roachboy

i just read through the op again and realized that i moved from one level to another--i signalled it, but perhaps not adequately---i take the lincoln group's activities in iraq as an index of two interconnected wars of position--that is ideolgical conflicts--one that is particular to the iraq debacle, and another, which is broader and which functions as an important dimension of conservative ideology (rather than the tactics of the republican party proper)....which plays out across the control of terms, their definitions and associations. i used the article from the nyt about lincoln as a jump off directed mostly at the latter, broader conservative ideological apparatus (for lack of a better term) and for broader questions---which i took as coherent because i see the two aspects as intertwined at this point--but not as identical.

the junction between the two is the parallel concern for how information is framed.
the questions concerned the central role played in conservative ideology by controlling debate by controlling the terms used to frame it.

this linked to debates that unfold--or dont--in this forum because often--not always, but often--folk from the right enter these discussions already having decided that the terminologies particular to the right are adequate as descriptors and show almost no wilingness to step outside that terminology to enter into discussions about the terms themselves. this is why i said at the outset that debate is often shortcircuited at the outset because, by choosing to stage issues in this way, basic political choices have already been settled in a sense and discussion deteriorates from that into the usual partisan pissing matches.

this is the logic behind the post....and i outline it as a response to irate's post above---which i think pointed out a possible confusion of levels in what i wrote.

in particular, to continue focussing on irate's post: there is an enormous amount of information available about the extent, internal organization and effects of the contemporary mode of shaping and distributing conservative discourse. that this particular article did not cover it is a function of its focus, i would think---it does not make the connection that i tried to make afterward, and so really cant be faulted for not providing information about that.

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addendum: i am not interested in trying to work outanything about conservative folk in general apart from how the discourse that is often shared by them operates. this is much less grandoise than presuming to work out the complexity of motives or range of types of investment that individuals might bring to bear on or around their uses of this discourse.
the discourse is structured, consistent and highly structured.
the uses that folk might make of it much less so.
this is a perfectly reasonable distinction to make....

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

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