roachboy

i want to say something on this, but in a different direction slightly.

a couple years ago i started to realize, particularly with reference to what i was doing here, that a consequence of deciding to participate in debates was that i had to accept the dominant conservative ideological frame of reference as something worth the trouble of arguing against, and that this was a mistake. i have been tired of the restricted and restricting games that this ideology imposed on all of us since. if you want to interact with folk in a space like this, you have to operate inside the shared frame of reference. everyone adapts to it, it builds on itself, becomes part of the culture of the board.

it also occured to me at about the same time that participating in debates was for me an expression of hopelessness, and that something of that was inverted into a desire to do *something* to go after the ideology that i was not in a position to do anything about in the larger scheme of things. initially, i was motivated in significant measure by anger at what i saw happening around me. and initially i found it fun to play trash the conservatives. it didn't do anything in the bigger scheme of things--but i felt vaguely better for it.
then it was less fun.
then it became tiresome.

i don't have particular expectations about obama--i don't know what his administration will look like yet, i don't know what policies he will enact. i know about the campaign, what it said, how it was conducted. i am waiting to see what happens. i do not expect anything in particular.


i see no reason to continue operating within the outmoded, tired framework that we have all been operating within since we started here--tfp is itself a creature of the bush period, and so reactions to the bush administration is a significant aspect of the history of politics here. now that period is over.

it is over.

so i see no reason why any of us need to continue operating within that outmoded, tired framework.

by that i mean i see no reason why we have to continue replicating in our interactions the dominant political discourse of the past 8 years--whether you supported the administration or opposed it, here you replicated the bigger context. i did it. everyone did it, one way or another. consider it a sign of the times--there is no outside.

i think we should change things around. if we keep interacting as if the politics of the last 8 years were still a necessary frame of reference, soon we'll be as firmly part of the past as the bush administration is.

let's consider how we might change this place.
the corpse of what was can only twitch for so long.
sooner or later it will stop.
what do we do then?

===================
-----Added 12/11/2008 at 10 : 38 : 53-----
there are a few things i wanted to take out of the above, but for some stupid reason i am not allowed to edit. i am thinking Giant Conspiracy. or the browser update. or something else. anyway, i'm leaving it as is because, well, i don't have a choice.

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

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite