Babble To Be Shutting Down

151 posts / 0 new
Last post
6079_Smith_W

josh wrote:
https://youtu.be/15YgdrhrCM8

Well that's one romantic viewpoint. There's also this:

"Stand still, you ever-moving spheres of heaven,
That time may cease, and midnight never come;"

Though I am sure those who feel left in the lurch will find a place to keep doing what they do.

It is the internet, after all, and it isn't like NATO has finally started WW3 and it is the real end of the world.

Again, bummer that no one here gets to say told you so about that one.

NDPP

PS:

Suggest also periodically contacting Rabble.ca to ensure they keep their promise to save this important historical archive.

www.rabble.ca

JKR

NDPP wrote:

Some final thoughts:

The primary enemy remains the American hegemon and our domestic proxy settler-state vassal regime, with 'nazi-clapping' politicians that do its bidding and promote its interests.

Canadians should beware and resist these proxy enemies within and their propensity to distract, divert and promote instead supposed enemies without such as Russia and China which oppose US global domination.

I think our primary enemy is our self serving desire to point to others to see them as being the enemy.

oldgoat

Well this feels pretty wierd.   it's kinda like being at a wake, except not as much fun.

I really think that this type of format is most conducive to real discussion as opposed to other social media out there. Not all change and innovation is progress.

This place has been hugely significant in my own intellectual development, and I have gotten to know and learn from some amazingly wise and intellegent people, both on line and later in real life.  Makes me recall the last time I spoketo skdadl.  We were on my front porch having a few glasses of wine.

Left Turn opined that the forum might not require paid moderation, and more recently he has a point.  Certainly in the last couple of months I've tried to   keep up on following the threads, but I havn't posted much at all.  To be honest I think I've been a bit mentally checked out. 

Yup, this is a strange feeling evening.

oldgoat

BTW, I just tried to look at the archives as they currently exist to maybe link to a few old classics, but it shows as not there.  I' assuming this means our tech person is doing something. 

6079_Smith_W

@ old goat

I get that, though I think some might be remembering something that is long, long gone.

As for what is here now, I am thinking less about the people who are still hanging around (and which will be pretty much gone in a couple of hours) and more about the content on the page that is going to be left as an artifact

How will that stand the test of time?

epaulo13

..the struggle continues. la lutte continue. la lotta continua. cupw drilled this into my head and not for a second did i ever regret it.

..i feel the same about babble. i was able to refine and articulate my bottom up politics here. and now my life will not be the same without it.

..so take care of each other..is a feeling i share with ndpp. and now i'm off to play some crib with people from my complex. so there is life after babble i assume.

wage zombie

I haven't been on here in a while but I'm sad to see Babble go.  I learned so much on here.

All the best to everyone.

Webgear

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe... Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion... I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain... Time to die".

Take care everyone, it was an interesting 19 years. 

NDPP

How To Find Old Websites That No Longer Exist

https://www.wikihow.com/Find-Old-Websites-That-No-Longer-Exist

Jaydub

“Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run, but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant.”

Take care, everyone. Good luck.

laine lowe laine lowe's picture

I will truly miss this place very much. If someone does find away to reunite members of this group in a discussion forum, perhaps the good folks at Rabble.com can post a brief article about the new group/destination. I agree with Old Goat, discussion boards have been prematurely dismissed as a communication and social building mechanism. Formats that followed were never as deep or informative. 

For those that like this medium, you will find me at:

http://newcafe.org/motet/bin/motet.cgi?directory

I have been there so long that I don't even remember how you join. The Canadian contingent is small but we are there. It used to be part of the Utne Magazine forums and it also absorbed the Alternet forums (I used to be a volunteer moderater in Alternet).

I hope to cross paths with some of you and wish all of you well.

 

 

epaulo13

..txs laine. i'll check it out.

oldgoat

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,

As I foretold you, were all spirits and

Are melted into air, into thin air:

And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,

The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temples, the great globe itself,

Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve

And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,

Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff

As dreams are made on, and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep.

NDPP

Babble sleeps while revolution awakens!

JKR

NDPP, maybe it's time to awaken to the fact that the vast majority of people are opposed to violent revolutions that kill people on both sides of conflicts?

Mr. Magoo

Well, babble seems to be going full Rasputin, now.  It's the 24th now, and still it lives!

Amusingly, though, this means that the planned obsolescence is no longer measured on the calendar, it could literally go "bloop" at literally any second.  That, in turn, means that anything you might post as of now, in this thread or another, could be the very last thing you say on babble.  Maybe not "the" last word, but "your" last word.  I don't want mine to be a snipe or a gotcha (or even, notoriously, a swear word).

As for "the" last word on babble, it was my sincere hope the honour would go to God.  Not real God, but oldgoat playing God.  When tech-buddy's finger is hovering over the Enter key, raise us a toast and then turn off the lights.

josh

Still going.

oldgoat

I was sort of hoping that my quote from The Tempest would be the last word, but not to be I guess.

Michael Moriarity

I can't help noting that even the end of babble is technically incompetent. LOL.

JKR

Michael Moriarity wrote:

I can't help noting that even the end of babble is technically incompetent. LOL.

LOL

oldgoat

I'm told that the work is starting now, and that I would be kept informed of progress.  

oldgoat

Definitly wierd stuff goig on with the board.  no one has said anything to me, but I'm guessing it won't be too much longer.

epaulo13

..babble is dying.

epaulo13

..not going willingly. good for babble. in solidarity.

6079_Smith_W
josh

Long live babble!

NDPP

Judge napolitano

Moon of Alabama

Yves Engler (twitter)

WSWS

Electronic Intifada

These will help keep you up to date.

We'll meet again...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgGAjmszdq8

 

ps do you not think in the end it was really Israel-Palestine that bumped us off...?

6079_Smith_W

dp

6079_Smith_W

NDPP wrote:

ps do you not think in the end it was really Israel-Palestine that bumped us off...?

No.

And "bumped US off?" Really?

Jaydub

Encore!

Mobo2000

Yeah, weirdly it's quicker to open/browse now than it's ever been.

josh

And you thought Rasputin was tough to kill.

Michael Moriarity

As long as we're still here, might as well share Ruben Bolling's latest:

oldgoat

WTF ???  I thought it was dead and gone.   I get upthis morning and here we are!!   Screw it, I give up.

oldgoat

It's not dead.  It's pinin' for the fjords.

JKR

Turns out there is an afterlife!

JKR

6079_Smith_W wrote:
NDPP wrote:

ps do you not think in the end it was really Israel-Palestine that bumped us off...?

No.

And "bumped US off?" Really?

Maybe NDPP is referring to the Jewish Torontonians NDPP often refers to as “the most Zionazi in the world”?

6079_Smith_W

I am more thinking of the post at #43, which doesn't really show much appreciation considering how much mileage he has gotten out of this site.

That is to say, more than any of us.

Being freed from the whims of the maintream oppressors should be cause for celebration, no? But then you miss the opportunity to whip up paranoia.

Yeah, I'm sure this is all just a scheme to silence NDPP.

Mobo2000

Let's keep it classy.   This thread should be for peace, love, goodbyes and memories.   There's lots of places on babble, and the rest of the internet, for you to keep complaining about NDPP.

Speaking of, goodbye and farewell Smith and JKR.   I won't lie, I've found most of our discussions frustrating, but if everyone agreed than babble would have been very boring.   In a weird way I will miss that frustration.   All the best.

JKR

At times I tried to be a sort of devil's advocate to spice things up and have the conversation include some more main stream opinions that I think have to be recognized in order for things to change.

Best wishes to everyone here! In the longer run I think the world will greatly improve by moving much more toward socialism. In its way Babble supported that.

6079_Smith_W

Mobo2000 wrote:

Let's keep it classy.   This thread should be for peace, love, goodbyes and memories.   There's lots of places on babble, and the rest of the internet, for you to keep complaining about NDPP.

Sure. Classy.

Funny thing is, I have said pretty clearly that I think this forum is better closed.

But I am not slagging it by claiming that rabble is trying to muzzle us on political grounds, and that they can't be trusted to archive this forum. That's being left hanging in the room by the guy who has posted more than anyone else.

And with any luck, I won't be pointing out his contradictory behaviour anymore, once the techies get their work done.

oldgoat

It occurred to me that I submitted my final invoice yesterday, so I'm deciding if I feel like doing volunteer work.  

Yeah, I'm hoping for a classy goodbye thread which honours babbles best self.

Just to address shutting people down, one guiding principle for me is not allowing the place to get sued. There's no budget for that.  Otherwise progressive principles should be generally observed.  I admit to cutting peoplea bit more slack if they're not assholes.

I recall once doing a presentation at a rabble.ca retreat where I discussed how much I drew on my experience working in group homes for teens in my moderating approach.  It was largely but not entirely tongue in cheek. When I started, I really got my head kicked around the block, but that eventually settled down.

Anyway, it has been mostly rewarding and fun.   To quote from the estimable Master Baggins, "I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve". 

 

oldgoat

Oh, BTW I'm told that closing this place down is a multi-stage process, and we are in a stage.

6079_Smith_W

And anyone paying attention remembers Free Dominion.

And yes, thanks. I can't imagine it is easy doing the job every one of us thinks we could do better. But no one really wants (at least no one who should have it).

6079_Smith_W

oldgoat wrote:

Oh, BTW I'm told that closing this place down is a multi-stage process, and we are in a stage.

So one more Dr. Faustus (or Cordelia) -style soliloquy

josh

oldgoat wrote:

Oh, BTW I'm told that closing this place down is a multi-stage process, and we are in a stage.

Is this kind of like God created the world in six days of indeterminate length type of thing?

oldgoat

josh wrote:
oldgoat wrote:

Oh, BTW I'm told that closing this place down is a multi-stage process, and we are in a stage.

Is this kind of like God created the world in six days of indeterminate length type of thing?

Yes, precisely.

epaulo13

“The Working Class Is the Arsenal of Democracy”

United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain: “We win by giving working-class people the tools, the inspiration, and the courage to stand up for themselves.”

Jaydub

I'm hopeful that we can maybe keep this going.

Pages