The usual gnashing of left-oriented molars and the subsequent dental damning has visited the site today 12 March 2014, and as usual the RW meme of "healthy debate" as though forensic debate formats really suited online discourse. Debate seems to me bridge-dweller bait and HRs the water hose you open up on the animals fornicating on your lawn. In a hypertext environment orality and discursiveness come together only in multi-dimensional or multiple-threaded discourses which do not resemble anything having to do with pies.
Resolved the film about high school debate competitions and an alternative to the hegemonic form based on Paolo Friere is worth your time, if only because it signifies the difference between blogger "debates" as two-dimensional duels and what DK could/should become in terms of community consensus building and action.
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To me DK seems is about community (of interpretation) building and community consensus, of which there not nearly as much as necessary and OTOH there's the usual pie bullying of which many are brought on by amateur and professional opposition elements that do not agree with the notion of electorally "more and better Democrats".
Online debates are not binary exchanges, nor are they really dialogical, they have many perspectives and voices, where the thread of the conversation slips among many possible tangents