Date: Sun, 3 May 1998 10:56:57 -0400 (EDT)
From: Gerald Levy <glevy-AT-pratt.edu>
Subject: Re: AUT: sticks, stones, and solidarity


Franco wrote:
 
> As the second "peudo-co-founder" of this list, I can just associate
> myself to Steve's personal (and political) dismay. I think that the
> level of flaming and personal insults on this list have reached a
> point which can easily be a prelude to self-destruction, unless we
> all get back to a committment to respectful, comradely discussion,
> which is what has kept this list alive for three years. I personally
> (even if there is nothing I can really do about it) find intolerable
> that the list is used to settle personal accounts, often inherited
> from other lists that have been killed by the same kind of stuff.
> This is the reason, I think, for which many comrades (among whom is
> myself) got tired with the discussion on the Zaps. I am afraid that
> such threads are instrumentalized either for petty personal revenge
> or for a struggle for sectarian forms of "hegemony" that make no
> sense in a forum like this.
> <snip> I think that in these "directions" no 
> place can be allowed for flaming, name calling and personal insults.

Comrades Franco and Steve:

To begin with, let me apologize for raising this topic on aut-op-sy. I
realized there would be some who wouldn't like it *BUT* I see it as my
*responsibility* to warn listmembers about this person. It is not
"personal" -- it's political. It's not "flame", it's a matter that is
thoroughly documented.

Let me ask you (Franco) some hypothetical questions:

1) If someone showed up on aut-op-sy who had maliciously accused other
activists in South Africa of being agents of the South African Security
Police without any evidence whatsoever, do you believe it would be your
responsibility to inform listmembers?

2) If a anti-apartheid "activist" had threatened to -- and had! --
inform on other activists to their employers (and therefore threatened
their jobs) and had then showed-up on aut-op-sy, do you think it would be
prudent to warn other listmembers that they also could be subject to this
retaliation?

At issue is something very basic: solidarity. If you just turn your heads
when other activists are being attacked, then what becomes of solidarity?

Jerry



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