Bevin is - apparently - in Canada, and is a btl contributor to bernhard’s Moon of Alabama website; a steadfast socialist, and highly historically literate; his posts always worth seeking out. His description of we motley crew of babblers btl at MoA, together with bernhard’s outstandingly high-quality analyses, as a true, functioning democracy is, I think, spot on; something for us to aspire to here at 5F as well:
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This website is a tribute not just to the proprietor but to the idea of democracy.
The general conclusions reached here over the past nine months (for example) have consistently outperformed the media, the Academy and the political castes which amount to an incredibly expensive and complex and enormously staffed engine designed - in theory at least - to arrive at a realistic assessment of the situation.
As for us here at MoA, where you are about ten times more likely to discover what’s going on in the world than in any medium of the dominant class - than the New Yorker, The Guardian, BBC or even the favoured forums of the intelligentsia such as the Reviews of Books, The Economist or Foreign affairs - here, as in a democracy, anyone can contribute. And just about anything which is not totally irrelevant or offensively obscene, is allowed. Every kind of eccentricity is permitted. The voices of communists are in constant struggle with those of fascists, liberals are welcome. Those who hate Russia are heard from. Those who hate Putin are listened to. Those who believe the SMO is a disaster have a forum.
But so do those who believe that all is proceeding according to plan.
And there are no qualifications demanded of contributors. There is no literacy requirement, no Academic Degrees or resumes of experience, closeness to power or personal beauty are judged. All that matters is how close the poster comes to the truth, which , in the end, and usually sooner rather than later, is invariably revealed.
That is the way that democracy works - everyone gets to express opinions and they are judged by the minds they change. Or fail to change.
The forums that we are in competition with - heavily moderated in many cases - featuring politicians, ‘insiders’ with sources near power, experts with degrees dripping from them, career security and personal wealth, are wrong today: check them out. They have been wrong for years and they will be wrong tomorrow.
Of course the primary reason for this is that they are propaganda outlets. But the basis of any propaganda is the idea, of its sponsors and manufacturers, that it is necessary for experts and ‘good’ people to counter the misinformation that comes from an uninformed populace.
And here we are, for the most part representative of that populace - nobody is paid, nobody has a scholarship to finance his studies, most of us are just ordinary people.
And not necessarily very honest either.
But the result is what matters and here, at the end of a thread you will generally get a sense of what is actually happening in the world.
And it is not what the Professors, Generals, Ministers and Clergy tell us. It is generally exactly the opposite.
And that is why democracy, rather than rule by wealthy, clever, educated, thoughtful, certifiably respectable elites, is the system that will save us and the planet.
“Come, Let Us Reason Together…” the Bible suggested. And in places like this, we do and the truth, dripping with mud and shit, blood and booze, spite and envy, madness and idiocy, emerges.
All of which is probably “off topic.”
So I will copy it and save it.
Posted by: bevin | Nov 24 2022 18:45 utc | 17
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