[Peace-discuss] AWARE

[John W.]

On Sat, Sep 5, 2009 at 1:03 PM, <jgeo61 at comcast.net> wrote:

Silly?  I support the First Amendment as much as you do.  I want another
> venue, stage, arena for the 3-4 of you to debate your issues as often and as
> fervently as you wish to.  I want as many AWARE folks to read and enjoy as
> they wish to and to respond in kind if they chose to.  I and the many who
> have contacted me personally through all of this, want a space too to talk
> about some differing issues related to peace.  When I am on this list, I do
> feel as if I have arrived at a party 15min. late and now am having trouble
> adapting to the current topic of conversation.  I know that it will be just
> as difficult to change the conversation even if I can get my toe in.
>

I guess I wonder what is preventing the rest of you, the "Silent Majority"
on this list, from saying anything you want to say at any time you want to
say it.  I try to exercise a bit of discretion, but if I have something to
say I just say it.  I don't feel constrained in the least except by my own
sense of decency....and occasionally not even by that.  :-)

I also thought that Peace-discuss, as opposed to Peace and Peace-action and
so on, was where people could post thought-provoking articles, personal
observations, and what have you.  DISCUSSION, as the list name implies.

Sure, Carl's unvarying fulminations against Obama and Wayne's myopic
libertarian rants sometimes get tiresome.  And sure, their overly pedantic
personalities cloy at times.  But I still haven't worn out the "delete" key
on my keyboard.  And occasionally those two worthies come up with a gem that
is well worth reading or thinking about.

I actually enjoyed the little discussion of "pontificate".  For those of you
who don't like words and etymology...well, there's that delete key.

I dunno.  It seems like much ado about relatively nothing to me, at least on
this list.  No one is stopping anyone that I can see from planning any sort
of PEACE ACTION their little heart desires.

Of course I don't attend AWARE meetings, so maybe there's something else
going on of which I'm unaware (pun not initially intended, but thoroughly
enjoyed by Yours Truly  :-) ).  I actually appreciate being permitted to
participate on this list.  And as long as that permission endures, I won't
feel or be intimidated by Carl or anyone else.  By the same token, I'd hate
to be deprived of the wisdom of Ricky Baldwin, Stuart Levy, Dave Johnson,
and others.  And I'm sure some of the "lurkers" have wisdom to share as
well.  Please share it.

John Wason




> I want to know why you folks need an audience of 165 plus readers to host
> your own conversations?  For the record, 30 plus msgs. per day are too many
> for many of us to listen to.  No, I will not take my toys and go home; I
> want a solution to this issue.
>
> Joy George
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at illinois.edu>
> To: "Matt Reichel" <mattreichel at hotmail.com>
> Cc: jgeo61 at comcast.net, slevy at ncsa.uiuc.edu,
> peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net, ewj at pigs.ag
> Sent: Saturday, September 5, 2009 12:34:16 PM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central
> Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] AWARE
>
> Oh, Matt -- don't be silly.  From your first line ("banning Carl and
> Wayne") I
> thought you were engaged in a Stephen Colbert-style jeu d'esprit, a long
> satire
> of the free-speech liberal calling for banning of speech...
>
> But then I concluded, with rising dismay, that you were serious -- I hope
> I'm
> wrong -- so I'll try to answer your charges:
>
> [1] "hate-monger": no, I don't recommend hate even against people with
> despicable ideas or my enemies; I belong to a tradition that insists upon
> loving
> enemies, difficult as that may be.
>
> [2] "homophobe": no, not just because "some of my best friends...," but
> because
> I don't think holding (as I do) that the ethics of sexual behavior are
> debatable
> and at the same time not very important qualifies one as such.
>
> [3] "irrelevant tangents": Stuart's been upset with this, too, but I
> thought,
> e.g., that the discussion of the meaning of "pontificate" was an amusing
> way to
> respond to a ridiculous objection -- and it was interesting: we discovered
> (I
> think) that the common English connotation grew out of a political dispute.
>
> [4] "pretentious off-color remarks":  this one has me stumped (and the
> puritanism surprises, given your taste for Anglo-Saxon); the best I can
> come up
> with is my reference to "mailboxes getting stuffed," which could be
> regarded as
> a Brit (hence pretentious) euphemism (hence off-color).
>
> [5] "anarchistic": guilty.  As a yellow-dog Chomskyan, I wish to imitate
> his
> anarchism/libertarian socialism (with the understanding that "libertarian"
> here
> does not mean "libertarian" in the contemporary American sense), a position
> to
> the left of M-L sects.
>
> [6] "overbearing personalities": me?!  Why, you'll quite turn my head ...
> but my
> professional history suggests I've rarely if ever been able to overbear
> much of
> anybody.
>
> [7] "weekly news updates": you haven't been around for a while, Matt.
>  They're
> an example of [6], in that they were silenced at AWARE meetings because
> they
> were improperly "framed."
>
> [8] "apology made for regressive 'anti-war' conservatives":
>  paleoconservatives
> have consistently been principled opponents of the war, a position always
> defended on the Left but rarely (and decreasingly) by liberals.
>
> [9] "reminders that mainstream Democrats have, by and large, betrayed their
> progressive base": you agree that they have done so, apparently, and the
> reminder is hardly redundant for many self-styled liberals in what Chomsky
> (and
> other) call the political class.
>
> [10] "Ron Paul is somehow better than Dennis Kucinich": he's certainly had
> more
> effect (an old Trot friend of mine thinks Dennis is just an example of
> repressive tolerance), but where they disagree (generally in economics) I'm
> usually on Dennis' side.
>
> [11] "multi-millionaire": now you've done it! My wife just looked over my
> shoulder and is raging about "Where are you hiding it!?" with angry
> mutterings
> about Bernie Medoff...
>
> [12] "racist": I'll ask the black and white members of my family to debate
> this
> one.
>
> [13] "xenophobe": I'm thinking of going and living in Venice (or maybe
> Paris...); does that exculpate me?
>
> [14] "no passion for the good of your country":  well, I would have
> supported
> neither the American Revolution nor the Civil War, though my family did; in
> fact
> a good bit of my adult life has been taken up with learning, somewhat
> uncomfortably, what might count as "the good of my country": e.g., JFK's
> inaugural speech was I now think fascistic.
>
> OK, now tote up the score, like the magazine quizzes:
>
>         0-3 -- terminate with extreme prejudice
>         4-6 -- ride him out of town on a rail
>         7-9 -- allow him to attend meetings, but only with an S&M gag in
> place
>         10-12 -- allow him to post to the list, but no more than once a
> day, and only
> after the text has been passed by The Committee for relevance & framing
>         above 12 -- for he's a jolly good fellow...!
>
> Solidarity, CGE
>
>
>
> Matt Reichel wrote:
> > I think most of this list's problems would be solved by just banning Carl
> and
> > Wayne: maybe they can go and create their own peace group for
> hate-mongering
> > homophobes and litter each others' inboxes with their irrelevant tangents
> and
> > pretentious off-color remarks.
> >
> > AWARE cannot go on without any organizational infrastructure, as
> attractive
> > as it sounds to be "anarchistic." A simple, respectful level of
> organization
> > backed by a widely supported set of rules will make the group more
> > democratic, and less prone to dominance by overbearing personalities and
> > their seemingly regressive ends.
> >
> > Since everyone that has left the group or that are currently frustrated
> with
> > its direction seem to have a problem with the same person, why don't you
> just
> > give him the old "heave ho"? Because his weekly news updates are
> supposedly
> > of some value? Because you want to hear every possible apology made for
> > regressive "anti-war" conservatives, coupled with redundant reminders
> that
> > mainstream Democrats have, by and large, betrayed their progressive base?
> So
> > Ron Paul is somehow better than Dennis Kucinich? . . I guess if you are a
> > multi-millionaire, racist, xenophobe with no passion for the good of your
> > country . .
> >
> > Will someone down there please find the courage to defend the integrity
> of
> > this group and lay a ban down on the aforementioned assholes?
> >
> > Best, Matt
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/archive/peace-discuss/attachments/20090905/2c7361bc/attachment-0001.html