I personally don't mind the odd bit of warchat - I don't natter anymore, and I find it interesting. But if this is gonna become All War, All The Time;- not so good. I like that it's the de facto internationalist thread - for talking about everything from attitudes to EU expansion to the different knicker preferences of the world. That's fascinating.

I don't think you need a conspiracy, BTW - I think it's fairly obvious that the top Ba'ath echelon set up the defences as a diversion then ran like hell. Which is what I'd do. And the rank and file, when they realised the bosses had scarpered, decided not to die for a vanished regime. Again, sensibly. The only hold-outs, then, were the hardcore militias and the Islamist outsiders - who knew they'd be, respectively, hung from lampposts and sent to Guantanamo if they were taken alive, so they had nothing to lose.

No it's cool it's y'all's playground, not mine. I'm not sure why it gets brought up here.

I'm still up because my husband's a bartender, so I keep those hours. I'm going to bed soon.

I'm savoring our spring. Warm during the day and nice and cool at night is perfect for me. I love warm weather. I actually love hot waether, but I really like sleeping when there's still a slight chill.

I'm not sure why it gets brought up here.

I just worry that it's a fine line between unAmerican and anti-American.

I'm cool with being the former. The later? Not so much.

Ok to bed now.

I understand what you're saying Julie. It is kind of an assumption some might make that being unAmerican automatically means against the war or American policy. I'm glad to say that I don't think I've seen anti-American sentiment anywhere on this board.

Really, goodnight now. I've got a sleepy Mr. Heather to tend to.

I have to point out, that being anti this war (I am) and anti current US Policy (completely) is utterly distinct from being anti-American. The fact that there are strong historical currents of anti-American feeling in parts of the European left doesn't mean that that's where the concern, anger and shock about the way the US Government has been acting recently comes from. I am, culturally, more American than European in many ways, I have an instictive sympathy with US culture, and with the way US society is set up in many ways - I'm a great believer that we should adopt an US-style constitution, for example - which is why I'm so horrified by the way your government has and is continued to act. If the rest of the "free world" seems to be attacking the US, it's because, all our lives, we've seen the constitution, the bill of rights, all that Enlightenment stuff, as the real moral strength of the USA. So when you see things like the US refusing Geneva Convention rights in Guantanamo Bay, riding roughshod over International structures it helped to put in place, and getting involved in horribly ambitious and complex imperial adventurism in the Middle East, you get angry. We expect more of the USA.

Hi guys, I was going to chip in a bit about this becoming a defacto war/politics thread when Angus asked the other day but a) Caroma answered him and b) the conversation meandered off onto sustainable energy/alternative lifestyles etc. (as Buffista threads are wont to do, grin)

Fiona, I sympathise and empathise with anyone who is feeling somewhat jaded with all the war stuff surrounding them from all directions every day. I guess I'm tending to treat much of the war related discussion in this thread as a way of approaching some other stuff which the war/antiwar positions tend to expose.

To be blunt about the situation in this thread, Caroma threw a few comments into the mix that seemed designed to elicit the exact same 'groupthink' 'left-wing' reactions that she often received and then reacted to, both here and in other threads. Most times the only reason that I didn't respond to her in that way was because a) someone else already had and b) the issues that she was flippantly/antagonistically raising were, in my opinion, some of the most important issues of our time. Just because they are thrown into the discussion in the hope of stirring up a reaction doesn't mean that they don't warrant examination. I guess what I'm saying is that rather than responding flippantly I chose to take her seriously and to answer in that vein.

Now, what I thought would be a fairly short-lived exchange between Caroma and myself (mainly 'cos I thought people would be bored, and/or would think I was being overly academic/theoretical/patronising or whatever) developed as others joined in. At that stage it started to become apparent, in fact stated by Fay and one or two others, that many of the unamerican joiners-in were people who did not necessarily regularly participate in natter/bitches where these sorts of subjects that are not really related to show stuff were usually raised/touched on etc. And on top of that there was the very real prospect of any serious replies/discussion getting lost in the hundreds of posts generated every day in those two threads.

Personally, I was interested in the input of such people as Fay, Just Jim :-), and his evil jimi counterpart, Noumenon, people who are not regular natter posters, and really isn't this just another way of getting to know others in the community, others who aren't as comfortable sharing personal details or who don't have kids, don't wear corsets, aren't professors of grammar and spelling, don't know physics from physical, krav from karate, be-bop from Beethoven, or James Cagney from James Stewart.

Dragging this over from Sartre because this is sorta what I'm getting at (with apologies for Wolfram for dragging him around)

I want to see you in another thread. I want to know how you feel about the fact that your wife will be having a little wolfie in June, and whether or not you're prepared to name him Buffistino Monkeypants Wolfram. I want to know if you like practicing law and what kind you practice and whether or not you give change to bums on the street. I want to get to know you outside of preferential voting or revisiting old issues.

As Julie so eloquently stated,

And partly that's because people here are aware that every bit of black text they put up on the screen, and every time they press post message, they are telling the community something about themselves. Most people want that to be a positive message.

One of the traditional reasons for not discussing politics is that it tends to get personal. Well exactly. So the people who have been participating in some of the amazing discussions that have been transpiring in this thread over the last few weeks are sharing some of themselves with the Buffistas and as long as it continues in such a polite, friendly, educational, thought-provoking, and whimsical (note chocolate bar/train station interludes) way I think it is a good thing, however, if other Buffistas don't agree then that's fine too. I was one of those who, mostly silently I'll grant you, was rooting for a politics thread but came to wholeheartedly agree that it really made for better community conversation to just have it in natter/bitches or wherever. IIRC someone a few weeks ago commented that it seemed to be working to have some war/politics stuff being discussed in here and some bits migrating back and forward between here and natter and at that stage I noticed that some of the Buffistas-most-likely-to-post-war stuff in other threads seemed to also be participating over here, or at least were expressing their interest in the discussion that was taking place. From this I assumed that it was all OK. I am sorry if that was a bit presumptious but I hope I've explained well enough that any appearance of having hijacked/kidnapped the unamerican thread for nefarious Un-American propaganda purposes was accidental rather than deliberate. t kicking the cut-out magazine letters and words, the glue-pot, and the scissors under the desk

And I really do understand Fiona, in fact I went quiet the last couple of days because a) I thought people were probably a bit sick of my socio-political wafflings and b) the problem poster sorta reminded me that Buffy, Angel & co are behind the board, not other stuff.

Nou, I've had a busy couple of days and am a little behind with media analysis but I'm on it and if I find anything I'll let you know.

Oh dear. I seem to have started something here way beyond my original query.

I thought people were probably a bit sick of my socio-political wafflings....

I am certainly never sick of reading your posts, moonlit. On the contrary, they're of great interest. And I didn't want to imply that I felt that way about I anyone's views, on this topic or any other. It was just the topic itself, but that was just my feeling this morning and is perhaps related to my rather groggy state.

I agree with Jim that I like the perspectives offered here, and skim here much less than I do in Natter. So yes, perhaps internationalist thread is the right definition. Maybe we should change the blurb accordingly (can anyone actually remember the last time we actually discussed an episode of B or A?).

moonlit, I certainly don't want you to feel that you can't talk about this here.

I had a different post, earlier, in reaction to Fiona. But when Noumenon explained that he was looking for your opinion (which, I'm now confused about, unless he edited that part of his post) I was fine with that. It was appropriate to bring that article and question to our fine foreign parts.

It was the de fact in Fiona's statement that rang my bells. Because that was exactly how I initially thought of it.

And there's two things there, I think.

One, when the subject of a war thread was raised (and raised and raised :) people consistently said that they thought natter was the best place, because of the perspective it accorded the discussion, and the range of people that would participate. I think they are valid points. If one of the objectives of not allowing a thread was to stop it being squirrelled away, out of sight, then it is being lost to the general community by being here.

That said, at times, it's been great to see a range of non-UnAmericans (ha!) in here. And the discussion on the subject of this war has ranged, as you know, from conversational to intense, and hit just about every point inbetween. I'm amazed at people's perspectives, and concerns and the depth of their understanding and knowledge on such a range of aspects that influence international relations and interactions. And I'm impressed at their ability to express that. On the most part they are objective and instructional posts that offer counter opinons without making anyone feel attacked. That's the nature of good debate.

However, and secondly, I can also see a tendancy for people to think that this is where the objections to the war live. And this is where the questioning of American policy happens. And I think that it would be unfair to lump the UnAmerican thread with that label. Both because I see that happen as appropriate in natter (USian Buffistas are great at both defending and questioning their own government as warranted), and because that's certainly not why the UnAmerican thread was created.

Fiona, you didn't start anything so much as just voice what had been hinted at at least once or twice by others and was already on my mind. Early on I was a bit concerned about the 'un' in the unamerican especially when I was extrapolating some of the 'anti-US' sentiment but IIRC a joke or two was made and no-one seemed to seriously think that any of this was really sLagging off against americans.

As an unamerican I felt that this was probably the best thread to discuss this stuff in because it was the one that most of the other unamericans seemed to keep us with and I figured that one of them, or one of the americans for that matter, would correct me fairly quickly if I made an incorrect statement or generalisation. I mean I'm only one Australian and I'm sure that even amongst the Aussies here there is a lot of discrepancy in the way we see/experience our own socio-political lives and I figured that here was as good a place as any to make sure that all the other unamericans and the americans could jump on me if I was out of line.

Also, as I mentioned earlier in this thread, the sort of issues that arise with war/peace and anti-US sentiment discussions are the sort that can be mis-read or mis-interpreted very easily, and as such, if dropped into natter/bitches 24-48 hours after the original discussion (when any humorous intonation in particular) can often be taken as offensive when they were never meant to be.

Julie, how is your procrastination posting exam writing going? :-)

Edited to make sure Julie knows I'm stirring not having a go :-)

erm.. to sum up, I'm fine with war discussion happening here. I'm less comfortable with an assumption that this is the place to bring war talk.

If that makes any sense :)

edited to add...

damn you, wee moonlit, you weren't supposed to ask about those. It harshes the whole "lalala exams what exams?" mellow I have going on.

Actually, thanks for reminderembering :) I'm a bit behind schedule but I was having trouble getting into it, and then I got anxious about the having trouble. But today was actually productive. And whilst there's not a lot of time left - they are due Easter Monday, if you can believe that - I'm on track now, and it'll be okay. I mean, it has to be, right? That's the way it (and I, I guess) work.