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what a goofy thread: the op reproduced a staricial piece without realizing that it was satirical--never a good start---from that you get yet another tiresome rehearsal of the false binds around which debate over the war in iraq has been framed by conservative discourse: you either support everything the administration has done and is doing so you can "support our troops" or you oppose the war and in so doing do not "support our troops"---the function of this false binary is self-evident---to substitute a cartoon for the range of motives that might lead a people--a significant majority of the american public by this point, judging from various polls over the last year or so--to oppose bushwar.
this tedious rhetorical move, like so much else in conservativeland (think of it as an amusement park in which every ride you take narrows your vision), is rooted in the right's mythology of vietnam, in particular the myth of "our boys" being spat upon by "protestors" upon their return from vietnam. never happened. but that's no matter, it suits the purposes of the folk who operate politically by contributing to conservative discourse and so it circulates.
the fact that, in this thread, a debate about withdrawing from iraq is framed by this idiotic binary opposition is kind of depressing to see: that many of the conservative folk in this community seem to find this narrow and uninteresting conversational space one in which they can swim about in circles comfortably is not surprising. looking at it from the outside, however, the thread does provide a domonstration of discourse effects and their uses: the kind of argument they enable, the kinds of arguments they exclude. which gives this a kind of anthropological interest, but not much else.
what i find curious, however, is the total lack of information in this thread: folk are spinning around in generalities as if the factual situation was transparent. it isnt.
that does not stop anyone, but perhaps it should.
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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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