A-Infos (en) The Internet Anti-Fascist: Sunday, 8 Feb 98--2:07 (#65)

[Paul Kneisel <tallpaul@nyct.net>]

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     A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
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          The Internet Anti-Fascist: Sunday, 8 February 98
                        Vol. 2, Number 7 (#65)
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We are now over a week into the voting period and we still do not have
a valid pointer or URL to the location of the crucial Call For Votes
document. We are forbidden to publish the document here. Instead, the
CFV resides somewhere in cyberspace, at the end of a long list of
earlier documents. We are permitted to tell you where this is, but we
do not officially know because the pointer we have been officially
given is inaccurate.

So you and your friends need to write the votetaker via e-mail and
request the document. 

To get your ballot and a formal description of the groups you need to
send e-mail to "cfv-request@uvv.stanford.edu" saying "Please send
soc.politics.anti-fascism CFV". The voting ends on 20 February so we
hope you can write as soon as possible. We also urge you to inform your
anti-fascist friends of this.

Monday we should be sending a detailed explanation of the various
bureaucratic means currently being used to defeat the proposal to
create the anti-fascist news groups. This will go out to people who
have specifically written me, not to the entire TINAF readership.

Meanwhile, there is a list of "frequently asked questions" that should
help when discussing the news groups with other people.

                               - - - - -

                      Frequently Asked Questions:
                       Anti-Fascist news groups

1) Won't the news groups be ineffective because they'll be flooded by
fascist and other hate-based posts?

Many Usenet news groups *are* flooded with irrelevant posts and flame
wars.

However, the anti-fascist groups are "moderated" ones. Moderators are
like the Chairs at meetings under Parliamentary Procedure. Posts to
unmoderated groups go directly to the computers acting as the servers
for the news groups. Posts to moderated groups go first to the
moderators.

Like Chairs, the moderators determine whether the post is relevant to
the declared purpose of the group. If so, the posts are passed on and
appear in the group. But the post does not appear if it is outside the
charter of the group.

2) Doesn't this violate the fascist's right to "free speech?"

This issue is probably the one that creates the most objection to the
groups, even though it is based on a misunderstanding of "free speech."
It is vital that supporters understand it and how to counter the
argument.

The Constitution as upheld by numerous Court decisions gives the
various fascist forces the right to present their opinions and to
organize around their principles. However, we are not the State and do
not represent any State attack on the fascists' existing rights. Nor do
most supporters of the new groups call on the State to "ban the
fascists" or "kick the Nazis off the net."

We are rather exercising a different set of rights: out right to speak
and our right to organize. These rights are also protected. Will our
exercise of our rights limit the effectiveness of the fascists? I
certainly hope so. But the courts only guarantee the fascists the right
to organize; there is no guarantee that their organizing be successful
and no right to organize unopposed.

Let me make the same point another way.

The courts give the fascists the right to paste up homophobic leaflets
in NYC's Village. We can organize a meeting against homophobia; the
fascists have no right to paste up their leaflets in our meeting hall.
Nor does their right to paste up leaflets limit our right to hold a
meeting against homophobia. Equally, the Courts have said that the
fascists can hold public outdoor meetings. We can organize an anti-Klan
rally in Sheridan Square and agree on a speaker's list. The KKK has no
inherent right to be placed on the podium to present their racist views
nor do they have a right to borrow our rope. The "Holocaust
Revisionists" are granted the right to organize conferences denying
that the Nazis killed roughly 6,000,000 Jews. We can organize
conferences to teach true history but we need not invite others to give
workshops to deny it.

A common civil liberties statement is "the answer to 'bad speech' is
'good speech' and more of it." We need to organize the "good speech'."

We need to be clear that the purpose of our "good speech" is not to ban
the bad but to render it ineffective.

3) Aren't your definitions of "fascism" too narrow/broad?

Broadly speaking, these are topics that can be discussed in the groups
themselves.

4) Aren't you spreading dangerous illusions that fascism can be stopped
via Internet organizing and voting?

We don't know of a single supporter who believes this.

Fascism will only be stopped by a wide variety of different actions,
some in academic seminars and some in the streets, some action designed
to educate and reconcile and some action designed to physically stop
fascist atrocities.

Our fight to create the anti-fascist news groups is only one of many
anti-fascist actions. The nature, need, and desirability for other
actions are all the things that anti-fascist must discuss. One place to
do it will be on the anti-fascist news groups.

                               - - - - -

         World Wide Protest Against Nazism: 1.500.000 letters

"This letter is meant to all organizations engaged in one way or
another to the issue of human rights and the struggle against racism.

"With great grief and rage, we have received the news about the
realization of a NacionalSocialist congress in the capital of Chile,
Santiago.

"Chile is one of the few countries which doesn't have some kind of
legislation concerning the protection of ethnical and racial minorities
against those who promote racial and ethnical hate. It is for that
reason and in honor of the one and a half million Jewish children
slaughtered by the Nazis during the holocaust, that we intend to gather
one and a half million letters (one for each child) asking the Chilean
government to prohibit these congress in behalf of the millions who
were murdered by the Nazis.

"Silence means complicity, these time we cannot remain silent !"

"Sincerily"

  --  Yoram Rovner - Director
      Der Ruf "El Llamado", casilla 33 52 Santiago de Chile
      Homepage: http://www.derruf.net
      E-mail: derruf@derruf.net
      Fax: (562) 300-2491
      Organo oficial judío independiente.

______________________________________________________________________ 

  -- tallpaul 
     Fascism: We have no ethical right to forgive, 
              no historical right to forget. 
 
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