>So what about the critique of c-d-m - that it favors the articulate,
>voluble, and charming over the reticent? And that it gives men an
>edge over women, because men are more likely to talk?
I'm given to believe this critique would hold across Australian society as a whole (we men talk more, argue more competitively, and interrupt more often), but it has *never* held at any leftie gathering I have attended. So that aspect of cdm doesn't worry me, for one. I do think bulldog-stubborness is a trait too advantaged under cdm. Many's the time I've seen a whole room gradually pulled away from a strong majority position by the irresistable gravity of some dense lump of obsessive purism, hopeless idealism or naked self interest in the corner, which digs its heels in precisely at the moment the smokers among us would agree to anything that gets us outside.
Must get on to ol' Jurgen about that one ...
Either a smoking allowed sign or the vote! Rob.