[Dialogue] Re: Post Script

[jim rippey]

Karl:

I appreciate the comments you have made to me and on my behalf, particularly in your previous untitled posting. You've helped me make an important decision. However, since so much of the recent dialogue has been about the definition of key words, I want first to reiterate what my original June 28 posting said:

"Today's AlterNet has a fascinating analysis of how the President's "born again" status explains much. The title is "Keeping it Simple, Stupid," by Stephen Pizzo. The full story is at 

Below are my excerpts:"

Hey.... "Excerpts" are quotations. The excerpts I listed were direct quotes from the article and were, I believe, reasonably representative. I hoped that at least a few people would be intrigued enough by the excerpts to read the full article and comment on it. I fully expected that various people might criticize parts or even all of the article. 

Within an hour and a half, you replied by writing: "jim rippey wrote: For those of the evangelical bent, there is always only one true way." 


Then you went on to say, "I suppose if you are far enough out on one ideology, everything 
toward the middle look extreme the other way."

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OK: If you had said, "My quarrel with the article is thus and so...." I might have disagreed, but I'd have had no complaint." But what you are now saying, instead, is: "It just occurred to me to remind you that if you had omitted that gratuitous slap at evangelicals this wouldn't have happened, at least not from me." (I wonder if you, or anyone, bothered to read the whole article.)

Then you went on to say to me: "Hopefully you are willing to work with people 
whose metaphysics was not unhinged by Descartes. Talking like that 
will probably prevent those folks from taking you seriously.".


FOR THE RECORD, Karl, I have been a regular Hospice volunteer the past six or seven years. Throughout that period, I have fed, been a companion to and tried to comfort people in various stages of dying. I've experienced friendships I will always treasure.  And I've mourned their deaths. Many of them have been of different religious faiths than my own and I have always felt it was vital that I support them in whatever their faith was.

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Now back to June 28: that same day, 10 hours later, I did post this "Clarification":

"In an effort to be sure there is no misunderstanding: 

When I say, "Below are my excerpts," I am not paraphrasing or summarizing. I am lifting direct quotations from the article, sections that quickly capture what for me were some of the most dramatic parts of the article. I hope these help colleagues decide whether or not to go to the full article. Of course, another reader might well excerpt different portions that were more meaningful to them. "

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It was a fruitless effort. From then on, many of the subsequent postings quoted "jim rippey wrote..." 

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OK.... Enough of the past.. I very much appreciated your untitled posting to me yesterday. (I will write more to you personally.) Your yesterday posting has enabled me to resolve my relationship with Dialogue. Your statement, "Frankly the Dialogue seems more interested in metaphysical speculation than actual political work" rang true. 

I probably don't belong on Dialogue. I do very much admire the good work OE/ICA has done and is still doing all over the world. But, apparently there are aspects of the RS1 etc. philosophy that I don't share. 

But every now and then, I find something on Dialogue that truly nourishes me. So I have decided I will continue to monitor Dialogue, as long as allowed to. But I will no longer post my own writings or comments in any detail. If someone posts something of interest, I will try to reply directly to them, not to the whole group. And if I write something I think might be of interest, I will perhaps post a title and a word of two of explanation along with my email address. If anyone is interested, I'll forward them a copy.

Thanks again, Karl, for helping me sort this out.

Jim Rippey in Bellevue, NE.