Bringing Speakers to the Gunnison Valley Since 2003

Our Mission

"The Public Policy Forum of Crested Butte is a Colorado non-profit organization which brings to
the Crested Butte/Mt. Crested Butte/Gunnison community each year a series of speakers
presenting and discussing significant contemporary issues."

Forum: a public meeting or lecture involving
audience discussion

Mark Twain once said, "If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed." That appears to be more true than not in this era of crisis!

   As a retired journalist, I cringe at this expressed wisdom. This is why I have turned more recently to publications such as the New York Review of Books and authors such as William Pfaff, Andrew Bacevitch, and Robert Reich to try and understand the confusing world we live in. And this is also why we continue to delight in the labors of bringing the Public Policy Forum to Crested Butte and the Gunnison Valley.
   We begin our ninth year this summer with an offering of speakers who will try and explain some of the illusions and delusions that plague our times. Our belief in American exceptionalism is being challenged as never before. Our politics has descended into ideological clashes that destroy real communication. Our middle class is withering before a global economy that is destroying the American dream. Our reliance on militarism abroad is sorely testing our traditional national values.
   So this summer we will examine the politics of climate disruption, the role of movies concerning public policy, Haiti’s misery so close to our shores, what we should or should not do about a profoundly changing Middle East, the growing national income gap between rising poverty and the very rich, the immigration mess on our southern border, the role of money in our elections, and our national confusion over President Obama’s effort to reform our out-of-control health care system.
   Admittedly, this is a tall order! We hope this Public Policy Forum will allow us to clear away some of the nonsense that clouds our national vision. Please come and participate.

Larry Mosher, Forum President