From: "Harald Beyer-Arnesen" <haraldba-AT-online.no>
Subject: Re: AUT: Remove Scott from this list!
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2003 02:39:51 +0100



----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave Graham" <davgraham-AT-merseymail.com>
To: "Harald Beyer-Arnesen" <haraldba-AT-online.no>
Cc: <aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Sent: 12. februar 2003 22.08
Subject: Re: AUT: Remove Scott from this list!

Gra and all

I find this a discussion of interest also outside of the context
of aut-op-sy and this particular dispute. Obviously I agree with
Rata and Ilan on this (whatever their disagrements concerning
a-infos). Anyway Rata articulated my thoughts better than me:

<< Defending ones social space (even virtual) from authoritarian/Stalinist
intrusion is not what I would call censorship... Mailing lists are made with
different names, statements and goals because there is a need for setting up
the space for discussion of certain subject and in certain ways too. If you
are questioning this I don't see the reason to make any specific mailing
lists. Mailing list called "left wing" or something similar could get all
kind of loonies that do describe themselves as left-wingers together with
anarchist/communists and other revolutionary left and I would like to see
how constructive discussion you could have there.... >>

My experience is that 'bozo filter' seldom works, and
it is all to easy for one or two people to be disruptive and
drive those the list was intended for away. More often
than not, this is also what happens. We have a limited
time and energy -- and a life outside of cyberspace --
and I for one get frustrated by to too many intruding
commericials during a film. Of course also in that context
the "delete/switch channels buttons" is used.
There something else if I -- in a masochistic mood -- should
deliberately seek out that stuff. But to have spaces
guaranteed free from such intruding mental noise is also
very much to conquer a bit of freedom,--  part of the struggle
against the new enclosures one might say.
    If I go to the disco, that is free choice, but I want to have
the freedom to have spaces  where the sound of "mother
nature" is all that can be heard.
        The censorship argument -- not used by you but by
Thomas -- I do not buy at all. It would have been valid if
there was only one channel. But when you put out a
libertarian communist journal for instance, it is is not for
to fill it with Leninst; Social Democratic, Christian Democratic
etc articles. You have an editorial collective that picks
and refuses articles depending on if they subjectively
find them interesting in relation to what was the purpose
of issuing such an journal in the first place. In this, you put
no restrictions on Leninst; Social Democrats, or Christian
Democrats in publising their favorite nonsense elsewhere.
         On a whole other level, while I am not a vegetarian
myself, and never am likely to become one, I do not
demand meat in the name of freedom if visit a vegetarian
restaurant. I respect their freedom to have a space where
only vegetarian food gets served. Closer to home, it is helpful
to have particular lists for platformist anarchist and anarcho-
syndicalist, as well as a class struggle, pro-organizational
space where they can meet . Personally I find anybody-that
defines-themselves as anarchist lists a waste of time and
energy, but for those who might  think otherwise such
spaces are available.
        I  would not mind at all if I was "censored" on this
list for going too much outside of the framework those
who set it up intended.
        What has been great with this list is that it had provided
a space for libertarian communist whether they have marxist
anarchist or whatever roots. That I might agree more with
you than many who define themselves as anarchists comes
as no surprise to me.

Does this at all make sense to you?

At last, I do have friends that come out of a more or less
trotskyist tradition, but they have still always been
libertarian bent, had a real democratic practice, critical,
and never defended the authoritarian
and instrumental rubbish. That generally produces one of
two results, "left social democrats" or just-about-
anarchists/libertarian communist but a bit more "pragmatic".
        I even have a good friend who was a member of
the Maoist party here for about 20 years. Though being
among the "core proletariat," also by family background
for generations, he was allowed a greater degree of
of heterodoxy. Although they wanted him to take self-
critique for playing cards rather than talking politics in
the lunch breaks at job, he always somehow managed
to keep his sanity; and has nothing good to say about
the party he was part of and its lunatic and authorian
ways today. His stand now is pretty much that the
anarchist have all the right ideas but are not pragmatic
enough.

At the moment I will wait and see how things develops
before deciding on staying or quitting the list.

Harald

PS.

"... is it possible that Scott has simply tried your patience
too much and goaded you into this latest response," you
ask. He certainly has. It brings back the memories of that
surreal world when the Maoist here where discussing the
percentage of Stalins good and bad sides, (the "good" was
of course dominant) while defining the support for Stalin
as the watershed that divided "communists" from the
"petty bourgeoisie" .  Or more recent "discussion" with
"International Socialists" explaing how it was necessary to
massacre workers when they did not understood their
own good. That is what they called "socialism from below".
It males me puke. It does not help that they all sound like
tape recorders (with a few exceptions).  And I do not
accept that it is just a difference of opinion, or the claim
that we are struggling for the same ends. Well maybe if
they refind themselves prior to being brainwashed by this
instrumental capitalist thought, placing them politically and
in human terms far to the right of almost any liberal or
social democrat. The only cure is either time or to
confront them. Part of that confrontation is saying that
simple truth that we have nothing in common. If socialism/
communism can mean anything at all, including the defence
of "workers states" as North Korea; of Pakistani and
Indian ruling classes "right" to nuclear arms -- so better
put fear or worse into the working classes of the named
countries whose sweat and toil also were exploited
to produce these "liberatory means,"-- and so on, then
it becomes meaningless. Anybody able to see anything
emancipatory at all in North Korea belongs to a radical
different "party" than I do, and in my book are lightyears
away from anything to do with self-emancipatory
working class project. This extreme form of capitalist
alienation in the name of  sociaism/communism has
done enough harm. When people start sounding like
tape-recordings or Jehova's Witnesses  then a
warning signal should chime, likewise and generally linked,
when all real living human beings seem to have been
dissolved into the great vacuum of instrumental thought.




> Dear Harald [and everyone else]
>
> A long time ago Ben Seattle made a very interesting argument about how a
> new movement would clarify its ideas - using cyberspace. One of his
> proposals was what he called a 'bozo filter' - people posting stuff that
> most others disagreed with would after a while simply find their posts
> ignored so that their social 'space' would become much reduced.
>
> If I recall correctly [and Ben may still be lurking on this list so he can
> explain it better] he thought/argued that this was a necessary evil, part
> of the process of self-clarification that any movement must do to shake of
> 'the muck of ages' and renew itself.
>
> At the moment there is too much noise in the signal to noise ratio - but I
> feel we cannot turn off the transmitter in the way you suggest.
>
> As a matter of interest how many people on the list are using the delete
> button as the 'bozo filter'?
>
> I normally find myself in agreement with you Harald [and I say that never
> having thought of myself as an anarchist nor an anarcho syndicalist] but
> not this time - is it possible that Scott has simply tried your patience
> too much and goaded you into this latest response?
>
> Gra






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