There were some commenters on my Iraq diary, especially some of the last posters, who seemed to be presenting a level of hostility that went beyond “I strongly disagree with you on this issue” to “you’re a war criminal” or just “you disgust me”. I’m just wondering, does that mean you couldn’t stand to be in my presence or accept my help or solidarity when it comes to issues like national health care, the environment, or tax cuts for the rich? Would I not be welcome at your anti-GMO rally? Or you wouldn’t come to my anti-police brutality march?
Does the issue of Iraq (or for that matter, abortion) so trump all others for you that it means all other common ground is insignificant? I’m not just asking rhetorically: please, I’d like to hear what some of you (and you know who you are) have to say about this.
I just feel that when we disagree, sometimes we have to go with the cliche and “agree to disagree” and move on and find common ground.
be more interested to hear your thoughts on solidarity and agreeing to disagree. Perhaps if you were to explain, you know – at length <grin> – then I’d have a better understanding of your compulsion to agitate each week with a confrontational, inevitably-going-to-melt-down kind of a diary.
<eyebrow raised>
I know this was a really short diary…but it seemed like a concept that couldn’t really be fleshed out much. I think you pose an interesting point about “stirring the pot” one might say; and some would say I like to be the devil’s advocate. It’s true that I enjoy a feisty (though I prefer civil) debate. But I also enjoy working together with others in solidarity.
Thing is, would I be a better BT citisen, do you think, if I cheerfully joined in when someone posted about gay marriage or the Patriot Act, but just kept my mouth shut and moved on when encountering the frequent rants about Iraq or abortion? Maybe I would–I dunno. But boy, I’d have a hard time doing that.
-Alan
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thinking about degrees of justification for anger…. this is spontaneous so please bear with me.
As you found last night, when people feel ‘but people are dead and dying – for god’s sake!’ – any debate will inevitably have another tone. I’m wondering if that same very personal and instinctive reaction is possible in relation to the Patriot Act or gay marriage. Not to minimize the very real threat to life and limb that homophobia poses, but being prevented from legally marrying may be wrong, unjust and eternally frustrating – it won’t literally kill you. The Patriot Act may be completely unamerican, fascist and an affront to the very idea of a ‘free county’ – but unless it leads to someone being ‘rendered’ – many millions in many countries have survived worse.
Bombs, guns and coathangers kill people, you know? Should you shut your mouth? I’ll let others here who know you better volunteer suggestions for that one…. <mischievous>
But I think it’s necessary to acknowledge that this forum is ‘mixed’ company. People are here for innumerable reasons, from perspectives too varied to categorize…. sometimes fiesty debate touches very raw emotions.
Not bad for spontaneous. 😉
That’s a really good point that gay marriage and the Patriot Act pale next to the kinds of things people deal with around the world. It’s perhaps ironic that this is why both sides on Iraq feel so strongly. But I don’t think those on the antiwar left are actually malicious in their intent (unlike the antiwar right). But maybe that comes across as condescending and therefore infuriating in its own right.
-Alan
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I should know better than to ask – but….
Explain to me how ‘but people die‘ correlates to the … pro-war …. left. Sorry, that was just odd to type. <baffled expression>
I’m baffled too–I don’t understand what you’re asking.
sitting at a table with you, this is where I’d start moving the salt shakers around. OK – we have the pro-war right, and the anti-war right – waitress???, can I have some more salt shakers please? – OK, we have the anti-war left and the pro-war left. Now…
the emotional ‘but people die’ (hereafter referred to as BPD) response can, for the sake of this argument, be considered to apply to the anti-war left and the anti-war right. (I’m ignoring all financial/foreign policy/other considerations)
Now, how would BPD be applied to arguments from pro-war on either side?
I love this salt-shaker idea. We need one of those avatar dealies like they have in poker rooms, but with a coffee shop style atmosphere. <g>
Now, first of all, I think you’re being too generous to the antiwar right, to credit them with BPD. I think they are more about “this upsets all kinds of shadowy trade deals, it scares the markets, gets us into debt, blah blah blah”.
For my general response to BPD, let me refer you to one of my first BT diaries.
-Alan
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There are only so many tools you’re likely to find on your average coffee shop table – when you start asking for tabasco just to cover all of your bases – the waitress will generally get pissed.
I think that diary may have given me some small degree of insight…. now I have more questions, of course, but… those will have to percolate a little.
It’s funny that you should mention Czechoslovakia – one of my favorite quips about an American invasion of Canada is – Why, we would follow the Czech example of course!….
I look forward to your questions with great interest. 🙂
… in real life there are people you can argue with, people you can debate with, people you can talk politics with…. but, where do you draw the line? Would you have a heated argument and express your support for the war with a neighbor who lost a son there? Would you have fun playing devil’s advocate with someone whose sister or teenage friend committed suicide because she couldn’t cope with an unplanned pregnancy?
Here, there’s no way to know someones history – that doesn’t mean you should recklessly show less consideration.
You are awfully good at this–putting me to shame, without really being mean about it. Kind of annoying! 😉
Okay, so what, IYO, should I do when these subjects are raised (again, and again, and again)?
-Alan
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Didn’t intend shame… just… making it personal.
What was the line from that link last night?
Or something like that… I think disagreement and learning should go hand in hand. What point is there in arguing, unless it enables you to more clearly see and understand someone else’s perspective?
(I keep wanting to call you Zander the Wise…but it sounds cheesy, like a bad D&D character, lol.)
That’s a really awesome quote (and you remember, I was really impressed by that site). I would hope to live by that philosophy, but I won’t presume to claim that I already do, at least not as well as I should.
-Alan
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but I’ll take it… <shameless>
I’m still wondering what role debate plays for you.
My thoughts on it are this – debate in a forum such as this is kind of like fencing. It’s a beautiful thing to watch when it’s between two trained professionals, … and potentially bloody when it’s very difficult to tell who is armed with an epee and who isn’t.
So how DO we tell? Because you’re right, I think you may have hit on the key. I want to provoke the tough debaters to come out swinging, but I don’t want the explosive hostility that inevitably comes from other quarters. (Honest, I really don’t.)
change your sig to read…
I adhere to Machiavelli’s Rules for Debate.
At least people would be forewarned….
That’s terribly droll, and tempting…but at the end of the day, I don’t actually want to be thought of that way.
<snark alert> That sounds almost like a Republican style focus on plausible deniability. “Of course I’m going to do ‘x‘, I like it – I just want to make sure that it’s perceived as ‘opposite of x‘.”
Always pinning me down, aren’t you? LOL
But I guess I really mean not just that I don’t want other people to think of me that way, I don’t want to think of myself that way. KWIM?
Comes back to the question of what you get out of debating, doesn’t it?
You could make some rules for yourself, and resolve to follow them in the interest of avoiding collateral damage, but until you know why you’re arguing in the first place…
What rules would you suggest? I’m open to advice. I like being provocative, but I don’t want to ruin anyone’s day, or to be hated.
I was suggesting that rules for self-restraint would be futile. As long as you’re getting off on the ‘when people come out swinging’ thing – the temptation would get you… well, most of the time.
If I had clear guidelines to keep in mind (which could be hard to come by, and that might be the rub), you might be surprised by how disciplined I could be. After all, I’m not tempted in the sense that I actually want to stir up this level of enmity.
sense I was talking about.
I don’t question your motives.
Nope, I’m not going to play – I think it’s a diversion from the real point.
you’re good at that (and I must stress, that is meant without the slightest shred of snark).
moving below…
For me, I’m willing to work with people who disagree with me on the Iraq war (excepting the approval of treatment of prisoners, extensions of service contracts by means way beyond he pale, etc). Abortion, however, is non-negotiable.
Clarification – I won’t be rude to or snub those who disagree with me on abortion. I will under no circumstances support a pro-life candidate.
Well, let me say that I very much appreciate your extended hand of solidarity. And just for the record, I absolutely do not abide by the human rights abuses you mentioned (though I know some here believe that the war itself is inherently a human rights abomination). I can’t remember being more angry than when I heard that asshole Inhofe on NPR saying he was “more outraged by the outrage” than by the Abu Ghraib scandal. For him even to think such a thing is appalling; for him to say it, and thus to further discredit this country in the world’s eyes, is beyond despicable.
-Alan
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I figured I needed to clarify in case it sounded like I wasn’t willing to have discussions with people of differing political opinions. I am. My girlfriend is pro-life; we’ve come to accept that we will not change each others’ minds, but we do use relatively good-natured disagreements to hone our arguments.
I was torn on the war in Iraq for a long time. I supported action against Afghanistan, though I was torn on the methods.
That’s pretty cool. I assume your girlfriend is at least consistent, in terms of not supporting the death penalty either? And hopefully she’s a pro-life Democrat? 🙂
-Alan
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She’s gone through an odd political development over the past few years. She’s a dyed-in-the-wool libertarian on everything except abortion. She had a daughter (named Liberty – go fig) almost two years ago, and became pro-life along the way. She is well aware that it is a political inconsistency for her, and she’s not entirely comfortable with the legal precedents of pro-life legislation, but she knows how she feels about it (boy,does she ever). Her husband…(wait, before I finish this sentence I should let you know we are polyamorous, and relationship diagrams can get pretty complicated)… argues with her about the inconsistency all the time, and I learn a great deal from the sparring. Add a bottle of red wine or three, and the political sparks, they fly. Good thing we all enjoy a good juicy argument, and nobody gets mean. 🙂
We disagree politically on a whole lotta things, but I would rather have a libertarian who I know is not going to go mucking about with civil liberties as a neighbor, than the fundie types who feel entitled to make everyone else’s decisions for them.
Would love to be a fly on the wall during those red wine sessions! I’ll admit, it was one of those “wha–??” moments when I got to the word “husband”, LOL. But that’s all good–I am a little more conventional in my own tendencies, but I think that the world needs more love, in whatever form it comes.
I suspect not. When I lived in the U.S., I met a fair number of people who subscribed to the ‘U.S. as the ‘policeman’ of the world’ theory of foreign policy.
Which is sort of true
From what I knew personally of people who held such views in the U.S., the belief that the U.S. should be the policeman of the world was inevitably accompanied by a fairly strong sense of patriotism (e.g. the U.S. is the best country in the world and Americans are the most wonderful, kindest, loveliest people on earth)
I think it’s possible to be complicit with them, but I don’t think it possible to be in solidarity with them.
And on a purely practical note, as a foreigner, I simply cannot afford to trust people who hold such beliefs to ‘get my back,’ even on seemingly unrelated issues where there is apparently ‘common ground.’ Been there, done that, learned that lesson the hard way.
I can only speak for myself, but I am most definitely not a jingoistic American. I always refused to say the Pledge of Allegiance in school, and I have been harshly critical of the U.S. complicity with so much Third World villainy, from Mexico 150 years ago, to Cuba a hundred years ago, to Iran and Guatemala a half century ago, to Pinochet in Chile, El Salvadoran death squads in the ’80s…etc. And of course the current administration’s snubbing of the international community, from the Kyoto and ABM treaties to this appalling Bolton nomination, is mortifying. So, I don’t want to get back into that Iraq debate, but those things don’t have to go together.
I just don’t get it. I went through that other diary and thread, and now this.
I just don’t get your position, and it’s hard to see past it, in part because you brought it up in the first place.
I’m inclined to agree with Dove. I don’t want to put words in her mouth, but I think this issue trumps so many others.
I came across an idea the other night – it was expressed in the context of some new age concepts and language that I’m not personally comfortable with, but it still made sense to me, namely – don’t engage others in debate and attempt to change their minds, because that only invites further disharmony and disagreement.
I don’t know if I expressed it well here, and in a very real way it contradicts what I just said about the war of occupation in Iraq trumping other issues.
So I’m back to my original statement of how I just don’t get it. In the end, to me, there’s simply no way to justify or rationalize this war.
I don’t want to engage you in order to convince you of that belief, to somehow get you to change your mind – just as no amount of listening to you about your views on this issue will get me to reconsider my beliefs.
So, after all of that muddle, I don’t know where this leaves us.
It clearly leaves us at an impasse as concerns Iraq. I can live with that…can you? I guess that’s my fundamental question. I mean, I don’t at all expect you or anyone to come over to my side. But what I want to know is, when you say “this trumps other issues”…does that mean that to you guys, I might as well be a Republican, even though I oppose them on issue after issue, from taxes to health care to the environment to the death penalty to trade, minimum wage, you name it? Boy, I’d like to think those other issues matter more than that!
-Alan
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So your use of the plural form of “guys” goes back to singular for me.
As for the other issues you raise – they’re important, but to me they’re not as important as the war of invasion and occupation – a unilateral and pre-emptive act built on deceit that has caused death and destruction on a scale, and with a relentlessness, that you and I can’t even begin to appreciate.
I think, for better or worse, that act now defines us as a nation, just as the civil war defined us in its time. I think that you and I are about as far apart as far apart can be.
But for what that means in practice? I dunno.
I think, is what you get emotionally out of heated arguments. I think ‘civility’ has a role to play in debates that are about learning more about the views of an ‘opponent’ – both to strengthen your own arguments, but also just for the sake of learning. ‘Civility’ just for the sake of avoiding nasty melt-downs is an empty gaming strategy.
From what little I’ve seen of your style, you seem to have more of an interest in the game and the outcome than the substance of the process. Which leads me to ask, what do you get out of it?
I’d like to think that I care about substance, but who am I to contradict Zander the Wise? 😉
I don’t know what I get out of it…lots of things, I suppose. I know that when a debate thread is really rolling, I’m on an adrenaline rush like no other (except maybe in tennis, but that’s different because there is a physical element).
I didn’t mean that you don’t care – sorry about that. I’m speaking only about the verbal warfare in the ‘inevitably and invariably going to melt down’ diaries, and your determination to be in the middle of it.
What I’m trying to get to is the reason why that zone and that rush work for you.
oh here you are. i was wondering
I’ve been in here all night…. what’s going on in the outside world? What am I missing?
de nada.. i left you two comments on the old thread.. you can catch up lata.. kudos on the art.. also a few points about alcoholics in reference to your inquiry
<digging, digging>
So no highlight show tomorrow? <pout> I understand – it’s an undertaking…. I only caught those links you posted sometime today – and LMAO at a few of them. That’s some seriously good stuff you’ve found. I’ll happily wait for it to come together without whining.
the curse of perfectionism is nothing is ever perfect so you try and try and end up with 1757 words as a short reply.. heehee…
i would if i could, of course…. i have more links. are you accepting emails? one of them is very insightful. zanderize et? woowho?
send em…. please?
like to read do you? k.. you got it…
careful with armando though. the hypocrisy diary is mean.. steel yourself..
OK – maybe in moderation…. I don’t want to spoil the enjoyment of the diary when it comes together….
and I can handle mean men – I just deprive them of the pleasure of my company… 🙂
yeah. i sent you my underlying aggravation.. i wont post it.. i owe it to this site to keep things light.. thats my motivation though.. whats sillie is when i tried to send you a bunch of URLs aol wouldnt do it! it thought i was junk mailing.. WHICH I AM NOT. heehee. anyway i hope you can copy and paste the links they are in no order…
i would write
but i cant afford the army of editors dontchaknow
<full body shudder> But that’s a story for another day…
I went straight for the unpostable…. <tee hee>
That tired/petulant part scored quite the reaction, huh? Oh, boy – I couldn’t read through it all, I’m rather a sensitive sort – I can feel people getting purple and sputtering in their posts, and it makes me feel icky.
It was cool to find majikthise on the list… I love her!
I say post whenever you’re ready, and be prepared for follow-ups – this could run a little longer than a day, and it’s too ‘current’ to wait a week for the next installment, you know?
Blah, blah – just my thoughts – <warning – I’m usually out in left field>
well, i need you too. was very traumatic. makes me feel dirty too. its like seeing the real deal. no wonder we left.. anyway.. the idea is to address the trauma while keeping it light and laughing.. laughter is a way to heal you know. and a way to disrespect the opposition.. i havent collected snark links yet. but believe me the field is rich…we have the cartoon thats seriously funny. what about kos naked by the dell? should we go there?
I’d say no holds barred – but only if it pushes the process along, you know? It’ll be important to keep the end in sight, and keeps things moving towards the happy ending – ‘hey, but in closing – we’re all here now and it’s a better place to be’ – kind of resolution. This whole thing has been like quick sand – fighting and struggling deeper into a bottomless pit.
yeah..screw his process though.. whats important is ours. and that means walking foward and growing.. leaving him to his illness….
When all the cards are down
there’s nothing left to see
There’s just the pavement left
and broken dreams
In the end there’s still that song
comes crying like the wind
down every lonely street
that’s ever been
“Stella Blue”
Words by Robert Hunter; music by Jerry Garcia
Copyright Ice Nine Publishing;
you know? im in one of those wistful happy moods.. shouldn’t we go sleep? i don’t even dare smile.. and yet?
linday beyerstein might be the most intelligent woman on the internet. i can’t even comment at her blog, im so intimidated.. know what i mean?
I’ve just always quietly read, appreciated and moved on a little bit more humble… she amazing…
😉
and you know something? she’s the promise.. imagine what they’ll be like in 100 years?
assuming the handmaid’s tale doesn’t come to pass? Gender wars – It’s one of those things that always makes me think of an eternal struggle of the gods – hinduism style – never-fucking ending cosmic struggle.
Ouch – that hurt my own head to think about – sorry ’bout that.
::::smile::: tonight you finished me off! haha.. goodnight ms zander, see you in the bar soon!
It was my turn to lock up, I think….
i havent even scratched the surface either. i see echidne isnt even listed yet, how did i miss her?… such a rich field this male sexism…
i feel like pearl buck. and this is the good earth! WOOWOO> anyone gotta plow?
no kidding – pie war material alone has volume beyond any attempts at quantifying.
Did you ever waken to the sound
Of street cats makin’ love
And guess from their cries
You were listenin’ to a fight?
Well, you know…
Hate’s just the last thing they’re thinkin’ of.
They’re only trying to make it through the night.
“Looks Like Rain”
Words by John Perry Barlow
Copyright Ice Nine Publishing
and also some interesting links.. doing a little library work.. on the PiE pOd group effort. i might have a line on the woman that started it all
in that case, you absolutely rock! I had a conversation with a friend one day along the lines of… so, what you been up to? <me> Well, I’m a little consumed with this, er, thing going on on-line. <them> Like what? <me> Um, well there’s this place, and … um, you had to be there. <them> Well, send me a link or something. <me> um, which of the 187,000 do you want? <them> Huh?
I really don’t know. I do admit that at times, if I get into a metacognitive mode, I think it’s perhaps a little bit ridiculous that I get such a rush out of it.
not ridiculous, but worthy of some self-excavating. You’ve stated that you’d like to avoid “the explosive hostility” and engage only willing tough debaters, but in the midst of it – you don’t distinguish because of the rush.
Agree to disagree, then move on. This is what will most likely happen, with ‘real life’ friends, and on message boards like BT where being polite and tolerant are vigorously promoted.
For myself, when I hear people who support the war in Iraq, especially those who know it was illegal, based on lies, and a failure to boot, I hear people I can not trust.
If you can accept what is being done in Iraq, and the way it is being done, then what else might you accept or support?
What manner of evil will be considered acceptable, so long as your goals may be achieved?
In the end, then, while some few supporters of the Iraq war may in fact be participating in all manner of progressive causes, their ability to analyze or judge any given subject is compromised. As an analogy…the neighbor who can be trusted to watch your house while you are on vacation, you know, to call the police if a van backs up to the front door…but can not be trusted with the keys themselves.
So, knock yourself out posting diaries and comments, chase the ‘rush’ of online argument, but, and I speak only for myself, those comments go unread, and the diaries almost always ignored.