So you don't believe communication has anything to do with politics?  or is it communicating with women in particular you believe should be confined to consciousness-raising and relationships?

I've had respectful conversations with many of the men in this thread, pointing out that they were missing the point, and they've respectfully accepted that.

You, on the other hand, are not communicating with me.  You've dismissed most of what I've written as not making sense to you.  You haven't accepted my explanations.  

You seem to be insisting I should debate what you want me to debate, and not the subject I'm addressing.  When this is pointed out, you criticize my topic, the way I wrote about it, and the examples I used to illustrate it.

Further, you've all but said the topic has no place on this blog for which, if you'll glance to that little box on the right side of your screen, you may have noted that I'm a writer.

You refuse to acknowledge any nuance, framing things in black and white and, astonishingly, manage to violate godwin's law (never thought THAT would come up in this one...), jump to conclusions, tell me what I believe, make assumptions about me and my views, label me in a derogatory fashion, and dismiss me as merely making noise.  

You've talked past and ignored damned near everything I've said, then accuse ME of using language not to communicate, implying bad motives since I'm doing it in a "perverse" way (albeit "my own," so thanks for the token nod to my style).  Do you mind if next time this topic of communication comes up, I use your comments as Exhibit A?

Oh, and any time you'd like to have a civil discussion about the topic at hand, I'm right here.  I really would like to hear your answer to my first question in this comment.

Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding. -Hobbes

And here I thought it was a debate club...

En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma

So you're saying a female academic needs to wait until she has tenure to go braless without fear of career suicide?

Is going braless to work just below having sex with a student in the severity ranking of faculty offences?

En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma

Huh. No, this is a "debate any subject you like" blog. You may have noticed that beyond politics, there are diaries about photography, economics, personal experiences, climate and the weather, transport, culture; and just about anything in open threads. At any rate, you'll find Izzy listed as one of the frontpagers, so you really should have thought twice before lecturing her about what the blog is about and what she can write about...

As for your argument in general, I am reminded of the two articles linked here.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

As far as I understand, this is a political blog, not a "raising of your consciousness" blog, or a "how to improve your relationship with your significant other" blog.

um, not exactly. if you stick around, you'll stretch the distance of your understanding. politics affects everything else, so is always present, but ET's power comes from the intersection of the political with the personal, mostly through discussions about energy and economics, shot through with all sorts of other things, and mostly how they all interconnect.

some of us believe it does have a 'consciouness-raising' effect to learn more in an amiable atmosphere, and as for significant other stuff, well it's not much for that, though a good diary on the subject may break the record for number of comments, seeing how universal the subject is!

there are much more focussed political (and relationship=orientated) blogs around, but ET has something else going for it (la grande melange?) that makes it unique. i hope you get it, and just skip the diaries that don't serve your needs. you certainly have a lot of interesting knowledge to share.

pure politics as an abstract doesn't really exist, insofar as it's the effect on us is where the rubber meets the road...

so we hash it out.

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty