Alpha males Cutting noses and spiteing faces

[MalignD at aol.com]

RJackson:  

<<What I like about the dynamics of cyberdiscussion at its best is that 
reading and interpretation become a truly collaborative process.  
Participants contribute new knowledge and insight, and act as a sounding  
board for same. There's time for reflection built in, which is something  you 
wouldn't get at a weekly seminar-style reading group. And, it's not so 
in-your-face. There's no pressure, no onus to contribute. When interest or 
insight wanes so the thread will peter out, or be
transformed. This venue's virtually ideal.

I certainly agree with this and most of the rest of what RJackson says 
regarding third parties taking it upon themselves to decide for others what's 
enough and what's going too far.  And this--

<<Doug, pointing out hypocritical BS when he sees it ...>>

--well:  no further comment called for.  However:

<<What I don't like is when some individual (or nation) sets him or her (or 
it) self up as autarch, dropping their scatterbombs and more insidious forms 
of rhetoric with pinpoint precision and then stepping back with all innocent 
bemusement and saying, "Oops, I had an old street directory. Sorry. Honest 
mistake." It's this whole thing of possession/ownership/might is right which 
is at the centre of capitalist democracy, and which extends to the cultural 
realm as well. The traditional critical lexicons are all wrapped up in the 
exclusivist mentality and demagoguery of the Western imperial regime in the 
way that they aspire to "possess" the one and true meaning of a cultural 
artefact. "Bow down now. We *must* read like this ... ">>

Well ...  Millison's and others' finger-wagging on the p-list is one thing; 
finding it an example of western imperial demagoguery (with allusions to 
Kosovo) makes you sound a raving loon.  

And one needn't be an American chauvinist to get a little tired of all this 
carping from down under.  Let the Aussies handle things next time.  Surf the 
Serbs to their knees.  Drink them to death.