An Ecology of Assholes

norabateson

photo by Indiana Vatikiotis-Bateson

(This piece has a different tone than most of my work, it is a little bit of satire and grit, and given the times, I think some measure of spunk is needed. Not to be negative, but to avert numbness.) -NB

The world is a beautiful place, full of souls that want only to be loved. Humanity has achieved wondrous feats of elegance, humor, grace and poetic creativity… but there is also the asshole factor. By asshole I mean jerk, I don’t mean murderer. Certainly murderers are assholes, but not all assholes are murderers. With all the name calling and finger pointing right now why not take a minute to apply the axioms of systems thinking and ecological patterning to something closer to home than saving the world. We all know a few assholes, and those that can admit it might confess to having even occasionally joined…

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Hillary Clinton : the best of times and the worst of times; A tale of Two Cities : Both Sides Now (the female Jay Gatsby… there and back again)

‘Maybe it’s a byproduct of a self-effacing Midwestern Methodist upbringing, or a fear of failure and a defensive instinct instilled by a father who was demanding and hypercritical. Part of it is she’s been beaten up for a long time and that accentuates her fear of making a mistake,’ says David Axelrod, chief strategist for Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.

(During her 2008 campaign) Her unhappy history with Republican attacks and media coverage of controversies from Whitewater to Monica Lewinsky was an understandable explanation for her defensive posture. But it translated into a reluctance to go off-script and expose herself to the public, which cost her a strained relationship with voters.

She’s made an effort this time to open up to voters in a way that Americans crave from their leaders—referring to her faith, to obstacles women face, to her mother’s influence in her life, to problems in her marriage, and appearing on comedy shows early in the campaign to showcase her humorous side.

‘I watched my husband campaign, I watched President Obama campaign – it is poetry … That’s not necessarily my forte.,; says Hillary.  

When I asked a couple of bystanders why they’d waited hours for a glimpse of a U.S. Cabinet secretary, they looked at me as if I were a moron: “She’s the most famous and powerful woman in the world. Who wouldn’t want to see her?”

Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.politico.com

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