Ron Rosenbaum fires the first Salvo

[Jan Klimkowski]

Jim - I apologise in advance if I end up disrupting your original thread about Rosenbaum.

Out of my utmost respect for our comrade Bill Kelly, I refrained from commenting on the merits of his endorsement of letter writing/petition signing initiatives.

And through it all, I might add, I have been privately, repeatedly, and at times almost violently vilified by otherwise bold and insightful comrades who want no part of my "fucking war."

And just what have I accomplished?

Please know that when I take to task the Dealey Plaza Irregulars for any number of failures to win battles, let alone the war, I count myself among the most culpable.

For whatever that may mean to you.

Back in 2008, Charles Drago, Dawn Meredith, David Guyatt, Magda Hassan and I created DPF.

We agreed on some rules, including majority voting of the founders before any significant decision - such as banning a member - could be taken. Those rules can be seen here, in slightly corrupted fashion caused by an act of treachery by our original sixth founder, now thankfully departed.

They include the following philosophical statement:

14. Our fundamental objective is for DPF to be an arena where research can be seriously discussed, and thoroughly refuted if appropriate, without name-calling or member abuse. It is acceptable to be robust and even dismissive of the arguments of other members, if analysis and evidence are provided. It is acceptable to state that a particular argument serves the agenda of the powerful, again if analysis and evidence are provided. However, since DPF is primarily intended as an arena where serious informed research can be developed and debated, it is not acceptable to describe another member as, for instance, an agent provocateur.

15. The deep politics forum is not an arena for the right and the left to bait each other. There are plenty of forums on the internet for keyboard warriors to call political opponents names, or to post crude propaganda.

DPF will close the membership of any poster whose rationale, as revealed through their posts, is to engage in crude political baiting, and who shows no understanding of, and no desire to learn, about deep politics.

This is, and will remain, the deep politics forum.

We, the founders, also agreed that none of us could individually claim to speak for DPF.

We each have different temperaments, different specialisms, different world views, different degrees of tolerance.

Where we need to speak as DPF, we insist upon a majority vote of the founders, and then agree a statement which is placed online by the fictional DPF member known as The Moderators.

An example of this can be seen in the original post of the following thread:
[URL="https://deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/showthread.php?10926-DPF-Bans-Professor-James-H.-Fetzer-The-Rationale"]
DPF Bans Professor James H. Fetzer: The Rationale[/URL]

Finally, we do not do DPF business, founder business, in public.

We leave rock stars to trash hotel rooms....

So, I will speak for myself, not for DPF.

I am not at war with the killers of JFK.

Or not solely so.

I am at war with Power and Hypocrisy, with the Grotesque, wherever it is manifested.

My war is with those who rape, torture, maim, impoverish, exploit and murder - whether by their own hand or by their orders.

I want DPF to be an arena for the exploration and development of deep political ideas, of insights, of hunches. Where a hypothesis can be tested, revised, refined, junked if necessary, proven beyond reasonable doubt if the evidence permits.

And sometimes perhaps merely spark another, better, more insightful hypothesis.

Unlike other forums, DPF from its foundation did not allow agents provocateurs to disrupt debate. Nor did it allow snake oil salesmen to peddle their wares.

If the founders suspect that a Sunsteinian psyop is being run, we will pool our thoughts, expose the ploy and cast out the perpetrator.

But 99 percent of DPF members are our friends and colleagues.

I may on occasion disagree with their judgements. I may be frustrated at the resurrection of matters long since settled.

But I will save my fire for our real enemies - those who are briefly visible when the Grotesque manifests itself. Those on whom a cold, harsh, unforgiving light needs to be shone.

I greatly respect Charlie Drago's War.

But we each choose our own fight.