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at this point, i think that a more formal thread might be a good idea, something on the order of a debate-type thing.
seems like all of us keep moving back and forth across the threshold of getting down to maybe trying to either explain or perform an explanation for why political discussion keeps breaking down into the nonexchange of monologues.
i would be interested in trying something with pretty firm ground rules: maybe a q and a type format or something, i am not sure.
i will not have time over the next few days to devote to figuring out the format: if one of the comrades here has an idea of how this might work, please feel free to post it.
alansmithee: i think this flirting with the threshold process is particularly apparent in the conversation that we have been having.
i would of course be fine with anyone and everyone participating in the type of more structured conversation that we considered earlier.
and to forewarn you about the place of likely breakdown or talking-past in the debate-like thing, should it happen: my way of thinking about many political questions is shaped by a long marxian background--i do not understand myself as being a marxist at this point, simply because i do not see it as possible or useful any more--but when it comes to debating political questions, the types of arguments that i tend to start off with are marxist in style. i mention this because it sets up an obvious problem in that these types of arguments do not in general work at the same level as straight political arguments in the american context: they consider other data relevant and in different combinations. i mention this because i would prefer that you know this is coming and not allow it to simply grind any conversation into nothingness.
pan: in the end, i guess the main place that i diverge with you is that i do not see division as a basic problem. i think this divergence follows from basically different attitudes toward the idea of nation--you seem to work from it as a basic operational category: i see it as something that is becoming obsolete and is not worth either saving or worrying about trying to save.
i also do not see tfp as a microcosm, and so do not connect problems folk encounter here in talking across political positions with the state of anything outside itself.
this thread has drifted well beyond its initial premise--as is often the case here the question that has driven it that way has to do with in what way one can and should understand this category "terrorism"--i am not sure that any attempt to stage a structured conversation should start with this, simply because it is an obvious wedge issue.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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