government sometimes do not solve problems. Instead, they become advocates for solutions and look for current problems to which to attach their pet solution."

Just because one has a viable idea that holds up well to arguments and critiques, it doesn't follow that it will become a reality--but it might. The next phase involves what he calls "softening up:"

To some degree ideas float freely through the policy primeval soup. But their advocates do not allow the process to be completely free-floating. In addition to starting discussion of their proposals, they push their ideas in many different forums. These entrepreneurs attempt to "soften up" both policy communities, which tend to be inertia-bound and resistant to major changes, and larger publics, getting them used to new ideas and building acceptance for their proposals. Without this preliminary work, a proposal sprung even at a propitious time is likely to fall on deaf ears.

That rings true in my experience of working at the state level. Once you've developed an idea, you need to get it out there to all kinds of people in all kinds of ways for it to stand a change of going anywhere. This involves both public education and coalition building. Sometimes this can take years.

IT'S TOUGH OUT THERE. A new poll of unemployed workers shows the damage done by the recession.

AFGHANISTAN. Economist Jeffrey Sachs suggests a different approach in that country.

ANOTHER TOOL USING ANIMAL. Would you believe the octopus?

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

VLAD, OR THAT'S "MISTER THE IMPALER" TO YOU

Welcome to Day Four of Dracula Week at Goat Rope. Along with links and comments about current events, the theme is the character and the real person behind it, the former being by far the nicer of the two.

Yesterday's post covered the outline of Vlad III's "career." In a way, he shared many traits with other rulers of the time, particularly a ruthless drive to gain and retain power. But his methods were so brutal and sadistic that he makes many contemporaries seem like humanitarians.

After all, one does not acquire the title "the Impaler" by acts of charity.

Since this is a family-friendly blog, I won't go into all the gory details, although you're probably heard about them. But in outline, here are some of the events of his longest reign.

*Forced labor and liquidation of the opposition of the nobility. Shortly after gaining power for the second time, Dracula purged the ranks of the nobility with mass impalements and forced labor.

*He is said to have invited the beggars of his kingdom to a feast, after which he had the doors sealed and burned them alive.

*He waged a terror campaign against Saxon merchants in Transylvania, making copious use of his preferred method of execution, in addition to various other means, some of which may have been just as bad.

*When foreign diplomats visited who refused to remove their caps or turbans (there are versions of this happening to Italians as well as Ottoman envoys), he had them nailed to their heads.

*Ottoman armies invading Wallachia were sickened by a "forest" of impaled Turks.

I could go on and on. Estimates of the deaths caused by Dracula go as high as 100,000, although that is probably an exaggeration. Let's just say it was lots and lots.

The moral to the story is not just that truth is stranger than fiction. Sometimes it's worse.

TORTURE FROM THE TOP DOWN. A recently released memo suggests signals that led to Abu Ghraib came from the top.

HOWARD ZINN ON EMPIRE here.

THE ART OF LOVE, octopus style.

BAD IDEA. Here's yet another item on the Bush administration's unnecessary war and the strain it's causing US armed forces.

WILL POWER. Is self control a matter of the mind or blood sugar levels? Maybe both.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED