Often, after months and months of a board being in existence and thousands of posts, people will start interjecting "don't take it so seriously, this is only an Internet board" into a thread when an argument isn't going the way they like.

What is the value of an Internet board? Why bother?

Often, after months and months of a board being in existence and thousands of posts, people will start interjecting "don't take it so seriously, this is only an Internet board" into a thread when an argument isn't going the way they like.

What is the value of an Internet board? Why bother?

Since I am one of those people, I am forced to attempt an answer.

I'll take a look at the value of the forum I want to call home from two vantages, at least in a way. Using the terms internal and external won't necessarily be the best , but that is what I'll use.

From the internal dialogue vantage, I want to see a fertile ground for message making, the creation of conversation by engaging in a discussion of what that conversation will be.

Bear with me.

The projection of that created conversation into the real world is what I mean by external.

In other words, the dialogue this forum 'Discussion about the discussion' seeks can and ought to inform the larger discussion going forward. That internal discussion among all members becomes, as it crystallizes, the fodder for real world conversation.

This forum should not simply be an opening volley but rather an ongoing seedbed to the larger dialogue I'd hope will find its way into the cafes and buses and grocery store lines and the neighborhood crime watch meetings where the people we are concerned with go about their lives.

I do not mean that there need be a lot of guidance by a select few, but rather that we at popI keep an awareness that there is a goal of transferring this online effort into the real world, and I mean plain folks, not merely 'activists.'

To do that, we must seek the common denominator, not only in the problems we face but in the aspirations of the mass of people. I expect that there will be a wide range of opinions on what will surely be the wide range of things discussed here.

However, the messages that will make it out to the people and be effective will be the messages that concern the Root Causes, both of troubles and of our very perceptions. For it is on the root causes that the mass of folks will agree, naturally.

At least that's what I hope and think.

In other words, the dialogue this forum 'Discussion about the discussion' seeks can and ought to inform the larger discussion going forward. That internal discussion among all members becomes, as it crystallizes, the fodder for real world conversation.

This forum should not simply be an opening volley but rather an ongoing seedbed to the larger dialogue I'd hope will find its way into the cafes and buses and grocery store lines and the neighborhood crime watch meetings where the people we are concerned with go about their lives.

I do not mean that there need be a lot of guidance by a select few, but rather that we at popI keep an awareness that there is a goal of transferring this online effort into the real world, and I mean plain folks, not merely 'activists.'

To do that, we must seek the common denominator, not only in the problems we face but in the aspirations of the mass of people. I expect that there will be a wide range of opinions on what will surely be the wide range of things discussed here.

However, the messages that will make it out to the people and be effective will be the messages that concern the Root Causes, both of troubles and of our very perceptions. For it is on the root causes that the mass of folks will agree, naturally.

At least that's what I hope and think.
That is how I see it too. Well said.

The purge is a ball & chain for PI now. It could've been resolved with some honest and upfront discussion airing the issue. Instead the bitterness was allowed to fester--and Tinoire's snit over those socialists who refused to bow to the Kucinich(Democratic party) altar, was the damning door slammed shut. So it is with some irony that I observe Megan's latest offering suggesting unity as the solution:


And this monster's greatest weapon is divide and conquer. No matter the context, that is what is happening. Dems vs. Repubs, working-class Americans vs. immigrants, Americans vs. Iraqis (well, Americans vs. most of the world, shit). It is everywhere.


And we think - one step at a time right? End the war and then we can move on because that'll help with the economy and the debt and then we can.....But we can't, not like that. IT ISN'T WORKING. That's the whole point of what I want to say. THE ONLY WAY WE CAN DO THIS IS IF WE ALL DO IT TOGETHER, AT THE SAME TIME, AROUND THE WORLD.


But, you see, it was she, herself who banned me, she, as a member of the PI elite who decides such things- and I am incapable of pointing out the irony, the hypocrisy of her soapbox pronouncements about unity and divide and conquer. They were enraged that we wouldn't unify around a Kucinich endorsement
--without discussion or dissent, even from those who were previously involved intimately with the Kucinich campaign. Can't have unity if you toss out those who don't conform to demands for imposed unity--even when the intent, the goal, the objective is the same. Can't have unity when there are ego issues regarding territorial claims and domination. Can't have unity when you sacrifice some who are politically incorrect and ruffle the feathers of the Kucinich worshippers. Talk about divide and conquer! The personal is political--and what is true in the microcosm is reflected in the whole. That is why the whole thing is a mindless exercize in futility if it isn't related to real world events. Without addressing that the divide drifts apart.

The purge is a ball & chain for PI now.
I think this is indeed the key issue, Raph. Tin knows that a lot of people are reading, and the site had such potential that my first horrified reaction was that she was foreclosing the future, that the purge would mean that something good that would have come to PI, won't. That's she was, all unaware, condemning PI to be nothing more than another DU or Kos, only smaller and with New-Age-flavored intolerance rather than DLC-flavored.

Why bother?

Though I am acquainted with many of my neighbors, I had not met these people. There were teevee news folks all over the place, cop cars, and yellow tape. The shooting happened about 45 minutes before I am normally up and around.

I had a whole bunch of stuff to go roll into my compost heap and after talking with a neighbor and watching the scene, I ducked the reporters setting up to interview and went to get my shovel.

I've been struggling to get the heap going, having way too much brown and not enough green. But in the last couple of weeks, I have managed to turn the heat up some and finally alittle cloud of steam rose as I broke into the middle of the pile.

I think to myself as I turn that earth and earth-to-be. I think about life, about the constancy of potential in that warm almost earth. About caprice. About the searing hot rage of my neighbor's last moments. I think about how hard it is just to make it for some of, to claw along through the days. I tossed in some more dying and dead vegetables and turned some more of that earth to be over them, putting them warm to bed. And I thought about my broken community, lives lost and names I never even knew just a few yards away. And I turned some more of that almost earth.

I am here because I want to fix my community. I hope to learn something here that I can share with the living, so many of whom are indeed suffering, suffering indescribably. Silently in the still and early morning.

And I thought about my broken community, lives lost and names I never even knew just a few yards away. And I turned some more of that almost earth.

I am here because I want to fix my community. I hope to learn something here that I can share with the living, so many of whom are indeed suffering, suffering indescribably. Silently in the still and early morning.
Yes. Why do people need to go looking through the news media for what is happening in Iraq, or obsess over what the politicians are doing in Washington? Politics is happening right under our noses everyday right where we are. You end the Iraq war at the source - your own street corner. That is where it starts. You can't have politics that doesn't start and end with your neighbors. I don't know what sort of neighborhood people are living in where they need to look to Iraq or Palestine to find injustice to be outraged about. I don't know what sort of "progressive" politics fixes something half way around the world while not touching anything right here.

I also don't understand what sort of politics it is that not only doesn't start with the neighborhood, that doesn't talk to everyday people, but that also doesn't talk to the politicans except by some weird remote group chanting of slogans. What are the activists doing? They aren't reaching out to the common people all around them, and they aren't meeting directly with the politicians. But they are "against the war."