Reasons why must WCF survive : - members are open minded regardless their obvious political background- spammers, lunatics and other misfits do not stay long- all arguments are debated, checked and acknowledged (sometimes after vivid discussions or heated debates ...)This forum is:- reliable- relevant- accurateMembers must work hard and this is probably why few only are eager enough to overcome such standardsIf you can find better than this forum, chapeau messieurs!

This is a very astute observation.  The standards here are pretty high, and the average history buff will be challenged to keep up.  That alone keeps the participation level down, but WCF isn't going to dumb down the content just to secure more traffic.  It's not our way.

I have not sent out an email to members.  Last time I tried to do a mass emailing Donnie scolded me because I shut down his forum for a day or two. 🙁

Yeah, but your host probably doesn't have the same rule.

I'll take it over Phid if you decide to abandon it.  There is a wealth of information stored here that should remain open to the public.  I check in every day, but I don't post on anything unless it really interests me.  My time is limited these days so I cannot participate like I used to.  I totally understand what you're going through as I've scrapped several sites lately.  When you're ready to transfer the domain let me know, and save the database so I can transfer the data as well.  I will continue to use the SMF format of course.

Marx was seeking an economic and political Utopia.  He reasoned that the Capitalists would never relinquish their wealth willingly and would have to be overthrown.  So, it would be to the benefit of the Proletariat for them to compete in earnest concentrating their wealth down to ever smaller circles until they were few in number and could easily be overthrown from a bottom up revolution.  Also, the fierce competition would build a strong foundation for the economy the Proletariat would inherit.  What he failed to see was that the Proletariat would become fat and lazy once in charge, and would still seek to differentiate themselves in social standing/class despite the idealism of their revolution.  Marx never accounted for the flaws in human nature that center around greed.  He just assumed people would become content once everyone had the exact same thing.

I've got my opinion on the matter and the reality is we do not know the reality, only what the state run media has told us. If that's good enough for you then rock on.

I'm still not sure the kid wasn't setup.  He probably was guilty, but there are so many conflicting reports on how he died I don't know what to believe.  I sure as hell don't believe the “official” story.  He was working for the government trying to infiltrate terror cells, but allegedly ended up converting to the other side.  That's just too weird for me.

I was happier in 1983, but I was 9 years old too.