How should the DPF commemorate our one-year anniversary?

[Magda Hassan]

Thanks Peter. We're so pleased that you and the other forum alumni and refugees have been a big part of it too. It's been hard work but very satisfying.

[Peter Lemkin]

Thanks Peter. We're so pleased that you and the other forum alumni and refugees have been a big part of it too. It's been hard work but very satisfying.

By the amount of amazing material you find and post, I wonder how you find time to go to have a life! I assume the PTB have taken the precaution to have a back-up and maybe even a back-up of the back-up. Having just had a complete computer crash here, and knowing how 'progressive' sites are subject to attacks [the Delarosa Forum had its entire early threads 'purged' by an outside attack] - just take care. It is too precious to loose.

[Magda Hassan]

Absolutely! We'll sic the Mighty Myra on to them. And we do back ups.

[David Guyatt]

Bravo! and Brava! especially to Magda and Myra -- for all their hard work and diligence and, well, just important stuff...

[Myra Bronstein]

Bravo! and Brava! especially to Magda and Myra -- for all their hard work and diligence and, well, just important stuff...

Thanks David. For your nice comment and ...important stuff.

[Myra Bronstein]

Well, Congratulations to all who have worked to create and maintain this great and growing site!. It is one of the few oases on the internet where one can find and discuss some intelligent, sane analyses of important political/social/environmental/other issues without being attacked by the 'Borg' - with nice touches of black humor sometimes thrown in [in order to maintain our sanity]. Bravo and Brava! May it grow and flower in the future. :dancing:

Thanks Peter!

[Ed Jewett]

[Peter Presland]

Just to add my two-penny-worth by echoing the congratulations and thanks to the forum founders for what is developing into an amazing reference archive. :birthday: :congrats:

I am hardly an "Alumni", but the term "refugee" - used somewhere above - is quite apt. There are many good alternative news sites around but most all are contaminated to some extent by "official narrative" influence so finding this forum has been a breath of fresh air for me.

I have found it refreshing to be among people who, almost to a man (and woman) are rigorous in adopting a deeply sceptical approach to any and all "officialdom" in its manifold guises (and disguises).

My problem is that I simply cannot see this approach doing much to effect worthwhile and desperately needed change. The great mass of humanity is just so mired in its self-destructive myths and illusions. Power has always accrued to corrupt psychopathic personalities (and that pretty much by definition) in near direct proportion to psychopathy and corruption. Myths and illusions are manufactured and cultivated entirely as control techniques of the institutions of power. The only real difference (progress??) today is in the global projection capabilities of Real Power, both in terms of the unprecedented destructiveness of its weaponry and its surveillance capabilities. That together with parabolic population growth (parabolic everything growth actually - and we all know what happens to parabolic graphs), peak resource extraction rates and environmental degradation, all off which are approaching (if not already at) tipping points. IOW, I fear that "civilisation" as we have come to define it (at least in the West) really is headed for apocalyptic change of an order so far unprecedented in history and which will be extremely unpleasant for those who survive it. Not that it bothers me greatly - if at all actually - other than out of concern for my own children and grandchildren, who face a very different future than our "civilisation' urges them to aspire to.

The real benefit of a place like this (for me anyway), is in confirming that I am not entirely insane to think, to see and to interpret events the way I do.

Also, it helps fine-tune an already well developed ability to spot bull-shit artists with agendas

PS - All the above dotty opinions my very own of course - and sorry it turned into a bit of a rant but - when the muse strikes an' all that.

[David Guyatt]

Peter, I can barely find a word I disagree with in your foregoing post.

I think I would only add that keeping a record of events and appending to them alternative explanations/back stories than those given to us by officialdom is a well worth service - but I'm sure you agree with this anyway.

The other thing is that having opened Pandora's Box as we as a species have undoubtedly done, we have indeed released a great destructive whirlwind. But the last thing to be released by Pandora was hope.

I suppose we must al be fortified by that and do what we can to keep the flame of truth and honesty alive as best we can.

[Peter Presland]

I suppose we must al be fortified by that and do what we can to keep the flame of truth and honesty alive as best we can.

David. Yep; 'hope springs eternal' as they say. Seems to me our species is endowed with a profound NEED to 'Always look on the bright side of life' no matter how hopeless the circumstances - aka the ending of Monty Python's 'Life of Brian' (with apologies to anyone of sensitive Christian beliefs who may be offended by that linked clip which I believe it is still banned in parts of the US).

I didn't mean to sound despondent. I do in fact rather enjoy life in my dotage but I remain consistently amazed at the credulity of most of my peers who seem to think that a change of government has real significance and potential. Most do claim deep scepticism and distrust of government but, almost in the same breath go on to trot out one or other or many of the hoary old shibboleths that governments depend on (and surreptitiously feed us all) to main control and promote their hidden agendas. Things like "The immigrants are taking 'our' jobs", "Deport all Muslim terrorist sympathisers", "The UK is desperately trying to do good in the world" etc etc etc ad nauseam. IOW they appear incapable of framing their existence and its problems outside the terms and conditions that their manipulators dictate, all the while remaining oblivious to being manipulated at all - "manipulated? ME??? - No Way. I'm much too smart for that" Ho Hum. Whistling past the graveyard I call it - but who the hell am I to criticise?

Anyway, next week I am spending an hour or so reciting AA Milne and Hillaire Belloc poetry to my grandson's primary school class of 5-6 year olds. I can still do the lot from memory after endless recitations to my own daughters when they were tiny and I get a real kick out of seeing youngsters chortle at grandpa's silly contortions. I like to think it imparts something useful but the thought of what the future holds for them still gnaws away at me.