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i normally wouldn't do this, but here i'll make an exception.
the thread is to my mind an embarrassment. you suppose that by that i mean something politically motivated, so that i mean it's an embarrassment because of what people whom i oppose politically are saying and doing.
but i dont: i think the entire debate is an embarrassment to all of us, and not just in the context of the thread. i see it as having been shaped by a tactical blunder from the administration in not presenting forcefully one or more options for types of alternative health care arrangements up front. i see it as an embarrassment because of the types of space for noise that this tactical blunder opened up. i see it as an embarrassment because of the extent to which all of us have been sucked into this---so a debate over a quite important social problem, one which i think requires at least some actual thinking, has become a pathetic donnybrook.
it's an embarrassment to the extent that it shows what's happened to the persistent fiction they call american democracy.
it's an embarrassment internationally--you think folk in other countries aren't taking note of this donnybrook, you're sadly mistaken.
here, i found myself getting sucked into the same non-dynamics in the context of this thread. so in the context of this thread, i'm part of what makes it an embarrassment. we all are.
i see no contradiction between holding this view of both the national non-debate and it's reflection in this thread and acting as a moderator.
and i see no contradiction between saying as much as moderating the thread.
and if you don't believe the characterization of this thread as an embarrassment, take a few days away from it and then read through the whole thing for yourself.
do it.
then if you want to complain, feel free to pm me.
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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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