I don't seem to be getting all the mail. I have seen replies to mail I haven't seen. Maybe I am not paying attention, but I also haven't noticeed a fight going on. I did see a post from one erpson making a rather aver the top rude remark to another and a post from someone else defedning the right to be rude. That was all I saw. The decision to leave or stay on the list is purely a personal one and cannot be blamed on anyone else. We all have personal responsibilty with regard to how we react to any given post. I have just seen a post, the smae points having been made before, about people either leaving or lurking due to others behaviour and putting the blame on those writers. This is bull and passive agression at it's best! We are all humans and as such will have differing points of view. If you choose to display an unpopular opinion or belief system, then you ought at least to have the courage to stick by them and whine that people disagree with you and make you feel uncomfortable. Maybe you should be feeling uncomfortable and just maybe you need to re evaluate your beliefs instead of piuosly feeling a martyr to them. ( i should add here that this post has nothing to do with Kakki. My experience of Kakki has always been positive.) I left the list for a month or so almost a year ago during the Colin is A Fascist thread. Not because i was hurt but because whilst at first I was amused as it was so absurd, I just knew I would lose my cool eventually. So i opted out till it blew over. It did. I haven't seent he like of those attacks before or since. I also haven't seen anyone defending it or excusing it apart from one person who whines about not being able to feel free yet she excused this attack. This community is a very good one. Friendships have blossomed, generally the list traffic is interesting, amusing, thought provoking, eye openoing and sometimes rough sailing. For quite a while the rough sailing has not been anywhere near as bad as it has been in the past. We used to have some real humdingers! Soemtimes, whatever is going on in our personal lives can make us sensitive to what is going on on the list, and our reactions are different to what they might otherwise be if our life was different and that particular time. ui know if I am feeling down or stressed, I am more likely to react negatively to a post. However, that is down to me not the poster unless of course the poster has been downright offensive. It has been suggested that people of particular relgious persuasions or politcal beliefs don't feel safe here. OI can't speak for the political beluiefs as my only beef with differing political beliefs is when the opposer is rude. As for religious beliefs that is a whole different ballgame. Maybe the people who beef that reactions to their fundamentalist views upset them, should consider how their views impinge on others. It is a two way street. To me fundametalism has nothing to do with religion but to do with politics and intolerance. The views of fundamentalists are offenisve to many just as the KK K are offensive to others or racsim etc.I don't think it is realistic to expect to hold such views and for people to just smile sweetly. We all have responsibilty for our views. If those views make us unpopular, that is the price we pay for our thinking. Racism is not tolerated on this list. Homophobia is yet many of homosexuals are still here. The list is what we make it. If we choose to partcipate in it, we also choose to put oursleves in the position of possibly having our treasured ideas trashed or our feelings hurt. This can happen even if the intetnion was not there. It is all part of life. Either we live life and let our light shine or we hide from it and bleet about how awful people are. yes people can be dreadful, but they can also be wonderful. Conecentrate on that, on the wonderfullness. As I have said countless times, abusive posts are not acceptable or welcome but we cannot controil the way another chooses to express themselves. We can control how we react to them. We can decide not to let thier darkeness overwhlem us and continue to enjoy this wonderful place, or we can decide to let them dictate our lives. For that is what we are doing when we let others decide our moods or reactions. We are giving away our power. We are deciding that another person has the power to make us happy or sad, that another person runs our lives. We need not do that. We have the power of choice. We choose our beliefs and our thoughts thus we choose how e exoerience life. If our life is not as we would wish we need to change our beliefs about it. bw colin -- bw colin [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.geocities.com/tantra_apso/index.html
