We have several projects for you to choose from. We are looking for people who like to write for each one. We really want to hear what's on your mind. It's very simple. As soon as you sign up you are ready to post your news, stories, ideas, thoughts, etc.

All of these sites are being hosted for free so there will be occasional downtimes. Don't worry about that, find something else to do and try again later.

Commotion - The Common Ground Common Sense e-Zine
We try to focus on things related to the forums. Find a post and expand on it or take a topic and work on news related to it. If you'd like you own column please let us know otherwise you can post to the existing categories.

Global CGCS - Help us expand our reach to other parts of the world.

CGCS Blog - We mainly need people to comment on here and help us make the blog more popular.

If you'd like to start your own columns write here on the forums you can do that too.

Simply start a new thread, Make the Title the name of your column
then in the description put: (yourname's) column.

For example:
Title: Stirred Coffee And Rusty Nails
Description: brendan's column


In the first post of your new thread, state the rules. If you'd like people to comment or not, how often you intend on posting etc. If you do want to allow comments you may want to use a special text color to post your posts with. It will make it easier for people to find your posts that way.

Have Fun!

A poster named Livyjr has one of these running. "Life in our America" is the title of the thread. It's interesting. Try it.

Great! Follow her lead

Well, livyjr is a "he".... as Rumi would say, "He, she, we, they... these are not true distinctions"... and I would follow this taoist's leadership anywhere.

well i knew i had a 50/50 shot

Where yin and yang are balanced, indeed you did have a 50/50 chance, and both were right!

And thank you for encouraging others to follow my lead!

I really believe this is the purest form of true democracy that any of us alive right now have ever seen here in OUR America, where the price of freedom is eternal vigilence, and since this is so brand new, it yet remains an on-going experiment in communications to me, which I think is an accurate assessment of democracy as well; it is never static, and can never be!

Hence my own thread!

And I would say that in "Life in OUR America", there really are no rules so much as there is quiet contemplation, and that is by personal choice, largely, I think, rather than by law or fiat, which I find stifling to the true purposes of this forum, which is to explore an evolving common ground in the spirit of the words of Tom Paine printed right at the top of all of these pages, in quite clear and unambiguous language.

Periodically, for example, jeffmoskin will come by, or theglobalchinese, or solve et coagula, or cardinal, and something will stir them to say something, and they do; but "Life in OUR America" is really more an archive combined with a "photo montage", with the "photos" being snapshots cut from the very fabric of time itself.

A model for "Life in OUR America", or the thoughts behind and underlying that thread could be taken from the "Foundation" novel series.

With the power of the computers underlying this forum, I finally have a platform from which to launch an experiment in pure democracy, and so I have.

Right now; it is a fledgling, and so has very weak wings.

So!

Growth!

And exercise!

The one thing, in parting, that is so powerful about this forum is that "search engine" feature down to the bottom left corner.

I wonder how many people in here really appreciate the power that function gives them, that is almost incredible in scale to me, an older American from back before the days of computers, and the power contained therein; both for good and for less than good, which is not necessarily the same as bad!

Or evil!

Keep the experiment going, folks, is my advice, and thanks, Mr. Magmak, and jeffmoskin, and brendan, as well.

Write a review of your favorite book, short story, collection of poems etc. here:

http://commotion.clawz.com/modules.php?op=...iews&file=index

Cool!

I'll try after the holidays!

Just curious why so many different sites?

Browsing through this thread I noticed the two above as well as http://coadunate.org/

Wouldn't it be better for name recognition reasons to have everything at
www.commongroundcommonsense.org. (kind of like DU does)

Inquiring minds want to know. :-)

I agree with this assertion. I think that the discussions forums should all be part of the same site. It is best to maintain the largest possible user base. DU does do a good job of this.

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I am very much in favor of broadening the discussions. I think that an international forum could be very popular. I imagine that a lot of people would be interested in discussing aid efforts in south Asia, Africa and other places. Perhaps sections could be setup to discuss the efforts of major NGO's.

It would be interesting to have open political discussions with people in CALA Europe, Canada etc.. Perhaps a tool like the Systran Babelfish translator could be added to the page. ( http://babelfish.altavista.com/ )

Foreign policy issues often rise above partisan politics. This would be a good place to look for common ground.
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I am a bit concerned about the "unreliable" free hosting. I would suggest starting a fund raiser. Again, DU does a good job with this.