It is 12 months since thefuture Initiative took its first steps here, on the world-wide-web, responding to the crisis facing Ireland and all of humanity.

This has placed us onto ‘the fringe’ of discussion taking place regarding the question of Ireland’s future, a discussion engaging nearly the entire population.  We are learning from this discussion, and hopefully, we contribute to it as well – we hope this discussion will lead to a greater understanding of our society and the problems we face today.

For us, it is important that we are not just commentators in a debate; our objective is to help bring about actual change.  As we learn from each other we need to weigh up the ideas that emerge, judging them in so far as they serve the interests of the majority, judging them against objective reality – the experience thus far of humanity, against history.  We must consider where history itself is leading us, for it is constantly evolving, and we must consider what our position in this history may be.

It is by being active participants in the struggle for progress that ideas and theories for change come about – there are enough academics.  To borrow a quote from Karl Marx, “the philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways, the point however is to change it”.

We view ourselves as being ‘on the fringe’ for two reasons:

• Our ‘reach’ into society is still tiny compared to the influence of the monopoly controlled media, in print, radio, TV and the web; and compared also to some established blog sites, public forums and social networks.  With no sense of competition, we want to establish links with anyone and everyone who has the interests of ordinary people at heart – so that we can exchange views and enhance our mutual networking.
• Our views may seem to be “outside the box”, and therefore “fringe”.  We do not buy-in to the status quo, which tends to be conservative, because that doesn’t serve the majority of people.  We wish to examine problems in a down-to-earth sort of way, rejecting ‘expert-ism’, sacred cows, unfounded assertions, prejudice or absolutism of any kind.

We wish to look at the society as we inherited it from former generations, and consider how we would like to hand it over to the next.  This implies that we take an historic view of human society, it’s economic systems, it’s social organisation and it evolution through the ages.

We look at problems from a particular perspective – in an oppressed-oppressor relationship or in an exploited-exploiter relationship – we always take the side of the oppressed and exploited against that of the usurer.  Our perspective is to stand with those to whom we have dedicated this web site and all of our efforts, modest though these efforts may be as yet.

An open invitation

At the end of this first year publishing on the web, we would like to encourage everyone to themselves take up the cause of progress, in whatever way they can.  If you are concerned for the future of our society or are already engaged in the struggle for social progress we would like to connect with you.  You may contact us here, or via our new Facebook page. Follow us on twitter (@gratire).

Let the discussion progress, let it draw conclusions and be fruitful !