As you will have surmised, I agree with Tim entirely on the matter of the unnecessary closure of an exciting theme. We may need to wait a long time to come across something equally invigorating.
I also want to reiterate what I had said earlier, that, I disagree profoundly with Mario re his position on Iraq but not on at least two other Goan related positions I know he holds and which I intend to pursue on Goanet soon. I would therefore defend him to the hilt to hear any, repeat any, of his points of view, albeit perhaps with a degree of presentational moderation, and non repetition, which I am sure that he himself would probably come to accept! Goanet, after all, does have an implicit educative function for all and should go well beyond the mindboggling repetitive reportage of items referred to by Tim. But making Goa and Goan political, social and cultural affairs, fairly central, become very important too and should not be marginalised or minimised.
Within the kind of debate as raised now, re the closure of one theme etc, healthy intellectual schisms take place periodically in any organisational setting. This can result in paradigmatic shifts and I think we have, in a small way, come close to one in this instance.
Cornel
>From: Mario GoveiaFar be it for me to defend Mario on his political views but on this e-mail I have to agree with him.Fred, We may just have to agree to disagree. However, your specific comments cry out for some rebuttals:
Most of the exchange of e-mails on the political stance of the US in Iraq, etc has been put forth by by some right wing leaning members. The have been well ariticulated and for the most part these discussions have been carried out in a civilized manner.
The counter arguments have been put forward by many of our members who are very well regarded by the general membership. They have articulated and presented well balanced counter arguments. This debate, as far as content goes, IMHO, surpasses many other discussions that have taken place on this forum.
These discussions have taken place between Goans who consider these arguments important. To take such arguments offline, as some of them did, deprives others of the discussion taking place.
I would also remind Fred that on Aug 11 2004 he said:
(ii) That "discourse" is idle. IMHO, sharing of information has a critical
role to play in the life of any society. Our goals, our action,
our plans, our future... all depends on our ideas and what we
know. Hence, while some people get impatient with discourse (and
what is dismissed as "mere talk"), this too has an important
role to play
There are many posts that keep popping up with fair regularity that I consider annoying and of little merit either to Goa or to the general membership. Consider, for example, the self promoting posts of Rene regarding Goa Day.
Is it the opinion of the GoaNet Admin team that as long as the post contains the word Goa in it, any such drivel is acceptable? The decision to stop the debate is nothing more than small minded thinking by the Admin Team. And ridiculous!
