Civility: Treat other members with respect. Under-the-radar Trolls? Let THEM convince members otherwise before they rack up their postcount. Otherwise, "Whack 'em and Stack 'em" in a humorous way before we put them out of their misery. We will not tolerate any racism, sexism, or anti-Semitism towards Jews or Arabs. We will also not tolerate being dictated to about how certain people feel those terms should be defined. We are a progressive community defining those terms according to our standards because we understand very well that he who controls the language controls the discourse so we're taking the language back. If you don't like that, please do not bother to register to convince us we're wrong. We're not interested in slowing down our progress to get tangled in a spider-web of definitions. 

On a special note, there is a perception that the pro-Palestinian Left is anti-Semitic. The perception is (largely) false but it's not merely the result of an extended smear campaign; it's not merely an expression of anyone's malfeasance. There are reasons for this perception, and in order to seriously combat it, we need to do more than simply mention it all the time, and unthinkingly and indiscriminately condemn our ideological opponents for it. (This, in fact, is exactly the trap into which the proponents of the "New Anti-Semitism" have fallen, with unfortunate consequences for the reliability of the accusation even when accurate.)  Unjustly smearing Israel for crimes it did not commit is not only wrong, but leads to dangerously naive thinking about our own system - that if only we oust the Mossad/AIPAC/etc. everything will be peachy keen again. 

Important note concerning other boards: This web-site was not set up to bash other discussion boards.  Be aware that if we feel your main purpose here is to gripe, we'll take a very dim view of your not-so-positive contributions to our community because it's frankly boring.   If you have any bitterness, purge your feelings over there and don't register until you're ready to MOVE FORWARD!  If you have a constructive and useful point to make about complicit manouverings on certain forums, websites, TV shows, newspapers, please limit those discussions to the "Complicity Watch" forum.  Make sure you note the rules of that forum before posting.

Do not hijack threads or pursue tangents: We expect, and hope, that political discussions will lead in countless directions; however, please avoid sidetracking the topic of a thread. If you feel the need to 'take over' someone else's thread, please begin a new thread.