The life of a revolutionary would be quite impossible without a certain amount of "fatalism."

Now, I have spoken at length previously on my distaste for extremists, so I shall not reopen that wound for all to see (and bore you in the process).

That said, I could pass over the image of the menacing black and yellow Sea Shepherd anarchist AKTION patrol boat parked just across the road from work this morning.

Now – and apologies in advance to all the Sea Shepherds reading out there – every member of that distinguished organisation that I have happened across has turned out to be of a frame of mind that I described in that earlier post.

This tendency to drift into preposterous polarities, mutually exclusive ideas, deterministic dialectics (always hidden, excluding the individual doing the ranting, of course), all of which operate not just separate from, but in opposition to, each other.

This is great fun when you happen to be in the public policy game and are looking to get a little harmony happening on an issue.

They remind me of yet another presentation that I saw the other week, during which I noted the (false) choices that this individual seemed to offer the audience.

Inclusion OR exclusion?
Remembering OR forgetting?
Leading OR following?
Open OR closed?
All OR none?
Want OR need?
Faith OR reason?
Problems OR solution?
Widening OR deepening?
Structure OR agency?
Progress OR tradition?
Success OR Failure?

The saddest thing was that here was a highly educated person (over-educated?), standing there telling everybody that these were mutually exclusive choices. For this person, choosing one meant forgoing the other.

Just what you want to hear at a public policy gabfest!

[Note: and I have to add, calling it the Steve Irwin, nice bit of mainstreaming there! There's hope yet!]