Rhetoric and the art of Collaborative Discussion

[Sounder]

AD demanding relavance, what a hoot.

[American Dream]

Just wondering what specifically you are talking about, as to what does or does not violate our board guidelines here.

[Sounder]

You are a person that disdains conspiracy suppositions and you advocate for violence. That is what marks you as being 'unhealthy for this board'. The letter of your law doesn't mean shit to me. Your tactics show your insistent need to swamp out any chance for reasonable discussion as you continue to assert your 'right' to flood this board with emotional trigger material.

In short, you are an inherently abusive person, as are most idealists.

[American Dream]

Are you kidding me? A deep conspiracy orientation pervades my worldview, even as I am deeply critical of the toxic memes which are being floated into conspiracy cultures every day. By any measure, there are (institutionally-linked) conspiracies to turn us against ourselves, against our own stated goals and principles.

I am not particularly nationalist. I am anti-imperialist but China and Russia do not get a free pass in that. I'm not an absolute pacifist but I am certainly anti-War.

I'm noticing that you haven't cited any actually existing guidelines. Should we draw our own conclusions about that?

[Sounder]

It's about deeply held beliefs

If ones own words cannot be used to express those beliefs, they cannot be very deep, now can they?

You are living on a shallow imitation of righteousness AD, and it does not serve you well.

[American Dream]

I can draw only one conclusion from the fact that you clearly don't want to cite specific guidelines or alleged "violations": it's that you want the whole board to serve your snowflake agenda, accountability be damned.

[liminalOyster]

So here's the rub: Pro-Russian State/Syrian State type discourse definitely has a following around here.

I've always liked you as a person and tried to be respectful in engaging you about material on which we have different views.

But I'm almost personally offended by this post.

"Pro-Russian" material only has a following around here in so far as one accepts that a huge amount of broadly progressive material is (tactically) pro-Russian. And most of the posters who you've elsewhere categorized as "serial abusers" are, in my estimation, often talking about this very proposal in a manner that is critical and skeptical and entirely not participated in by you.

That is, frankly, the only reason I use this board - as a place to trace out what the fucking fuckety fuck has happened to make the new Red Dawn fantasy plausible to so many people I know and love. Clearly it's really no longer on the agenda here anymore.

I have to say that I don't think I've ever seen you post anything here that doesn't pretty much follow a rote paradigmatic strawman construction about "conspiracy culture" or "red/brown alliances" etc. I've noticed there is always a prefab bad guy in your material and that you never seem to want to discuss these articles and blog posts you share in any critical way. I mean, really, a great deal of what you call "pro-Russia" is people like myself who want to crtiically analyze how the argument is getting made in a given piece, as came up in an interchange between us on my Jackboot thread.

I cannot remember ever seeing a single explicitly pro-Russia piece. Maybe one or two? But in general, what you're really pointing to is material which *if and only if one accepts your hard ideological stance* can be interpreted as either 1) implicitly supporting an agenda shared with Assad/Putin or 2) reflecting biases which have been tragically programmed into your fellow RI posters by the contagious taint of foreign propaganda.

That taint being so all pervasive, what has protected you from its ideologically adversarial cousins?

Nevertheless, there are also those who are skeptical about it. Some here even believe that critique and counterpoint are valuable.

Is anyone here any of the following? 1) *Not* skeptical?, 2) Believing that "critique" and "counterpoint" are not "valuable?" No of course not. And I believe you know this.

It's an absolute funhouse perversion of consensus reality testing when two posters who account for > 5% of the historical material on a 15 yo board are claiming to be the underdog. When they (and more so SLAD than you on this) are also claiming to represent a minority view which just so happens to dovetail with the CFR et al, it's obscene.

Why not just call it like it is and admit you've got a strong view and you like to post shit and you don't like to talk about it? That'd be real. But this game is so cagey and so disrespectful to people who try to engage you, including people like myself who truly like you as a person. How exactly am I the one who falls into the Pro-Syrian state camp when, IIRC, you've tried to tell me that even Rojava/Ocalan is too suspicious for you? And

So my big question is this: Are those who advocate for such beliefs prepared to accept that there will also be disagreement, that alternative perspectives and critique will be posted too? Because then we've got a much better chance at getting along.

Who has complained about any of this? The complaint, to my eyes, is that you're not participating in discussion.

---

All that said, it's a shit-show all around. The remaining value of this board is that it still has a critical mass of folks who have read enough of the same background material to follow and understand each other. But with Elvis gone and no way to stay out of the frag other than keep my mouth shut about the constant nastiness, I am going to reprogram my own habits to get what I get here from somewhere else. I like you just fine AD and I wish you the best. Same for all around here in fact. Cheerio.

[Sounder]

Word, LO, cheerio and happy new year.
This place continues to be of interest, I have even recently been introduced to new understanding via Heaven Swan and from Jack and Elvis in the MMT thread. Despite headwinds, things always pop up.

AD wrote....

It's about deeply held beliefs

I can talk about my deeply held ideas all day long, (while trying to skip the belief thing). But I don't because it is bad tactics and gives people easy openings to call you crazy. (Social conformists always have the easy out of calling skeptics crazy.)

Fortunatelly imo, you are the one with bad tactics, irrregardless(sic) of the potential virtue of your poster boarding.

Regular folk are fine to me, it's the ones that insist that I live in a certain kind of box that respond less well too things I say. I assume, because they are closet fascists waiting for their time in the sun.

Anyway, it feels like I'm being a cat batting around a mouse, and that is not something I approve of, so therefor I am banned for a month. (Although I do reserve the right to write a little thing for the Questioning Consciousness thread.)

With Love and a Happy New Year to All, and may all receive fresh blessings from (the unnameable) source of being.

Oh yeah, almost forgot, screw this lounge guitar club stuff, I'm joining the Ukulele Army.

[American Dream]

lO,

I'm going to hold here to your content most relevant to the theme of " Rhetoric and the art of Collaborative Discussion". That which is most relevant to Russia/Syria/Ukraine themes is not the same and may serve to muddy the waters here. Maybe we can carry those other themes over to another thread.

So here's the rub: Pro-Russian State/Syrian State type discourse definitely has a following around here.

It's an absolute funhouse perversion of consensus reality testing when two posters who account for > 5% of the historical material on a 15 yo board are claiming to be the underdog. When they (and more so SLAD than you on this) are also claiming to represent a minority view which just so happens to dovetail with the CFR et al, it's obscene.

Why not just call it like it is and admit you've got a strong view and you like to post shit and you don't like to talk about it? That'd be real. But this game is so cagey and so disrespectful to people who try to engage you, including people like myself who truly like you as a person. How exactly am I the one who falls into the Pro-Syrian state camp when, IIRC, you've tried to tell me that even Rojava/Ocalan is too suspicious for you? And

So my big question is this: Are those who advocate for such beliefs prepared to accept that there will also be disagreement, that alternative perspectives and critique will be posted too? Because then we've got a much better chance at getting along.

Who has complained about any of this? The complaint, to my eyes, is that you're not participating in discussion.

My complaint, more than anything is about bullying and the drift in board moderation. I've not known you to participate in any of that and my beef is not with you personally. I have four people on my foes list because I find it impossible to engage in collaborative discussion with them. I did use the phrase "serial abusers" and I meant it, even though I grant that they are each individuals, each with their own unique style and history. Nevertheless, I find it impossible to have fruitful dialogue with them, and I'm not interested in trying any further.

I have every right to post material that is critical/questioning towards those sorts of "anti-Imperialisms", as do any and all members of this board. So also the right to decide when, if, how and how much to engage at all. Having board moderation that consistently and even-handedly pays attention to bullying behaviors will help this board and prevent it from veering towards any sort of intolerance or official ideology. That's a good thing.

As to whether you should be considered pro-Syrian State or liking that sort of material, I really have no idea, couldn't claim to be sure what you think. If I knew more clearly the intricacies of your thought, I might be able to say. Let's bring that over to another more directly relevant thread, along with the anti-Imperialisms, questions of propaganda and the State/Institutional Power, etc.

I won't engage with bullying from others but I will be happy to discuss things further with you as we maintain a fruitful and positive exchange.

[MacCruiskeen]

Oh ffs, AD. This is how you respond to liminalOyster? This is someone

- who says s/he knows and likes you personally in real life,

- who addresses you repeatedly with "respect and affection"

- who does her level best to engage with you and communicate with you rationally and calmly and at length.

And now even s/he has given up and pissed off in exasperation and anger.

STOP DOING THIS TO THIS DISCUSSION BOARD AND TO YOURSELF. No one is bullying you. That is a plain lie and a repeated lie and a dirty lie. You casually and routinely insult and alienate every honest person you address, including liminalOyster.

You owe Elvis, Jeff Wells, and this entire Discussion Board an unreserved and wholehearted apology. Do that, do the right thing, simply apologise and see what the response is; and then -- very serious suggestion -- do yourself and all of us a huge favour and take a month off this Discussion Board of your own free will. Talk to your friend liminalOyster offline, and think about why your only 2 allies on this board are Jerky and Peartread. What kind of a political alliance is that? What does it say about your "activism" that those 2 constitute all the "support" (spurious and opportunistic in any case) you have managed to raise after nearly 20,000 posts, hardly any of them your own? What does it say about your politics and your ethics and your actual effects?

Think about what it's doing to your brain, and your heart. Think about what that says about the persuasiveness of your incessant shitposting, your endless insinuations, your imperveability to argument, and the actual quality of your endless secondhand "thoughts".

While you're away, get some fresh air, meditate, take long baths by candlelight, talk to some oldskool 3-D humans (human-to-human), and break your goddam addiction to the Internet at long last, for your own sake and for everyone else's.

Then come back on February 1st and tell us all how you're feeling and what you're thinking then.

Happy New Year.

[PufPuf93]

Anti-neoliberal imperialism is not the same as being pro-Russian or pro-Putin.

There are far more neoliberal propogandists than Russian bots afoot.

[Agent Orange Cooper]

Will we ever get an answer as to why AD was unbanned and Elvis resigned?

[American Dream]

Anti-neoliberal imperialism is not the same as being pro-Russian or pro-Putin.

There are far more neoliberal propogandists than Russian bots afoot.

Well sure but I am talking about something beyond a narrow question of RT vs. the Washington Post or anything like that. Better for me to continue that discussion in a thread more relevant to those questions. Unfortunately, most of the best threads have been locked down, which is a topic more relevant to this thread.

[liminalOyster]

I appreciate the respectful response AD. Not sure it answers any of the questions I have, but I also really dislike antagonism so thanks for that at least.

[American Dream]

If you have specific questions related to collaborative discussion and whatnot, feel free to put them here. If they are more relevant to Russia/Syria/Ukraine issues, let's do that elsewhere.