From: Jerry Levy (Gerald_A_Levy@MSN.COM)
Date: Thu Apr 20 2006 - 07:28:52 EDT
They don't have inflatable rats in Amsterdam? I see the Big Rats at least once a week in Manhattan -- usually near non-union construction sites. They are very popular with the building trade unions, it seems. I don't know whether it really bothers the non-union employers, but union members seem to get a real chuckle out of them. What I didn't know, though, is the irony that they are produced in a non-union shop. Does anyone on the list have experience conveying elements of Marxian economics via street theatre? I think it could be done -- but it would require some creativity (a trait in short supply, it seems, among many Marxists). The closest example I can think of is, perhaps, "Billionaires for Bush." A former New School economics student, Paul Bartlett, has been known to be a Billionaire for Bush -- dressed in a tuxedo at anti-war demonstrations. Approaching this story from another direction, I think that there are frequently human cultural understandings about individual species of animals which have an element of irrationality. Thus, rats are feared and their near relatives, mice, are made into celebrated cartoon characters. Foxes, bats, and sharks are feared and demonized, pigs are viewed as 'dirty' (and are maligned when associated with police), yet other species are viewed as cute, cuddly and angelic. These understandings tend to be culturally specific and are often associated with religious beliefs, superstitions, and mythology. E.g. cats were tortured in Medieval Europe as agents of Satan (in some cases, using a miniature rack), revered in Ancient Egypt (perhaps, in part, because they ate rats and thereby unintentionally protected the grain stored in the temples), persecuted on the basis of the myth that they are alleged to "suck the life" out of human infants, and are in many ways treated as if they were humans in some families. There are elements of rationality and irrationality in these traditions. In solidarity, Jerry
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