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CIRCULAR_FIRING_SQUAD

                                 September 11, 2007
                                 October    3, 2007

It's apparently an old joke
that left-wing firing                For example, "Dave Foreman" of
squads form in a circle.             Greenpeace referred to this
                                     as an old one back in 1989.
I did some web searches on
"circular firing squad":                    RADICAL_FREEZE
it's a pretty common
political pundit phrase.
It's trotted out whenever
someone wants to discuss                CIRCULAR_FILE
any sort of infighting.

 It's commonly associated with the
 left/liberal/democrat/progressives,           CONTRARIAN_WARS
 as people always remark whenever
 they observe infighting on the
 right.


I looked in vain for any insight into
what the phenomena is really about.

There's a general understanding
that divisive infighting is bad,
but also an understanding that        Rehashes of "It's all Nader's fault!"
"internal" criticism is necessary     are common, along with the defense
                                      that's it's useful to try to move
                                      the center by being more "radical".

                                                       MOVING_TARGET

There are often assertions that
there must be a more polite way to
handle "internal" dissent (address        Pragmatically, of course,
the speech not speaker, etc).             you probably should at
                                          least make a pretense of
                                          politeness.

                                             (This must be a good idea,
                                             because I never do it.)




                Department of Obvious Irony:

                Attacking someone on your
                side for in-fighting is also
                engaging in in-fighting.



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