Forum Friday

The last couple of weeks have seen a lot of action in openDemocracy's forums; enough, in fact, to encourage us to give a summary for those readers who don't participate in the forums; these are great discussions and deserve exposure.

Last week, henry_hart_1, started a thread on 'Israel Delivers Airmail to Iran by Way of Syria'; a discussion of Israel's recent incursion into Syrian air space, what (or whether) they had attacked: especially if there were nuclear materials involved. Henry's point is that this was a message intended for Tehran. the thread has continued actively, and many of our our most active forum members have contributed to the debate; especially regarding how Russia might react, and to just what extent this might be the action of a US/UK/Israel alliance...and of course, as is the often the way on this sort of matter, the debate has been somewhat heated, lively and at a high level. Great reading! There's more about whether Russia is getting up to steam in the thread 'Russia prepares for war', started by another old hand in the oD forums, eric_5, who wonders where the next Reagan is going to come from to thaw Russia's relations with the west. Go read it to see what our members think of Reagan's success the first time around.

Elsewhere in the forums, I've asked our members what they think of changes in e-voting around the world. Holland recently stopped using e-voting machines, America is still in the throes of questions about Diebold hardware and here in the UK we are beginning to see a strong local governmental backlash against the technology. Veteran forum members Courtney Hamilton, Richard Lawson and LW weighed in to remind us of openDemocracy's wonderful coverage of e-voting in the past and to reiterate the feeling that e-voting is a bad thing. I'll throw the Open Rights Group report on the UK e-voting trials in here as well: essential reading on the matter. Still I'd have liked to see more of a discussion about the potential of using other new media to facilitate deocratic discussion and participation. If you'd like to discuss e-democracy, head over to the thread and weigh in. There's a great ongoing discussion about whether wikipedia is a good or bad thing, too.

An older discussion on Richard Dawkins' God Delusion got a new lease of life recently; active forum member abdulksaida weighed in on Islam, a number of members took it upon themselves to question Dawkin's own atheism(!) and the debate ranges far and wide over what religion can be considered as, whether it is a delusion or natural phenomena and, as one would expect, which religion is best. 

Iron Mike's throwing down a gauntlet to the more liberal members of the site by asking whether the Democractic party is heading towards neo-communism; I hope he is flame-baiting, but it's certainly kicked off the discussion, with 59 posts since the 9th October. Elsewhere in the forums, Candace and abdulksaida take a long look at gender roles in the Middle East, and Courtney Hamilton questions what value the Nobel prize has once Al Gore can win it for a powerpoint presentation...

Those are the discussions that have stood out for me in the forums recently, but there's plenty more going on. Click on the forums button at the top or left of the screen to explore, and find out more about our forums here.