A modest proposal

23 posts / 0 new

Mon, 2016-10-03 16:57

6079_Smith_W

A modest proposal

And no I don't claim to have Mr. Swift's brilliance, but I would like to invoke his sense of respect and subtlety. And his ability to slice someone's head of it's shoulder's so cleanly that it is left standing there.

You know what I miss most? Not that there are people who think the same way as I do, because frankly I can get that by locking myself in a closet.

But people who are willing to have an honest and respectful conversation about stuff, recognizing that most of our sources have slants and biases, and that we might be completely in opposition on certain issues, but still be able to hear one another out.

I'd say most of the people here have that respect a good deal of the time . Some more than others , and sometimes it has been tested by issues of great opposition. But it is really nice to be able to talk with someone, even someone who holds ideas I think are abhorrent, who doesn't automatically assume I am the devil, or brainwashed, or hasn't read the material or paid attention well enough (because if I did obviously I'd agree).

I could care less about the range of theories and ideas people put out there on this site. Even the fucking trolling. It is all fine, and I said so not that long ago

But when it comes down to accepting or rejecting information and opinions based on nothing more than where you think they are coming from you you are putting a knife in the heart of any real discussion.

I really hate that we have fallen so far into factionalism. I especially hate that I have recently given up on the respect we should have and just called it as I see it. Honestly? The next step is me giving up on this entirely. So I see no problem in putting how I really feel about this out there like this.

I care less about who is right or wrong than I do about seeing the whole house burn down. And if it is nothing but factions shouting at one another, with no concern for evidence or common decency then that is where we will be.

And there is a good reason why I am not putting this in banter.

Mon, 2016-10-03 17:06

Timebandit Timebandit's picture

Thanks for this, Smith.

I was thinking, earlier this morning, that maybe rabble should start asking people to either post under their real names, or to provide some sort of identifying information to the mods. Of course, I realize that the mods' time is limited and so don't think the latter is as achievable. But something's got to give, and I think the anonymity is not helpful in people keeping it civil. But something has to give, that much is clear. We're entering dumpster fire territory.

Mon, 2016-10-03 17:17

iyraste1313

The problem as I see it, is that this is supposed to be a progressive site......I'm sorry but Canadian/NATO imperialist adventures should not be tolerated...

to be charitable, perhaps it's a case of misinformation...but why are independent media such as veterans today and globalresearch ridiculed while the mainstream corporate media under the control of a handful of corporate oligarchs with their fingers dipped in the blood of the war industries and their banking elites considered legitimate?

I myself quote from Bloomberg a lot...because they must publish vital stats for their investment community...but the rest?

Mon, 2016-10-03 17:35

Timebandit Timebandit's picture

I rest my case.

Mon, 2016-10-03 17:57

NorthReport

Thanks Smith for starting this thread and to both you and Timebandit for your respective comments as they are addressing "the problem".

MegB has been doing a good job as moderator and my hunch is if you PM her she will do her best to accommodate reasonable requests

Challenging as they may be I am convinced there are constructive solutions around I thought about one possibility today and am awaiting feedback about it

Mon, 2016-10-03 17:58

6079_Smith_W

Yeah. If there is anything keeping me here, it is that what some want is for people of good will to get frustrated and leave.

Burning the house down, as it were.

And you can see that when they get called on stuff, and all of a sudden it goes from others being the ones who don't belong here to this whole place being an arm of the western imperialists, just because someone dares to tell them to have some respect.

Mon, 2016-10-03 18:10

ikosmos

6079_Smith_W wrote:
And no I don't claim to have Mr. Swift's brilliance, but I would like to invoke his sense of respect and subtlety. And his ability to slice someone's head of it's shoulder's so cleanly that it is left standing there.

When I'm tired of this place I take a break. I've done it many times. However, a call for respect and subtlety - from someone who's been policing threads for a very long time now - just comes off as insincere.

Far too many commentators here don't cite evidence, don't bother to back up their claims, etc. This is very different from when I joined rabble 15 years ago now. It was a larger community, with more laconic lurkers who were willing to intervene to substantiate and/or refute a point made. It made for good debate and newbies, like myself, had to string together an argument to be heard.

The community is much smaller and, therefore, the differences are magnified. And those good-hearted lurkers are long gone. I think the police state is our most "loyal" lurker now. No, I'm not kidding or possessed by a "conspiratorial" mentality.

Rabble IS troublemakers. That's how it should be.

Mon, 2016-10-03 18:11

6079_Smith_W

And for the record, this is not intended as a smear on the mods. It is a difficult job, and I am actually in favour of the hands-off approach.

But honestly, something has to give here with the personal attacks, the accusations that people don't belong here, and the refusal to ignore information when it is right in front of you simply because it is seen as coming from the other camp.

If that is the rule of the game then there is no point in any conversation at all, as far as I can see.

Mon, 2016-10-03 18:11

Mr. Magoo

Forty years ago: "The personal is the political!"

Today: "The political is the personal!"

Politics is no longer something to be civilly discussed, or rationally debated. Now it's all a matter of life or death, of pride or subservience, of oppression or resistance. And not just things that really are about life and death -- all of it.

It's why you'll watch ten attack ads for every one ad you see where a candidate says "here's what I think is good...".

It's why, eight years later, some Americans still resent Obama for not just showing them the birth certificate.

It's why women can't say "vagina" anymore, and why pneumonia is fatal now, and why we must "teach both theories" regardless of what those theories are. It's why something they said years ago comes back to haunt prospective candidates and party leaders alike. It's why women can't just like video games, and it's why two men marrying devalues marriage but a million couples divorcing over an affair doesn't. It's why a woman wearing a headscarf and a woman not wearing a shirt need our immediate attention. It's why vaccinations kill more children than they help and must be stopped.

It's why Trump supporters are all racist, low-rent losers, and Clinton supporters are corrupt wannabe oligarchs and Trudeau supporters all have a vapid crush on him and Conservative supporters want to repeal slavery laws and NDP supporters just want to tax the successful and give the money to addicts.

It's all just politics... now.

Mon, 2016-10-03 18:23

#10

6079_Smith_W

ikosmos wrote:

Rabble IS troublemakers. That's how it should be.

Nice try, but that doesn't quite jive with your recent response to the person who actually is responsible for keeping order in this place.

Or is Rabble "troublemakers" only when you are the one doing the troublemaking? And when someone calls you for being out of line then it is "a failure of the moderators".

Mon, 2016-10-03 18:31

#11

ikosmos

You're still policing Smith. Make your point and then leave it alone. eta: if it's got legs, then it will stand up by itself.

Mon, 2016-10-03 18:50

#12

lagatta

Timebandit, "real names" on the board would be very discriminatory towards those who have a precarious source of income.

The rabble folk all know who I am, I've known Judy for more decades than I'd like to admit to. There is a problem with people seeming to post out of nowhere.

I certainly support anti-imperialism, but some seem to read this as support to anything that purports to impose Western or US (please, not "Yanqui") imperialism. Even forces that are just as reactionary and anti-working-class.

Mon, 2016-10-03 19:14

#13

6079_Smith_W

Look ikosmos, the validity notwithstanding (and which I reserve the right to question), I actually don't have a problem with your posts so long as you're not acting like a jerk, and I told you so directly already.

Give it a rest. Or don't. It is your choice.

But I'd say there are one or two here who agree with me on the main point. I have no problem disagreeing with people. It is this adversarial crap, the demonizing, and throwing any consideration for the truth out the window that I just find tiring. And an impediment to any real discussion.

Mon, 2016-10-03 21:03

#14

jjuares

6079_Smith_W wrote:

Look ikosmos, the validity notwithstanding (and which I reserve the right to question), I actually don't have a problem with your posts so long as you're not acting like a jerk, and I told you so directly already.

Give it a rest. Or don't. It is your choice.

But I'd say there are one or two here who agree with me on the main point. I have no problem disagreeing with people. It is this adversarial crap, the demonizing, and throwing any consideration for the truth out the window that I just find tiring. And an impediment to any real discussion.

As for your second paragraph it stands as a pretty good description of the left in general today. This site is more or less a microcosm of a fractured left. And with that fracture comes an intolerance for various views.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WboggjN_G-4

Mon, 2016-10-03 23:59

#15

ikosmos

6079_Smith_W wrote:
I have no problem disagreeing with people. It is this adversarial crap, the demonizing, and throwing any consideration for the truth out the window that I just find tiring. And an impediment to any real discussion.

We have an MH-17 thread but you and your "reasonable" friends have decided that you want to clog up other threads with your adversarial crap. I might believe your pleas, except that you seem to be the worst culprit.

Sorry, this is just too duplicitious to ignore.

Regular trolling or specially approved trolling?

Tue, 2016-10-04 00:45

#16

Timebandit Timebandit's picture

Your use of babble as an outlet for your propaganda engine is a large part of the problem, ikosmos. There's no discussion with you, just a barrage of dubious links, insult and celebration over war crimes. Don't bitch at us about trolling, you're the worst of the bunch.

Tue, 2016-10-04 01:33

#17

ikosmos

Timebandit wrote:
Your use of babble as an outlet for your propaganda engine is a large part of the problem, ikosmos. There's no discussion with you, just a barrage of dubious links, insult and celebration over war crimes. Don't bitch at us about trolling, you're the worst of the bunch.

Explain to me then, why a thread devoted to all things cultural, etc. of interest in the Russian Federation should be chock a block with MH-17 partisan crap when we already have a thread specifically devoted to the latter topic?

Oh wait, I get it. I'm the troll, so all of this garbage is just fine.

That's your argument?

You big beast. What a powerful intellect.

Tue, 2016-10-04 02:05

#18

Timebandit Timebandit's picture

Threads cross, ikosmos. You yourself cross subjects in threads. You've started so many with closely aligned subjects that it's bound to happen. And yes, I think you're a troll - you fit the profile very tidily. I'm also ignoring the insult.

Tue, 2016-10-04 02:22

#19

6079_Smith_W

Don't be silly, ikosmos.

I actually was interested in why you brought up that other air disaster. You never did answer me.

And besides, if that thread was about "all things cultural" why did you start it off talking about Syria and comparing Aleppo to Stalingrad? This isn't about thread drift or even about strong disagreements.

More to my point, I just finished mentioning that Russia pulled out of the plutonium treaty (in your WW3 thread). And your reaction is not to have a rational conversation about it, but rather to set your hair on fire and yell at me about being on a bully pulpit.

You know, if you felt there was reason for them to do so (and surprise surprise, that info was in the story I posted) you could just have a conversation rather than going ballistic about it.

I did question whether people would take seriously an article from the NYT, and it seems I was right. But I didn't say a word of judgment about Putin's decision. In case you didn't notice why I brought it up it was because we were talking about the doomsday clock.

That is the kind of nonsense I am talking about. You don't like something and you are immediately in attack mode.

Tue, 2016-10-04 14:49

#20

kropotkin1951

Pots call kettle black. One of babbles truly awesome threads.

Tue, 2016-10-04 15:34

#21

6079_Smith_W

Know what k, I actually like talking with you, and issue for issue I'd say I agree with you far more than you might think I do.

I would love to have more pleasant conversations with you; I would even love to have more honest heated disagreements with you.

Anything would be better than the ping pong game we usually get in here, where it all comes down to being a stooge for someone else no matter what your opinion is. Or it being your political duty to personally attack anyone who disagrees with you - to tell them they haven't read things right; that thay are brainwashed, or that they don't belong here. Or pointing out that someone else is doing something worse like kicking dogs, and why aren't you talking about that instead as a distraction from the topic . Or simply ignoring rational argument and dismissing it as fancy footwork. Or pretend that it is all equal because after all nobody really knows anything.

Maybe some people get off on that but I find it really really fucking tiring. Especially considering that I DO have conversations elsewhere with people I strongly disagree with, and we manage to do so with a bit of mutual respect, and not try to dismiss each other as heretics.

Not to mention that much of what we discuss here is actually very serious issues, sometimes critically serious. And it deserves a lot better than the ego games we wind up playing.

I know everyone here is actually pretty intelligent, and I doubt this shit would be going on if we sat down face to face. So what is the need to for people to act like fucking jerks, especially considering what it is doing to the level of discussion.

If I wanted that I'd watchprofessional wrestling, because it is slightly more interesting than this.

Tue, 2016-10-04 21:31

#22

swallow

6079_Smith_W wrote:
Especially considering that I DO have conversations elsewhere with people I strongly disagree with, and we manage to do so with a bit of mutual respect, and not try to dismiss each other as heretics.

Where? That sounds like a good discussion board.

Tue, 2016-10-04 22:28

#23

6079_Smith_W

Facebook.

Also no end of trolls and boneheads there, of course. But I have been pretty lucky to have a few people I can have an intelligent conversation with, even though we might completely disagree. Or even in some cases if they piss me off or I don't like them very much.