(en) The Internet Anti-Fascist: Monday, 2 Feb 98--2:06 (#64) From Paul Kneisel Date Tue, 03 Feb 1998 00:30:47 -0500 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ________________________________________________ A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E http://www.ainfos.ca/ ________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ The Internet Anti-Fascist: Monday, 2 February 98 Vol. 2, Number 6 (#64) ______________________________________________________________________ The material below is a reprint of a post to made on 2 Feb 98. Other posts to discussing the proposal to create the anti-fascist news groups can be found at the ftp site: - - - - - Since several critics of the three anti-fascist news groups have posted "snipped," partially deleted, or otherwise altered versions of the Call For Votes document, it seems only fair that I correct this by posting the full, unedited version below. My comments on issues concerning it are printed after the document. [BEGIN UNALTERED DOCUMENT] FIRST CALL FOR VOTES (of 2) moderated group misc.activism.anti-fascism.announce moderated group misc.activism.anti-fascism.tactics moderated group soc.politics.anti-fascism This CFV is to be distributed only by the votetaker. It is not to be posted to newsgroups, or mailed to mailing lists or individuals, except by the votetaker. Ballots or CFVs provided by anyone else will be invalid. Newsgroups lines: misc.activism.anti-fascism.announce Announcing anti-fascist activities. (Moderated) misc.activism.anti-fascism.tactics Planning anti-fascist activities. (Moderated) soc.politics.anti-fascism The politics of fighting fascism. (Moderated) Votes must be received by 23:59:59 UTC, 20 Feb 1998. This vote is being conducted by a neutral third party. Questions about the proposed group should be directed to the proponent. Proponent: Paul Kneisel Proponent: Marc Alain Steier Proponent: Tamara Turner Votetaker: Neil Crellin RATIONALE: all groups The three groups are designed to provide a central place on UseNet for the discussion of both abstract and concrete aspects of anti-fascism in both academic and activist modes as well as to provide a central location for information involving real-world events of interest to anti-fascists. RATIONALE: misc.activism.anti-fascism.announce This group will create a high signal-to-noise ratio for the communication of anti-fascist actions, including but not limited to academic conferences, demonstrations, and published works of interest to anti-fascists. RATIONALE: misc.activism.anti-fascism.tactics This group will create a locus for the more action-oriented discussion of anti-fascist activity. RATIONALE: soc.politics.anti-fascism This group is will create a locus for the more academic and abstract discussion of the topics related to anti-fascism listed in the charter. CHARTER: misc.activism.anti-fascism.announce Misc.activism.anti-fascism.announce moderated is intended as a focus for announcements of real-time anti-fascist activities. Moderation Policy: The moderator(s) reserve the right to reject posts that are off-topic to the declared purpose of the group. Single cross-posts will generally not be accepted; non-spammed multiple postings to other news groups and discussion lists will not be actively discouraged. END CHARTER. CHARTER: misc.activism.anti-fascism.tactics Misc.activism.anti-fascism.tactics moderated is intended as the anti-fascist time/space antipode of soc.politics.anti-fascism. It is for discussions and debates of real-time anti-fascist activities (NB: the triple plural) Moderation Policy: The moderator(s) will actively encourage critical anti-fascist discussions and debates of anti-fascist real-time actions. The moderator(s) reserve the right to reject posts that are off-topic to the declared purpose of the group. Single cross-posts will generally not be accepted; non-spammed multiple postings to other news groups and discussion lists will not be actively discouraged. END CHARTER. CHARTER: soc.politics.anti-fascism Soc.politics.anti-fascism is intended as a moderated forum for the debate and discussion of anti-fascism and artistic/aesthetic, economic, ethical, historical, legal, philosophical, political, psychological, and sociological topics related to it. These discussions should logically include errors that different anti-fascist tendencies made in defining "fascism" itself. It is not a "dial-a-demo" group nor a focus for discussions specifically designed to develop anti-fascist activism. Moderation Policy: The moderator(s) reserves the right to reject any articles submitted to soc.politics.anti-fascism that are supportive of fascism, consisting of more than 1/2 quotation, or are off-topic for the declared purpose of the group. Single cross-posts will not be accepted unless they are of immediate relevance or importance to the news group. END CHARTER. MODERATOR INFO: misc.activism.anti-fascism.announce Moderator: Tamara Turner Administrative contact address: tturner@halcyon.com Article submission address: tturner@halcyon.com END MODERATOR INFO. MODERATOR INFO: misc.activism.anti-fascism.tactics Moderator: Paul Kneisel Administrative contact address: tallpaul@nyct.net Article submission address: tallpaul@nyct.net END MODERATOR INFO. MODERATOR INFO: soc.politics.anti-fascism Moderator: Marc Alain Steier Administrative contact address: msane@ix.netcom.com Article submission address: msane@ix.netcom.com END MODERATOR INFO. IMPORTANT VOTING PROCEDURE NOTES: READ THIS BEFORE VOTING Standard Guidelines for voting apply. One vote per person, one account per voter. Votes must be mailed directly from the voter to the votetaker. Anonymous, forwarded or proxy votes are not valid. Votes mailed by WWW/HTML/CGI forms are considered to be anonymous votes. Vote counting is automated. Failure to follow these directions may mean that your vote does not get counted. If you do not receive an acknowledgment of your vote within three days contact the votetaker about the problem. It's your responsibility to make sure your vote is registered correctly. Duplicate votes are resolved in favor of the most recent valid vote. Addresses and votes of all voters will be published in the final voting results post. The purpose of a Usenet vote is to determine the genuine interest of persons who would read a proposed newsgroup. Soliciting votes from disinterested parties defeats this purpose. Please do not distribute this CFV. If you must, direct people to the official CFV as posted to news.announce.newgroups. Distributing pre-marked or otherwise edited copies of this CFV is generally considered to be vote fraud. When in doubt, ask the votetaker. HOW TO VOTE: Extract the ballot from the CFV by deleting everything before and after the "BEGINNING OF BALLOT" and "END OF BALLOT" lines. Don't worry about the spacing of the columns or any quote characters (">") that your reply inserts. Please, DO NOT send the entire CFV back to me! Fill in the ballot as shown below. Please provide your REAL NAME and indicate your desired vote in the appropriate locations inside the ballot. When finished, MAIL the ballot to: < voting@uvv.stanford.edu > Just "replying" to this message should work, but check the "To:" line. Examples of how to properly indicate your vote: [ YES ] example.yes.vote [ NO ] example.no.vote [ ABSTAIN ] example.abstention [ CANCEL ] example.cancellation DO NOT modify, alter or delete any information in this ballot! If you do, the voting software will probably reject your ballot. If these instructions are unclear, please consult the Introduction to Usenet Voting or the Usenet Voting FAQ at http://www.stanford.edu/~neilc/uvv. ======== BEGINNING OF BALLOT: Delete everything before this line ======= .----------------------------------------------------------------------- | 1ST CALL FOR VOTES: misc.activism.anti-fascism.announce | Official Usenet Voting Ballot (Do not remove this line!) |----------------------------------------------------------------------- | Please provide your real name, or your vote may be rejected. Place | ONLY your name (ie. do NOT include your e-mail address or any other | information; ONLY your name) after the colon on the following line: Voter name: | Insert YES, NO, ABSTAIN, or CANCEL inside the brackets for each | newsgroup listed below (do not delete the newsgroup name): Your Vote Newsgroup --------- ----------------------------------------------------------- [ ] misc.activism.anti-fascism.announce (moderated) [ ] misc.activism.anti-fascism.tactics (moderated) [ ] soc.politics.anti-fascism (moderated) ======== END OF BALLOT: Delete everything after this line ============== This CFV was created with uvpq 1.0 (Aug 14 1997). PQ datestamp: 980110 -- Voting address: voting@uvv.stanford.edu [END UNALTERED DOCUMENT] The Call For Votes document above formally defines the new anti-fascist news groups and explains how to vote for (or against) them. Supporters had it issued on 30 January. This was the day that Hitler formally became Chancellor of Germany. Cybernazis have used Dr. Martin Luther King Day to launch offensives against anti-bigotry and pro- tolerance news groups, with spammed picture files of swastikas, KKK symbols, and even photos of Hitler himself. We thought it both fair and poetically just that we picked the 30 January Nazi holiday to launch our final anti-fascist offensive. Unfortunately, the whole voting process has been seriously marred by a variety of issues. One was my own unfortunate illness. Originally diagnosed as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, it turned out to be hypothyroidism. The loss of physical energy and other symptoms is essentially the same in both diseases. This fact, known to many critics, played a central role in the delay over formally calling the vote. The fact that critics could ignore this illustrates many of the problems that hit the anti-fascist proposal. I have not asked for any special privilege because of my temporary handicap. But critics aware of the handicap openly charged I never intended to move to a vote, revealing their dishonesty. Worse, however, is the action of David C Lawrence. He is the single individual at the heart of the new group creation process on UseNet. Several critics proposed that the anti-fascist proposal be killed administratively, without being defeated in a vote and indeed without ever being permitted to come to a vote. One argument they used was the claim that counter-proposals existed and were being unfairly delayed. Russ Allbery, another figure who looms large in the group creation process, accurately wrote that no competing proposals existed, adding "Were there any, I imagine the posting of an unprecedented 7th RFD [for the three anti-fascist groups] would be reconsidered."[1] The next day Simon Lyall quoted Allbery, adding "I have submitted the RFD for an alternative anti-fascism newsgroup to the news.announce.newgroups moderator [David C Lawrence].[2] At this point Lawrence changed the rules, not for the entire group creation process but only for the anti-fascist proposals. He sent e-mail announcing this to people involved, but did not post it to . Lawrence unilaterally set a 19 February deadline to get the anti-fascist proposals "prepared to go to a vote." If we failed, then Lyall's proposal, never sent to us or published by Lawrence would be given priority and ours "put on hold until Simon Lyall's proposal has run its course." This rule change by Lawrence, taken within a day of getting Lyall's proposal and without any input from us, is simply dirty pool. Worse for Lawrence, even Lyall had problems with this rule change. He wrote "... I am not sure something I drew up in 10 minutes is suitable to go to vote, especially since it is unmoderated."[3] It has been difficult for me to accept the energy-drain of my health handicap, however temporary. I never asked for any "special accommodation" of the sort required by broad cultural norms. But I can not accept Lawrence's effective "dis-accommodation" via the unilateral rule change. The time to create limits on proposals is before, not after, they are submitted. As a matter of principle, nobody should accept Lawrence's behavior. But practical politics, in the short run, are different. Before Lawrence's action, we had already communicated with various people on about holding the vote. After emergency consultations with supporters we decided to "moot" the core of Lawrence's improper action by calling the vote on 30 January as we earlier intended. Unfortunately, when we tried we also discovered a new series of bureaucratic problems. These concerned how information about the vote could be transmitted. The joke among supporters with whom we consulted was that "This is a really 'secret ballot.' It is so secret that none of the voters know about it." Without going into full details, we were informed that: 1) We could not print the unaltered Call For Votes document on our web site. 2) I could not print the unaltered document in my own journal The Internet Anti-Fascist. 3) I could not put the unaltered document on my own ftp site. 4) I could not send a copy of the unaltered document to anybody with whom I had already corresponded about the anti-fascist groups. 5) We could not produce and publish translations of the CFV into Spanish and German to stave off attacks by fascists in those countries. This translation would have been accompanied with an equal translation of the latest RFD. 6) Finally, we could not even prepare accurate summaries of the CFV in Spanish or German to fend off disinformation about the document published by foreign fascists. My understanding was that any information accurate enough to defeat disinformation would be considered a form of ballot alteration. The only thing we were formally permitted to do was to publish a pointer to the CFV's location on the net. The whole process is humorously ironic given the nature of the Internet. The technology lets people spread information at a rate never before possible. At the same time, a small group of Good Ol' Boys at key locations in the UseNet news groups create "rules" to severely curtail the spread of information. We again consulted with supporters increasingly irritated by taking their own valuable time to deal with these issues. We -- very reluctantly -- decided to agree with all of the above limitations but to accept no more sudden and improper rule changes or any other limitations on what was established procedure. You might imagine that phrases like "draw the line here," "this and no more," and "last straw" were used. We received an ostensible pointer to where the vote document was stored. It was invalid. This meant there was no "permitted" way to inform people of the vote. The one single "permitted" method to inform people of the vote turned out not to exist. It is exceedingly problematical for the Good Ol' Boys to insist that we keep our side of an agreement when they first failed to keep theirs. So we are again back to the "secret ballot." One wonders how many new rules will be declared without discussion. One wonders how many "existing" unwritten rules will be invoked to defeat the proposal. One wonders how many permissible ways of doing things will be rendered impossible. We wonder if our proposal will ever come to a formal vote that we call. -- tallpaul PS: I have had occasion to communicate with the votetaker. As far as I can tell he is not involved with the various improper actions described above. He strikes me as someone interested only in an honest vote. Writing him or harassing him in any way can never benefit the anti-fascist organizing; it can only harm it. So at present our slogan should be: "Don't waste time protesting; just vote." - - - - - [1] Russ Allbery, "Re: 7th RFD: *.anti-fascism* moderated," post, 20 Jan 1998 06:02. [2] Simon Lyall, "Re: 7th RFD: *.anti-fascism* moderated," post, 21 Jan 1998. [3] Simon Lyall, "Re: 7th RFD: *.anti-fascism* moderated," post, 22 Jan 1998. ______________________________________________________________________ -- tallpaul Fascism: We have no ethical right to forgive, no historical right to forget. back issues archived via: (No permission required for noncommercial reproduction.) ****** A-Infos News Service ***** News about and of interest to anarchists Subscribe -> email MAJORDOMO@TAO.CA with the message SUBSCRIBE A-INFOS Info -> http://www.ainfos.ca/ Reproduce -> please include this section