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so what you want to do is debate my rhetorical approach? you're joking, right?
ok so i'll bite to a limited extent: most conservative argumentation--you know, the stuff that circulates through what was not so long ago a conservative media apparatus the boundaries of which blurred into mainstream political discourse, but which is now (fortunately in my view) collapsed in its influence (if not its funding) back onto the paleo-right for which it speaks---most conservative argumentation that originates from within this media-scape operates by attempting to control the framework of a conversation. which makes it a monologue, but whatever. that's how the political argumentation operates--you assert a set of assumptions and then advance a sequence of relatively banal points (more often than not) which presuppose acceptance of the framework. silly stuff like markets are rational. silly stuff like state action is by definition a source of distortion. silly stuff like the distribution of wealth under capitalism can be equated with some kind of moral economy.
you know the drill. it's been the dominant political discourse for a very long time.
so when ace from time to time a claim or a thread gets launches that operates in this kind of way---the latest example being the "will obama be the next herbert hoover" thread---it seems entirely reasonable to go after the assumptions or the framework that enable such a claim to appear to make sense. particularly when those assumptions or that frame is the conservative talking point of the day or week.
for example.
and that's just the way it is. i didn't make the political landscape the way it's been. lots of very deep pockets have funded the creation of a really stupid but quite efficient conservative repetition machine (if you like---it's shorthand)....and it was effective for a while, particularly during the rather dismal period right after 9/11/2001...but that's another matter.
i'm at work at the moment so have limited time to dip in and out of these things...like now i have a meeting. sorry.
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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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