Only Edition

From: "Harry Coverston" <frharry ... >
To: <LiberalsLikeChrist@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: RE: [LiberalsLikeChrist] Where \
  are you from, Tim?  Wonderland?
Date: Mon, 12 May 2003 23:53:58 -0400

Tonight I opened my mail to 130 messages, the bulk of them from LLC. Ordinarily I would rejoice at this kind of flurried conversation. But after the first several flaming posts, I found myself scanning previews and deleting liberally.
(continued>)

I have never liked people trying to tell others on a list what they ought to write about. There's just a bit too much consumerism and selfishness in such demands and I think it misses the point of discussion lists. So, I make no suggestions about your behaviors here.

But what I am going to say is that I don't plan to participate in any more of the discussion that has arisen with our new arrivals. I see absolutely nothing to convince me that our new members came in good faith, seeking to discuss the issues our list creator has designated for this list. Hence they are here under false pretenses.

One of the tactics of the right is to seek to shut down forums by any means necessary. That includes bombarding lists with mindless, ad hominem posts to swell the mailboxes to overflowing, shutting down discourse and thus dominating the forum. I see that happening here.

For my own part, I simply refuse to participate in this process. I have a middle school nephew whom I love dearly but who labors under the impression he knows all he needs to know about politics, most of it absorbed uncritically from his Dad, the FOX network and Rush Limbaugh listener. When he begins on one of his little diatribes, I simply sit silently and smile. If he asks me what I think, I respond, "Oh, Joe, I dunno." Sooner or later he stops the nonsense and then we can talk about something he actually knows about - like his classes or his junior orchestra or the scout troop campout.

I do not see our new folks as interested in discussion of the topics for which our list was designed to provide a forum. I do see them, like my nephew, trying to get a rise out of folks and thus far meeting with fair success. I am guessing that if they don't get the pleasure of this response, they'll get bored with it fairly quickly and either leave or attempt to engage folks on a more intelligent and civil basis.

So, I will scan the preview, deleting liberally but I refuse to further their project of shutting down this forum in any way. That means simply ignoring the vast majority of what is being posted and not adding to the spam.

I value this list and its members. I was moved that Ray reminded me that Lent was over and it was time for me to return. That says a lot about him and the list he has worked so hard to create. The last thing I would do in response to this essential spamming is to contribute to behaviors which would destroy his hard work. For those of you who resonate with what I am saying here, I invite you to do the same. If nothing else, perhaps it will cut down on the overflowing volume of mail. Hopefully, our sanity will be restored here soon, but until then I'll be here but waiting until there is a serious conversation to engage.

Harry Coverston,

Orlando