It's not just elections: how policy change happens.

 Although it’s hard not to think about such things right now, it’s not all about elections. Those of us who want to make the world more just also need to think about and advocate for specific policies to move things in that direction in real time at the national, state, and local level when opportunities arise.

I’d like to share a simple nonideological model for thinking about how policy change happens—or doesn’t. The model was developed by political scientist John Kingdon’s 1984 book “Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies.”

I’d been doing policy work for years before a friend mentioned the book. I checked it out and had to admit that, yeah, this is pretty much how it happens. I’m going to share a ridiculously simplified version.

First, let me state the obvious, policy change doesn’t happen just because it’s rational, because it’s the right thing to do, and/or it would help thousands of people. It happens when certain things come together.

In Kingdon’s model, a window for effecting change opens when three “streams” come together: the policy, problem, and political stream. 

The policy stream

The policy stream consists of ideas that trickle up from the “primeval soup” of advocacy groups, “policy entrepreneurs” (more popularly known as wonks), attorneys, staffers, and such. Ideally, policy ideas should be specific and well thought out, which usually means getting in the weeds.

For example, “health care for all” isn’t a policy, although I’m all for it. It’s a goal that could be achieved by several different policies, such as a national system on the British model, single payer as in Canada, or a hybrid. The same is true of calls to abolish this or that institution. I’m down, but actually moving in that direction would require enacting or repealing several specific policies.

However, even the best idea won’t go anywhere unless somebody—more like a lot of somebodies—care about it.

The problem stream

This is where the problem stream comes in. Some of the most important social change work consists of getting people to think of the issues we care about as problems that can and must be solved. Kingdon distinguishes between problems and conditions: 

“There is a difference between a condition and a problem. We put up with all manner of conditions every day: bad weather, unavoidable and untreatable illnesses, pestilence, poverty, fanaticism. ... Conditions become defined as problems when we come to believe that we should do something about them.”

It can take weeks, months, years, decades, or centuries to get people to think of things as problems that must be solved rather than unavoidable conditions. A great example is the battered women’s movement. When I was a child, comedians on television actually joked about domestic violence; that doesn’t happen anymore because of years of public education and advocacy—which led to major policy changes.

Given the extremely divided state of U.S. public opinion, clearly much work needs to happen here in terms of coalition building, communications, popular education, and messaging—which means reaching out beyond bubbles and comfort zones.

An example

For a longer view, think that for millennia many people believed that systems of forced labor such as slavery or serfdom were inevitable conditions of civilization rather than problems that needed to be solved and ended. A classic example of people who made progress in getting an issue into the problem stream are the Garrisonian abolitionists. 

They weren’t policy wonks: Immediate abolition of slavery based on moral suasion wasn’t a doable policy. They weren’t revolutionaries like John Brown and his biracial band, who pushed the issue past the breaking point with their raid in what is now my home state of West Virginia. They weren’t practical political actors, like Frederick Douglass or Abraham Lincoln. Nor were they the pure force of the Union army or the thousands of slaves who flocked to Union lines in what W.E.B. DuBois aptly called “a general strike.” 

Still, they got the anti-slavery issue out there for decades, without which some of the other work may not have happened. As Garrison summarized this approach, "I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation. … I am in earnest—I will not equivocate—I will not excuse—I will not retreat a single inch—AND I WILL BE HEARD."

The political stream

Once an issue is in the problem stream, it’s possible to link policy issues as solutions, which leads us to the foulest and most polluted stream: the political.

Lots of things influence and shape the political stream. The most obvious is on all our minds lately: election results. But it doesn’t have to be that dramatic. The death or retirement of a key politician or Supreme Court Justice, a change of leadership, or even a quarrel between influential politicians can directly impact this stream.

The political stream can also be influenced—and opened or closed—based on social movements, which unfortunately can’t be manufactured at will; galvanizing events, such as natural or social disasters; or changes in the public mood. With any of these changes, what might have been possible becomes impossible and vice versa. And the situation changes all the time. 

We can’t always—or usually—anticipate or control such changes. But we can prepare for them and move when openings occur.

Case studies

Maybe some examples could help. Let’s start with health care, a key concern of mine these days. The first “mainstream” politician in the U.S. who advocated for something like national health care was Theodore Roosevelt in 1912, when he ran as an independent Progressive Republican.

He lost. In the 1930s and '40s, his distant cousin Franklin and successor, Harry Truman, advocated for it but were blocked by racist Southern politicians and powerful lobby groups. The political stream was blocked.

For a while the problem stream was blocked. Health care wasn’t terribly expensive. Many expensive procedures hadn’t been developed. And many Americans could access health care through their employers.

That changed. More and more jobs provided no health benefits. By the late 2000s, around 50 million Americans, many of them working, had no health care. And their lack of coverage drove up costs for everyone.

Thanks to the efforts of advocates and experiences of impacted people, this became a problem.

In the aftermath of the 2008 elections, Democrats, for good or ill, controlled the presidency, the House of Representatives and a veto-proof 60-vote majority in the Senate. The window for reform was open. For a few weeks.

In 2009, the majorities of both houses of Congress worked on a health reform plan, eventually coming up with a hybrid version that included expanding Medicaid for low income working families, establishing a mandate for some individuals and employers to provide health care, and creating a market or exchange where people could purchase more or less subsidized health care.

Neither version was perfect, but with the loss of the supermajority, the lesser version became the only option. No further improvements could be made immediately. Then it was time for defense. That’s where we are now.

Or consider the Iraq war. In the 1990s, neo-conservative activists proposed the policy of invading Iraq and overthrowing Saddam Hussein’s regime to supposedly bring peace and stability to the Middle East (and we all know how that worked out). They gained no traction until the political and problem streams changed with the 2000 election and the 9/11 attacks. Then they linked their policy (war) to a problem (fear of terrorism) in a changed political stream (new president). 

A negative example

Here’s a case, one of many for me, of one that got away. Around the same time as passage of the ACA, a window opened for the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), which would have been a true game changer in terms of rebuilding a middle class. It would have made it easier for workers to join unions, which could in turn negotiate for better wages, benefits, and conditions while also educating workers about policy issues.

The U.S. House passed EFCA around 2007. With the supermajority in 2009, a window was open in the Senate to make it the law of the land. That didn’t happen. People dithered. The supermajority was lost. The window closed.

When that happens, one can waste time, energy, and often money on beating one’s metaphorical head against a wall—or, without giving up hope, focus on things that could help the situation right now.

There are lots of negative examples like this one. Windows for major policy change can be opened or closed, but the latter is the most frequent option. Still, by tracking changes, we have a chance to distinguish between the possible and impossible.

So what does this all mean?

I’m convinced the model can help us figure where we are and where we need to go in our pursuit of more human and liberating policies. The stream metaphor can point the way.

First, are we really clear about the specific (and probably imperfect) policy we want? Is it doable and specific about implementation?

Second, does anyone who can help make it happen care? If not, that signifies more work that must be done in the short and long term.

Third, what needs to happen politically to make this happen? How can we engage and influence it, even if that involves waiting for opportunities? 

Fourth, what do we do if it’s not going to happen? (Solution: without abandoning one’s goals, move on to the next thing and deal with the threats and/or opportunities that emerge, while circling back when things change.)

Working it backwards

Then there’s the other side of the coin. This model can also be useful in trying to “kill” bad policy ideas that might roll down. Specifically, we can attempt to show that the proposed policy idea wouldn’t solve the problem suggested and could indeed make things worse, as is often the case. And we could offer realistic alternatives.

We could also argue that the issue at hand isn’t the real problem or could make the problem worse. Or we could direct our attention to figuring out what we can do to influence or close the political stream or at least redirect it a bit.

This overall approach is more a compass than a road map. But then, as many before us have tried to say, the map is not the territory.

But it can help us move in the directions we want to go.

(Note: this essay first appeared in a blog post on the American Friends Service Committee's website. There's also a link to a Facebook live discussion on the topic there.)

The fullness of time

There seems to be an irregular but natural rhythm in working for social justice. Certain periods of time are more full of crisis, opportunity, and chances for movement than others. The ancient Greeks referred to these critical moments as kairos, in contrast with more ordinary times which were called chronos.

In the Bible, for example, the word kairos is used for important moments and in such phrases as "the fullness of time" or "the time is at hand."

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), periods of kairos don’t last forever. Many people interested in social change have been shaped by such periods but were often not able to cope well with the more common periods of relative calm. And, like a record that is stuck, they may become inflexible in terms of tactics and analysis. Recognizing the inevitable rhythm of life and change and adapting to it requires a continual need for renewal or shedding one’s skin.

West Virginia author Denise Giardina captures well what kairos feels like (and the difficulty in surviving its passing) in Storming Heaven, her novel about the mine wars:

I loved that phrase, ‘the fullness of time.’ I shivered to whisper it to myself, for I sensed I was living in it, right then. Nothing afterward would be so important…We are put on earth for the fullness of time, we spend our days reaching it, and then we pass on. Some people die right then, with the passing of the fullness, and others breathe on, grieving all their lives that time is being strangled and they are not yet dead. I didn’t fret about this last. I couldn’t imagine it for myself.

The Tao Te Ching, an ancient book of Chinese philosophy often discussed here, contains a phrase which has become a proverb in many parts of the world: “Returning is the motion of the Tao.” Everything changes. To become rigid in a changing world is to die. Or, as Dylan said, “he not busy being born is busy dying.”

Periods of kairos demand all one’s attention, but probably the most important work is done during periods of chronos (when the time isn’t full, so to speak). These activities would better place one in position to take advantage of the situation when the next period of kairos rolls around.

I'd say right now is a time of kairos.

HEALTH CARE. The president of the American Medical Association said that the organization is open to a government-funded health care program for the uninsured.

LOSING YOUR JOB can be bad for your health.

PRISONS. A governor's commission in WV just released a study about prison overcrowding in El Cabrero's beloved state of West Virginia. Some of the measures called for include reduced and alternative sentencing for offenders not believed to be a danger to the public, treatment for addictions, and help with re-entry...in addition to the inevitable call to build a new prison. Meanwhile, at a public meeting sponsored by the WV Council of Churches, participants preferred other measures to prison construction.

EMPATHY ON THE BRAIN. Research suggests people feel more of it for those in the same social group.

URGENT GIANT EARTHWORM UPDATE here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Sparring as a spiritual practice

As I mentioned yesterday, I think people who want to make the world a less nasty place could do worse things than study some martial arts, especially those that practice realistic sparring with skillful opponents.

After all, most efforts to change or preserve things involve some kind of struggle, however nonviolent, with powerful people and institutions who are not there to grant one's every wish.

One lesson I will always remember came early in my karate career. I had just found a new dojo after the one I started in closed. These people LOVED to spar, in class, in tournaments and elsewhere. While control was emphasized, it could get pretty rough as consenting adults moved up in rank and experience. And, although I didn't realize it at they time, their "rules" were pretty realistic.

This was the first time I did any serious sparring with a woman black belt. At the time, I was a green belt, which is to say someone who knows just enough to be a danger to himself.

I decided to dazzle her with high kicks, my speciality at the time. While my feet were flying around at head level, one of hers landed in my nether regions. This was the closest I ever came to qualifying for the Vienna Boy's Choir. I hit the ground like a ton of bricks, but must have gotten up at some point.

This is one of the invaluable lessons you learn by sparring with people who know how to fight: you learn to think defensively. Specifically, you make it a habit to always think what a good opponent could do to you if you did this or that technique.

That's one that carries over well into organizing. It is a good practice to always think what an intelligent opponent would be able to say or do in reaction to anything you say, do or write. I've often seen groups undertake actions that make it easy for opponents to attack or dismiss them.

I learned the hard way that if you present your opponent with an opening, you shouldn't be surprised if they take it. And I'm not above returning the favor.

THE BUTCHER'S BILL. Here's an estimate of the human cost of the Iraq war.

I MEANT TO BLOG THIS YESTERDAY. Here's Krugman on bailout blunders.

CULTURAL CHANGES accompany this recession, not all of which are bad.

THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED. "American Pie" songwriter Don McLean discusses Buddy Holly here. So that's what the song really was about. Kind of.

TEARS AND SUCH. Here's an item on how early experience shapes our views of crying.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

MORAL JU JITSU

Dojo practice in Japan, circa 1920, courtesy of wikipedia.

The theme at Goat Rope lately is about applying principles from the martial arts to working and writing to achieve social change or social conservation. You'll also find links and comments about current events.

In yesterday's post, I talked a little about ju jitsu, moral, political and Brazilian. Today's will pick up on the latter. I urge non-martial artists to bear with me since I honestly believe these strategies represent the last best hope of making things a little less bad.

In the 1990s, a revolution occurred in the martial arts world as a result of full contact matches with very few rules that pitted people from different fighting styles against each other. Overwhelmingly, the winners were grapplers trained in or influenced by Brazilian ju jitsu, a style widely associated with the Gracie family.

For an old karate dinosaur like El Cabrero, this was sooo not cool. It really wasn't fair. People who were really formidable in arts based on striking but knew nothing else were helpless against ju jitsu fighters. And the weird thing is, the ju jitsu guys would win in a way that left no room for doubt but which didn't hurt their opponents at all, aside from wounded pride.

How bad was it? Let's just say that if you pitted a real good boxer or striker with years of experience and no knowledge of grappling against a rookie who's been practicing ju jitsu for six months, the smart money is on the rookie.

Part of the reason for that is Darwinian. When critters are exposed to a threat for which they have not evolved defenses, they're toast unless and until they adapt. But part of the reason is a refined strategy which is really a development of the ideas of classical martial arts. Like all styles, ju jitsu uses the force of the opponent and attacks weak spots. But it does something more.

Brazilian ju jitsu is based on the idea that a struggle has different phases (some would say ranges or levels) and positions. Each phase or level requires a different set of skills. Brazilian stylists will try to take the fight to a phase or level where their opponent's strengths are useless. Once there, they position themselves in a such a way that the opponent is rendered harmless and can be persuaded to give up (often by the application of a submission technique).

Here's an illustration. A boxer can be dangerous--standing up. On the ground, not so much. As Morihei Ueshiba, founder of aikido, put it,

Even the most powerful human being has a limited sphere of strength. Draw him outside of that sphere and into your own, and his strength will dissipate.

Summary: when engaged in a struggle with powerful opponents to make things less bad, don't engage them where and when they are strongest--change the level. Take the game to a place where the odds are better.

Here's a specific example. Several years ago, there was an incident of police brutality with racial overtones in a small rural community. The local paper and Powers That Were ignored it and tried to cover it up. We changed the level and took the story to statewide media outlets and notified people all over the country. After that, they couldn't ignore it any more and there was a pretty decent outcome.

A general example. Often in a democracy, when a bureaucracy of whatever kind does something that is tacky and/or harms people with less power, it usually likes to do so quietly. You can change the level by making it public. Sometimes you can change the level by questioning the legality of a policy, sometimes by building coalitions, sometimes by raising the noise level, or some combination thereof.

In a word, don't play their game. Make them play yours. Every situation is unique, but the principles, like the Dude, abide.

"PLASTICS." In the classic film The Graduate, that sage advice was given to Dustin Hoffman's character. I'm not sure how much that would help now. As the Economic Policy Institute's latest snapshot reveals, this month's new college graduates will face a challenging job market.

HOT TIMES. The latest issue of Nature summarizes the evidence on climate change. Here are the opening lines:

A comprehensive analysis of trends in tens of thousands of biological and physical systems has provided more evidence to bolster the near-universal view that man-made climate change is altering the behaviour of plants, animals, rivers and more.

HUNGRY PLANET. Several experts on the world food crisis weigh in on the problem in Newsweek. Some of them make sense.

UNION PREMIUM. A new report from the WV Center on Budget and Policy and the Center for Economic and Policy Research highlights the benefits of union membership.

CALMER THAN YOU ARE. On a positive note, research indicates that happiness can be learned if we chill out a little.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

LET'S ROLL

Brazilian ju jitsu in action, courtesy of wikipedia.

The theme at Goat Rope lately has been applying ideas from the martial arts to working and writing for social change and social preservation. There are also news items and comments about current events.

Today's "lesson" comes from ju jitsu, an art that's so old it's new. It began as an art practiced by the Japanese samurai for centuries. In the 19th and 20th centuries, it was the source of both judo and aikido. Judo, in turn, influenced the development of a particularly effective variation known as Brazilian ju jitsu.

The ju in both means something like gentle, pliable or flexible (jitsu means technique or art and do means way as in something practiced as an end in itself). But don't make the mistake of confusing gentleness with weakness. It is rather the opposite of relying on strength alone.

I found one of the best summaries of strategy, broadly conceived, in the book Mastering JuJitsu by Renzo Gracie and John Danaher. This approach applies socially as well as physically:

The guiding principle behind ju is the idea of a weaker (gentler) force overcoming a stronger force through the application of technique, or jitsu, rather than strength and aggression. Reduced to its core, jujitsu is the employment of intelligence and skill to overcome brute strength and aggression...This should not be misunderstood as a notion of gentleness or softness. Strength is used in jujitsu. It can definitely help to be strong, but strength is used in an intelligent, rational manner as part of a strategy guided by efficient technique. Rather than confront strength with strength, jujutsu confronts strength with efficient technique and strategy so that the weaker fighter can attain victory. In practice, this means applying a high percentage of your total strength to a low percentage of your opponent's strength.

A simple illustration can illustrate this principle...if a weaker fighter can attack a vulnerable part of his opponent's body (such as the neck or joints) with a greater strength than his opponent can defend it with, he is effectively stronger than his opponent, even if his overall strength is less. This is the theoretical basis of jujitsu conveyed by ju. Technically skilled fighters can then efficiently apply what strength they have in a way that can cause sufficient damage to end the fight.

A way to understand the meaning that lies behind ju comes from an analysis of the phrase ju yoku sei go, which translates as softness controls hardness. This phrase conveys the idea of a smaller force initially giving way or yielding to a stronger force to eventually overcome it. Thus, it amounts to the use of strategy, one that resists strength with technique, and not additional strength.

By the way, Gandhi once described the method of nonviolent action as "moral ju jitsu," as have a number of other theorists and practitioners of nonviolent action. Similarly, the term "political ju jitsu" has become pretty popular as well, as any internet keyword search will reveal.

So how do you do it? There are probably almost as many ways as there are situations. More about that tomorrow, but in the meantime, here's a perfect example:

LOSING A SEAT. Here's AP on Tuesday's WV Supreme Court primary election outcome. Photographs of justice Spike Maynard vacationing in Monaco with Massey CEO Don Blankenship (after the court agreed to hear a Massey appeal they were later to win and after Blankenship spent millions to buy another seat on the court in 2004) created an opportunity for people who at least want to pretend we have a legal system to express their disapproval.

MYANMAR. For those interested in trying to help the Burmese people after catastrophic flooding, here's info on the American Friends Service Committee's response.

FOOD. This item argues that responding to the world food crisis will require sustainable agriculture rather than another green revolution.

CHEW ON THIS. On a similar note, here's an interview with Raj Patel, author of Starved and Stuffed: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System on how messed up current arrangements are.

SPEAKING OF FOOD, a new study with monkeys shows that stress leads to over-eating.

HOLD THE BAPTISM ON THE ALIENS. The Vatican's chief astronomer says life could exist in outer space and that some aliens may not have our original sin thing going on.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

BALANCE

Caption: Judo throw (osoto-gari), courtesy of wikipedia.

The theme at Goat Rope lately is applying some ideas from the martial arts to working and writing for social change or social conservation. You'll also find links and comments about current events. If this is your first visit, please click on earlier entries.

One of the most central concepts in many martial arts is that of balance. It's also an important thing to keep in mind when working to change or preserve things.

In martial arts, at the very least it's hard to deliver effective techniques when you're off balance. More to the point, any time you are off balance--whether you do it yourself or someone or some thing does it to you--you can fall or be thrown. Hard.

To lose balance is to lose self control. To lose self control in a serious situation is to risk losing everything.

(Have you ever noticed that a lot of folks who want to change things have serious self control issues? This is probably going to sound really bad, but when I'm deciding which individuals and groups I'm going to work with, I tend to divide them into those with and without self control and avoid the latter.)

You don't need to be grappling with a physical opponent to lose your balance. You can lose it under the influence of anger, fear, ideology,or even a conviction of being right. Those things impede a person from responding adequately to cues from others or the environment. In writing, people lose balance by venting inappropriately, exaggerating, inflating rhetoric, twisting facts and logic, and using hyperbole.

I knew the US was going to be in really BIG trouble post 9/11 when then Defense Secretary Rumsfeld said US military policy was going to be "forward leaning." To be forward leaning is to be off balance; to be off balance is to be vulnerable to over-reaching. Over reaching means there's a good chance of being thrown, falling--or in this case, leaping--into a quagmire.

In judo, the art of breaking the opponent's balance is called kuzushi, which can be the first step to victory. But, as with all this, your opponents can do all this to you.

I also remember being involved in some serious labor struggles several years back. We used to have some pretty big ones in WV. It often happened that during a strike or lockout, companies would import "goon guards," as they were sometimes unaffectionately called, from out of state. It wasn't unusual for them to try to provoke union members or their families into losing their "balance" and doing things that could discredit their cause.

That's a classical example of kuzushi in action. The trick is not to take the bait.

I'll close for today with a couple of suggestions straight from judo:

*Any time one's opponent overreaches and loses balance, an opportunity exists. I've spent a lot of time waiting for such moments. As Tom Petty sang, the waiting IS the hardest part. It can take years.

*It's always a good idea to figure out what your opponent would like you to do--and then not do it.

HOW DOES YOUR LIST COMPARE? Here's a good collection of Bush administration disasters. Which ones were left out?

INVISIBLE HAND VS. GREEN THUMB. This item from Scientific American shows the flaws in neo-classical economic theory which are particularly telling in dealing with things like climate change.

SPEAKING OF CLIMATE CHANGE, I hope these guys are wrong. They probably do too.

JUST ONE COMMENT about the WV primary. It looks like Massey Energy just lost a friend on the state Supreme Court with the defeat of justice Spike Maynard. (Note any similarity between this story and the theme of today's post is purely coincidental. But that's what I'm talking about).

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

IT HITS ALL BY ITSELF

Old Chinese image of Shaolin monks practicing martial arts, courtesy of wikipedia.

The theme at Goat Rope this week is how to apply some peaceful lessons from the martial arts to writing and working to make things better or a little less bad. You'll also find links and comments about current events.

Yesterday's post was about thinking defensively, as in talking, acting and writing as much as possible in a way that doesn't leave an opening for one's opponents to exploit.

Today's lesson comes from karate and can be summed up in two Japanese words: kime or focus and kyusho or targeting vital points.

Here are two liberating insights. Even though the forces we're up against may be more powerful than we are, if we can focus our energy at the right time and place we can improve our chances for success. And no matter how powerful they are, every person and every system has weak points. Putting one and one together, if you focus your energy at the right point when an opportunity occurs, you can be successful even if the odds are against you.

Kime or focus is like sunlight concentrated in a magnifying glass as opposed to ordinary sunlight. It's the difference between being hit with 5 pounds of force by a basketball or by a needle. Kyusho is the difference between being poked in the shoulder or in some tender spot that I will leave to the Gentle Reader's imagination.

Now here's a caveat. Usually one can only target a vital point when an opening exists. One's opponents aren't usually nice enough to leave themselves totally open--if they're any good that is--, although sometimes they do. That means you have to pay attention to a constantly changing reality and take advantage of openings as they occur.

So how do you apply that outside the dojo? First, don't waste energy. A good karateka is completely relaxed until the instant of action. Second, have a clear vision of what you're trying to accomplish (hint: it helps if it's realistically possible). Third, when you write or act, aim at a specific target. That means in part being accurate and timely. Fourth, pay attention!

All periods of time are not created equal. Sometimes, windows of opportunity or openings occur. When they're gone, they're gone. Examples may be a vote that's about to take place, an event that raises public awareness about an issue, a scandal, an anniversary of a significant date, etc. You can't always know in advance when such an opportunity will occur but you can practice paying attention and developing your capacity to act when the time is right.

The goal is to be able to respond to events in the manner expressed by the late great Bruce Lee:

When the opponent expands, I contract, When he contracts, I expand, And when there is an opportunity, I do not hit--it hits all by itself.

HERE'S A SHOCK. Some states are trying new ways to help low income working families. I won't hold my breath for anything new like that in my beloved state of West Virginia.

SAD PROJECTIONS. Bloomberg reports that some experts are predicting that the number of suicides by US Iraq and Afghanistan veterans over time may exceed combat deaths.

THE BIG SQUEEZE. This item talks about the economic squeeze millions of Americans are feeling.

THEY OBVIOUSLY WEREN'T TALKING ABOUT GOATS. Here's yet another article on the health benefits of pet ownership.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

DEFENSIVE THINKING

Caption: Illustration from the Bubishi, an anonymous Chinese martial arts text of the 18th or 19th century sometimes referred to as "the bible of karate."

For the last two weeks, the theme here has been about writing to change things that should be changed or preserve things that should be preserved. There's also a daily dose of links and comments about current events.

I'd like to close off the series by taking some lessons from the martial arts and applying them to the subject of writing and working for social change or preservation. Why martial arts? Because unlike many things, they actually work and have proven themselves over the centuries in many difficult situations.

In trying to make things better, we are often faced with more powerful opponents. But the strategies developed by these arts can be great equalizers, provided people focus the energy they have at the right time and place.

Here's the first thing: think, write and act defensively.

Most martial artists spend a good bit of time sparring with highly skilled opponents. Sometimes it can get rough. But one invaluable lesson you get from that kind of practice fighting is immediate feedback. You learn "If I do this, they can do that" and vice versa.

Even if your sparring partner is your best friend, it is their sacred duty to nail you if you leave yourself open. It's your sacred duty to do the same, preferably before they nail you. After a while, you should start automatically acting in ways that create the smallest possible opening or opportunity for an opponent to attack (not to mention take advantage of any opening that occurs).

I remember when I first joined my current karate club over 30 years ago. It's a fighting dojo. While we're easy on kids and beginners, consenting experienced adults sometimes ramp it up. I was an intermediate student fighting a female black belt. I decided to dazzle her with my high kicking ability. She responded by kicking me in the groin while my foot was sailing around at head level.

I told you it could get rough. I wasn't expecting a move like that and hit the ground like a sack of potatoes. (Most dojos don't allow groin kicks in sparring, but ours did at the time. It was a great way of keeping kickers honest.)

That was one of the best lessons I ever had, although it didn't feel like it at the time. I've kicked a lot of people since then (recreationally and gently, for the most part) but I've been pretty careful about leaving myself open in that particular way. Thanks O., wherever you are! Sort of.

Similarly, when I was trying to learn the grappling arts of judo and jiu jitsu, I learned pretty quickly that if I let the opponent get behind me, I could expect to choked; if my balance was broken, I could expect to be thrown; and if my arm or leg was extended, it would be joint-locked.

This is something that people interested in trying to change things should always keep in mind and ask themselves at all times: if I say, do, or write this, what could an unsympathetic opponent do?

The idea is to present as small a target as possible--even better no target at all. If you don't, then don't be surprised if they respond in a way that can discredit and dismiss you and the change you are hoping to achieve.

That's just the way it works.

I've seen several groups adopt some ill-advised course of action, get clobbered for it, and then say "No fair!" Whoever said it was?

ON THE POSITIVE SIDE. Could contemporary economic and environmental ills push us in a more sustainable direction?

SPEAKING OF WHICH, Bill McKibben argues here that it's getting pretty close to now or never to get there. The alternative is unacceptable.

MOTHER'S DAY came and went, but pro-family policies haven't got here yet.

TRAUMA ON THE BRAIN. New research sheds light on the strenght and persistence of traumatic memories.

SPEAKING OF THE BRAIN, this article blames its engineering on some of our shortcomings.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

CAMERA OR RIFLE?

Caption: You'll put your eye out.

The theme at Goat Rope lately is writing for social change or social conservation, whichever is appropriate at the time. There are also links and comments about current events. If this is your first visit, please click on earlier posts.

El Cabrero had an interesting dream a few weeks ago. No, it wasn't the recurring one about trains and tunnels. It was about writing.

In the dream, I was given something that looked like a rifle but could take pictures like a camera. Point and shoot, just like a firearm. Then I found out it could also function as a rifle if I flipped a switch.

My first thought was that this could be really dangerous and the results could be tragic if you didn't know exactly what you were doing at the time. As the gun safety folks say, one should assume every firearm to be loaded and presumably that goes for every dream camera/rifle too.

(Full disclosure: although there are a couple firesticks at Goat Rope Farm and I can shoot fairly straight, I'm not a big gun person. I don't bitterly cling to them anyway...Sorry, I couldn't resist that one.)

((OK, I know there are some smirking Freudians out there shouting "phallic symbol!" That's fine, since I'm an occasional Freudian smirker myself, but it really didn't seem to be about that. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar and sometimes a dream camera/rifle is just a dream camera/rifle.))

When I woke up, I knew right away the dream was about writing. Here's why. Writing for positive change (or positive conservation) takes different forms. Sometimes it involves directly attacking injustices, making arguments, etc. That would be rifle.

At other times, it's important just to capture an image of what is going on,tell a story, state the facts, present credible research that would hold up to critical investigation, or just accurately convey information. That would be camera.

Of course, there's some overlap. A good argument (rifle) should be backed up with facts and clear reasoning (camera). And sometimes just presenting the facts (camera) can help improve an unjust situation. But the message I got from the dream was that I needed to know what I was doing when I picked that thingie up.

There have been plenty of times when I've attacked policies head on in print (rifle) and I'll probably do it again pretty soon. But that isn't always what the situation requires.

For example, El Cabrero's beloved state of West Virginia just overhauled a major public health care program and the changes are confusing to lots of people. Not jumping through the right hoops can mean not being able to get some important services. I've just about finished writing a consumer's guide to the new system. In it, I tried to just state the facts as clearly as possible, keeping my opinions out of it. Yep, camera.

Doing research about public policy should be mostly camera as well, even if you have strong beliefs about what should be done. You want the results to be as reliable as possible, meaning that other people looking at the information would find the same things, and you want it to be valid, meaning that the conclusions you draw follow from the data.

The main thing is to know what you're doing when you're doing it.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY? The latest snapshot from the Economic Policy Institute points out that

In a selection of 19 countries with comparable per capita income, the United States provides the fewest maternity leave benefits in both length of leave and paid time off (see chart). This is considered separate from any disability insurance for which one may qualify. In fact, the United States falls two weeks short of the International Labor Organization's basic minimum standard of at least 14 weeks general leave. It is also the only country not to guarantee some amount of leave with income.

LABOR'S REVIVAL? This article suggests it's closer than we may think.

URGENT DUCK-BILLED PLATYPUS UPDATE. Their genes are weird too.

EVANGELICAL MANIFESTO. Here's yet another sign that the religious right doesn't have a lock on the opinions of evangelical Christians.

CONSUME THIS. In a National Geographic-sponsored survey of 14 countries, US consumers ranked last in terms of environmentally-aware buying habits.

MAGICAL THINKING. Ancient people sacrificed to appease the gods. We buy insurance.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

FOR WHOM AM I WRITING?

Caption: Fuzzy chickens are a particularly challenging audience.

El Cabrero hopes all y'all noticed the elegant way in which I avoided ending the title of the post with a preposition. It is a truth universally acknowledged that a preposition is a bad thing to end a sentence with...

The series on writing for social change (or, when appropriate, social conservation) continues at Goat Rope. I'm going to ride this wave as long as it lasts.

A good question to think about when writing is, who is the audience? Is it people already on your side you want to energize? Is it the hard core opposition? (In which case, you might be banging your head against a wall). Or is it a lot of people in the middle?

If I'm sending out some kind of action alert on a hot topic, I'm usually aiming at like-minded people.

But most of the time when I write about a current issue for a general audience, as in a newspaper op-ed, I'm aiming for the folks in the middle. It's not likely that someone on the opposite side of an issue who benefits from an unjust situation is going to change their mind no matter what you write. (Although it does happen in some cases.)

On many controversial issues, there may be strongly committed people on both sides (often both are numerical minorities, although at least one side may be very powerful). But there is a large number of people who may not know much or feel strongly about the issue at hand. Much of the art of writing and of strategy (I see them as one and the same) in such cases consists of trying to isolate one's opponent and move more people to your side of a given issue.

In cases like that, I try to look at what I'm writing or trying to accomplish from the point of view of someone not committed to the issue. Note: it helps if what you're trying to accomplish is reasonable.

This is where a lot of "progressive" types royally screw up. These can become so insular and even sectarian that they have difficulty communicating with anyone who isn't already there.

Here's my two cents. It's nearly always bad to use "internal" jargon for and "external" audience. But the reverse isn't true. Talking to people on your side in a jargon free way sets a good example.

WEAK LINKS. Travel has prevented me from assembling the usual mix of links and comments about current events. That feature should return tomorrow.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

OPPRESSED AND BROKENHEARTED

Harriet Beecher Stowe, courtesy of wikipedia.

"I wrote what I did because as a woman, as a mother I was oppressed and brokenhearted, with the sorrows and injustice I saw, because as a Christian I felt the dishonor to Christianity, because as a lover of my country I trembled at the coming day of wrath." So spoke Harriet Beecher Stowe about the writing of Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852).

If you have any doubts that writing can make a difference, check out the impact of that book in the mid 1800s.

Today it is not regarded as great literature, with some justification, but she wasn't going for art for art's sake. Stowe was an abolitionist who saw slavery up close when she lived in Ohio, just across the river from the slave state of Kentucky. She drew heavily on slave narratives in composing the work, particularly that of the Rev. Josiah Henson.

Uncle Tom's Cabin, first published in serial form in 1851, had a huge impact on national as well as international opinion about slavery. It was even widely read, though widely hated, in the American south, where it clearly hit a nerve. There's even a story that when Abraham Lincoln met with her, he said "So you are the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war!"

That's a bit of Lincolnian hyperbole--and it took more than a book to end the institution of chattel slavery in this country--but if he really said that (which I don't doubt), he had a point.

One reason why the book had such a huge impact goes to the heart of a special kind of writing: narrative or story. The power of story is of a different order than that of essay. Story works at an emotional level, in which a person can vicariously experience--to a small degree anyway--things that happen to other and different people. Story can lead by way of empathy to morality.

This era was a time of sentimentality in tastes and manners among those who could afford to be aware of such things. UTC wasn't the only book that played on the heart's sympathy strings--the French author Victor Hugo's Les Miserables came out at about the same time.

This was also a time when many middle class Americans came to revere and idealize the home and family as a haven in a heartless world. Stowe's novel played on that expertly, driving home to readers the fact that slaves had families too. And, sadly, part of its success may have come because white readers were more willing to absorb the message from a white writer than directly from the narratives of former slaves.

In the 20th century, the term "Uncle Tom" became a pejorative term for African Americans who were subservient to whites, although when I read the book it seemed pretty clear to me that the character Uncle Tom was no "Uncle Tom." At the end of the book, he encourages other slaves to run away and is beaten to death for refusing to divulge details of their escape.

Whatever literary and other shortcomings the book may have from the perspective of 150+ years later, in terms of sheer impact on public opinion it would be hard to think of very many others that even came close.

Can writing do it all? Probably not. Can writing make a difference? Hell yes.

SIGN OF THE TIMES. After a decade of decline, welfare rolls are beginning to climb again, as USA Today reports.

LET THEM EAT ETHANOL. Here's a good background piece on the global food crisis from the Washington Post.

TRAVEL MUG OR TREES. According to this item from Alternet, North American goes through 50 million trees a year for paper cups.

THAT'S THE TICKET. Here's an interesting item on the science of lying and exaggeration. I read it this morning. After I did 50 million pushups.

MOST ANIMALS CAN LEARN, but it doesn't always do them much good.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

CAN WRITING MAKE A DIFFERENCE?

Thomas Paine, courtesy of wikipedia.

Lately El Cabrero has been blogging about writing for social change, a jag that is likely to continue this week.

But first a comment on the idea of social change. If that's your goal, don't sweat it--it's going to happen anyway, what with the whole impermanence thing and all. The question is, will it be good or bad?

Sometimes, the fight to improve or protect conditions for working people is more about conserving things rather than changing them. Defending what's left of the Constitution or the New Deal legacy is a case in point. A few years ago, we had to fight pretty hard to protect Social Security from privatization and that one probably isn't over yet.

Having said that, a look at history convinces me that writing can play a necessary if not sufficient part in making things better or less bad.

In American history, good writing at the right time has made a difference over and over. In the days when independence was being debated, Thomas Paine's Common Sense, published in early 1776, had a big impact on public opinion, as did a certain Declaration published that summer.

If you haven't read the Declaration in a while, dust it off. It's pretty damn good, even if some of the things George III was accused of weren't quite fair in retrospect.

And, when the revolution was going south, Paine struck again with The Crisis, which even George Washington credited with helping to steel American resolve. Take a look at the first few lines:

THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.

Not too shabby! I wish I would have written something like that when it would have done some good.

Slave narratives, such as those of Frederick Douglass, helped influence opinion against that system, as did Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, about which more tomorrow.

HUNGRY PLANET. While millions of people around the world face a food crisis, the UK Independent reports that multinationals are cashing in.

MISSING A CHANCE. The housing and credit meltdown shows the need for reform, but will we miss the boat?

HAD ENOUGH? In our new Gilded Age, we're moving from the Ownership Society to the Foreclosure Society. It might be time to rock the boat.

HEALTH CARE. This Saturday, a few hundred people in El Cabrero's beloved state of West Virginia rallied for health care. While many people are rightly concerned about covering the uninsured, even people with health insurance are finding it less affordable.

VIOLENCE. Here's an interesting article from the NY Times Magazine about a public health approach to reducing violence.

HABIT FORMING. Aristotle referred to habits as "second nature." Here's what the research says on how to change yours.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

FEEL THE NOISE

The theme at Goat Rope lately has been writing about social change. If this is your first visit, please click on earlier posts. You'll also find news and links about current events.

Some of the most effective writing to make good things happen or keep bad things from happening--or, failing both, to make bad behavior hurt some--isn't the writing you and I might do, Gentle Reader, as important as that might be...It's the writing we try to get other people to do.

In my experience, alerting the public or raising the noise level is hugely important in campaigns for social justice. On several occasions in El Cabrero's beloved state of West Virginia, I've seen change happen when the Bad Noise gets too loud.

Often, this may involve knowing what would make a legitimate news story and alerting reporters about it, especially if you stumble upon a juicy tidbit of reliable information. Surfacing an issue can send ripples out all over as the story gets picked up by more and more media outlets. It's kind of fun to line up a string of dominoes and watch them fall down. I've seen it happen several times at the state level and on more than one occasion I've pitched stories to national publications to draw outside attention to events here.

At other times, meeting with the editorial boards of newspapers or contacting columnists can help--provided that you offer reliable information. Encouraging people to write letters to the editor or op-eds on a given topic at the right time can help.

Bloggers also have a role to play in raising awareness among their readers. There have also been many occasions where an issue that wasn't being covered in the regular media finally got covered after bloggers raised the noise level. My advice to bloggers would be 1. encourage others to do the same when the time is right and 2. don't just blog. There's all kind of other media out there. Don't assume that all other doors are locked if there's an important issue to raise.

Bottom line: If you're really interesting in making a difference, don't think of writing as something a solitary individual does...think of it as a group effort. One dog may start the barking, but you can really raise the roof when they all chime in.

Just try not to bark unless there's something really there.


A DREAM DEFERRED. Forty years after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., racial disparities in wealth and income persist.

BEFORE THE BUBBLE BURST. A new study by the Economic Policy Institute argues that the economic recovery of 2001-2007 wasn't anything to write home about.

GOAT RESCUE STORY here.

CULT CLASSICS. We've all heard of cult film classics. From the UK Telegraph, here's a list of cult book classics. Are any of your favorites there?

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

FORTUNE OR FAME?

Lady Fortuna and her wheel (in pre-game show days), courtesy of wikipedia.

The theme at Goat Rope lately has been writing for positive social change, although you'll also find links and comments about current events. If this is your first visit, please click on earlier posts.

How you approach writing for social change depends on where the accent is. If your main interest is on writing, you might approach it one way. But if you're mostly after results, another approach might work better. For me, the latter has more appeal.

As Bob Dylan put it,

Up on Housing Project Hill
It's either fortune or fame
You must pick up one or the other
Though neither of them are to be what they claim

Both would be nice, but I guess I'd prefer fortune.

The main difference between fortune and fame is that people who want fame like to be front and center, whether with bullhorns or bylines. The problem with this is that the message sometimes gets all mixed up with the messenger. If it's fortune you're after, while there may be times when you'll be visible if that would help move things along, that's not the main goal. Some of the most important and effective work takes place behind the scenes.

This is also true when it comes to writing. Some of the most useful kinds are the alphanumeric equivalent of grunt work: alerts, talking points, reports, letters to the editor or officials, issue briefs. In fact, some of the most important kinds of writing involve getting other people to write.

More on that tomorrow, but first...

FIVE YEARS, THOUSANDS OF LIVES AND A GAZILLION DOLLARS LATER...


You-know-who-you-know-when, once again courtesy of wikipedia.

Senator Byrd had this to say about that.

NEXT STOP: IRAN? Ray McGovern, a former CIA analyst, thinks the Bush administration may try to make a bad situation much worse. One can hardly wait for the next aircraft carrier photo op. McGovern spoke Tuesday at WV State University at an event sponsored by Seneca 2. I meant to blog that yesterday. My bad.

BIG PAYOFFS. Investments in our crumbling infrastructure make sense for all kinds of reasons.

URGENT COLOSSAL SQUID UPDATE. They have eyes 11 inches wide, bigger than a dinner plate. Check out the picture.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

ON BEING CAREFUL WITH PRAYER

Eos chasing Tithonus in happier times. Urn courtesy of wikipedia.

It is pretty well established that one should be careful in what one asks for when petitioning the gods for a favor. One should also be specific.

Take the case of Tithonus in Greek mythology. He was the lover of Eos or Dawn. Eos asked Zeus to grant him immortality, but she forgot to ask for eternal youth. He kept getting older and older but wasn't able to die. According to the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite,

... when the first strands of gray hair started growing
from his beautiful head and his noble chin,
then the Lady Eos stopped coming to his bed.
But she nourished him, keeping him in her palace,
with grain and ambrosia. And she gave him beautiful clothes.
But when hateful old age was pressing hard on him, with all its might,
and he couldn’t move his limbs, much less lift them up,
then...she thought up this plan, a very good one indeed:
she put him in her chamber, and she closed the shining doors over him.
From there his voice pours out—it seems never to end—and he has no strength at all, the kind he used to have in his limbs when they could still bend.

In another version, he shrivels up and turns into a cicada who constantly begs for death.

Doh! I hate it when that happens.

When El Cabrero was younger, I petitioned the gods to let me be a writer. The petition was granted, sort of. I've written a lot of stuff, some of which may have been marginally useful in a few smallish campaigns but none of which is particularly memorable.

I should have been more specific....something like "Let me be as good a writer as Melville in his prime but more commercially successful and with a much less miserable personal and family life than he had...Oh, yeah, and let some of it make a difference."

That would have been awesome.

YOU SOO ALREADY KNEW THIS. The economy is like bad or something.

VENGEANCE IS WHOSE? Jared Diamond, author of Collapse and Guns, Germs and Steel reflects on the drive for revenge in this New Yorker article.

FALLEN IDOL. The International Monetary Fund, which Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy Research calls a "creditors cartel," has seen better days...which might not be such a bad thing. Economist Jeffrey Sachs is quoted in this piece as saying that "the IMF has become the Typhoid Mary of emerging markets, spreading recessions in country after country."

HUNGRY PLANET. This item from The Nation discusses the global food crisis.

GET MOVING. Exercise, dammit.

URGENT FROZEN COLOSSAL SQUID UPDATE here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

SWORD AND PEN

Karate master, calligrapher and poet Gichin Funakoshi, courtesy of wikipedia.

The theme at Goat Rope this week is writing for social change. You'll also find links and comments about current events. If this is your first visit, please click on yesterday's post.

For me, writing and fighting (mostly metaphorically) have always been entwined. The idea that I should try to learn to write came to me at the same time in early adolescence that I aspired to learn traditional Okinawan/Japanese martial arts.

In that tradition, the two are connected. There is an old saying among samurai that goes something like "Ken Zen ichi," which means that the sword (or fist) and Zen are one. As a idiom, it also implies that mind and body and sword and pen are one. A basic idea of traditional martial arts is that one should develop one's full potential in all areas. (It took awhile, but I eventually found that Aristotle said pretty much the same thing in ancient Greece.)

Gichin Funakoshi (1868-1957), widely regarded as the founder of modern karate, put it this way in one of his early works:

Deep within the shadows of human culture lurk seeds of destruction, just as rain and thunder follow in the wake of fair weather. History is the story of the rise and fall of nations. Change is the order of heaven and earth; the sword and pen are as inseparable as the two wheels of a cart. Thus, a man must encompass both fields if he is to be considered a man of accomplishment. If he is overly complacent, trusting that the fair weather will last forever, he will one day be caught off guard by terrible floods and storms. So it is essential for all of us to prepare each day for any unexpected emergency.

It was also from that tradition that I acquired my one abiding political idea: to wit, it is dishonorable and disgusting when people with power try to kick around people who can't kick back. And since much of our political and economic world seems to run on precisely that, I tend to find myself going against the current.

I don't know if this is exactly what Funakoshi had in mind with the sword/pen thing, but to a martial artist good fighting (in the sense of the merging of techniques, tactics, and timing) can be as aesthetically pleasing as good writing, music etc. And in the context of social change, good writing--broadly conceived--can a powerful force in the fight to make things less bad or a little better.

For that matter, a good campaign or fight, metaphorically speaking, can be aesthetically pleasing and even elegant if it blends timing and technique and strategy.

They don't call them arts for nothing.

BUSHONOMICS. For many Americans, the recession of 2001 never ended.

JOBS AND HEALTH CARE. A new study suggests that rising unemployment will strain public health care programs like Medicaid.

BIOBIGOTRY. Here's an article about the human tendency to project moral categories onto animals.

WHO'D HAVE THUNK IT? Scientists are using bats to promote reforestation.


GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

WRITING FOR A CHANGE

A friend of El Cabrero's recently asked me to help out in a workshop on the topic of writing for social change. The invitation prompted many thoughts and this is as good a place as any to unload them.

First up, over the last 20 years, I've been involved in several campaigns aimed at improving conditions or making things less bad for workers, children, and low income people and some of them have been successful. And some kind of writing by some people has played a part in just about every one of them.

It does seem that those who are able to craft and convey messages effectively, which at some point means writing, have a big advantage over those who aren't, all things being equal. However, all things usually aren't equal and writing by itself usually isn't enough to make something good happen or keep something bad from happening. That usually involves coalitions, social capital and networking, strategy, research, civic engagement, etc.

Writing won't get you all the way there, but you probably won't get there without it.

More tomorrow.

ONCE UPON A TIME, one income was enough to raise a family. What happened? Here are economist Jared Bernstein's reflections.

BELT TIGHTENING. From changing habits to meal planning, the recession is hitting home all over.

SUPPLY SIDE SNAKE OIL. Here's another nail in the coffin of the idea that tax cuts "pay for themselves."

DE COLORES. Here's the latest edition of the Rev. Jim Lewis' Notes from Under the Fig Tree. It's pretty colorful.

DIAL A BUG WITH A PLANT. I'm not sure what relevance this item has to the topic at hand, whatever that may be, but recent studies by ecologists suggest that above ground and underground insects communicate with each other using plants "like telephones."

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED