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[JRV]

I agree with RnR; there's no reason to restrict the board to prog. People argue about the war in every other public place, why not here, too? Public debate, no matter how maligned lately, is about as "American" as it gets.

And besides, the music we're here for, while it is generally post-Vietnam, certainly grew out of Vietnam-era protest music. Music is not some delicate, pristine thing that must be protected from the harsh realities of the real world. Current events is part of what makes music what it is. In fact, if this war dragged on for years, I suspect we'd see protest rock return, along with a lot more protest in general. And we may yet, as the regime change & rebuilding phase is certainly not going to be accomplished without more bloodshed, and in my opinion, will run much longer than the 6 months the Bush administration says it will.

The hand-wringing posts insisting that we stop discussing this or somehow risk "damaging" AM seem really odd. By this time, everyone knows what they're going to see when they view this section. If they don't want to see it, they don't need to click on it.

Give it a new section with a representative title, perhaps. Many other boards have a "miscellaneous" section. But there's really no reason to stop, and these issues need to be aired.

This is by far the most interesting discussion I've seen on this board in my few months of visiting it. Music is about emotion and emotions run high on this issue.