Reply #137: But let's be more optimistic

[JackRiddler]

What if places like DU, where researchers can pool their resources, had existed in 1980? What if people had access to the power of today's Internet, with links to all of the world's media and databases?

One possibility, as you say Paul, is that DU mods might have censored people who suspected the CIA was linked to events like the 1980 Bologna bombing (which killed 80 people and was thus the worst modern-day peacetime terrorist attack in Europe until last week).

And as happened in real life, it would have taken 10 more years beore the confirmation that the CIA-created Gladio paramilitaries were indeed responsbile for that and many other atrocities.

But let's be more optimistic.

If there had been a DU in 1980, and the moderators were sufficiently tolerant, it's equally possible members like yourself, stickdog, Octafish and others might have been able to uncover the revealing links, dig up stories in Italian and German and make them known to a large English-speaking audience, and establish what really happened within weeks, instead of decades.

I believe this is in fact what DU has done on the electronic voting and 2004 election issues. Without DU, there might not have been a Conyers report. Things would be even darker today.

DU has been an important presence in the similar cooperative research of 9/11.

DU has also had a major impact in a variety of PR and media campaigns to promote otherwise suppressed stories, like Plame and Gannon.

There is a great power in places like DU, one that image-conscious monitors should approach with respect.

That is why I speak of DU's historic role and continued responsibility to err on the side of tolerance. It becomes far likelier that we can collectively uncover important facts and connections that would otherwise remain obscure.

When all seems darkest, you should all realize how mutable conditions are, and how the snowflake that starts the avalanche can come from the least significant-seeming places.

If tolerance means a larger number of threads that are annoying or bizarre to many of the members, still I hope they will be happy simply to ignore what annoys them, and roam among the hundreds of other threads of interest to them.

If tolerance means Rush Limbaugh or John Gibson have an easier time finding ammo, so what? They may discover they are aiming the bullets at themselves.

There is room enough here for this site's varied missions, without entering into unncessary conflict and without diminishing the potentials.

And that is ultimately to the credit of the administrators who have worked hard to create such a powerful and flexible space. May they be wise in preserving it!