File spoon-archives/marxism-general.archive/marxism-general_1998/marxism-general.9804, message 116


Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 10:11:44 -0700
From: David Stevens <phylstevens-AT-worldnet.att.net>
Subject: M-G: the Gotta Move to Usenet Blues


I never got around to denouncing Rolf Martens' critique
of Mumia Abu-Jamal.  Martens said that Mumia should've
fingered the real killer on behalf of the police.
Even the shreds of bourgeois civil so-called liberties
(which put Mumia on Death Row anyway) are too much,
I guess, if one co-identifies closely with the State
or its armed creatures.  Personally, I find the
assertion that Mumia Abu-Jamal has some sort of social
obligation to do the cops' work for them to be
repugnant in the extreme.  ("Wha'ssamatta, you got
something to hide," is what one often hears from police
and prosecuting attorneys ... or inquisitorial
Stalinoids from Proyect to Martens.  They stand
objectively to the political _right_ of even the
milksopple ACLU liberals on that kind of stuff).

 Is M-G a viable forum?  Has it been a viable forum
since the one-post-per-day limit?  Was it a viable,
living breathing open forum before? ... or recently?

 In many respects, I think Usenet newsgroups are
superior for any serious and sustained dialogue.
They are _free_.  They are _open_ to anybody with
any sort of "newsreader" software, and you can get
good newsreader software for free on most machines.

 Usenet newsgroups get archived for posterity by
the commerical firm Deja News, for "free."  And
you can be darn tootin' sure that the Fed squads and
the Red squads all read some of those newsgroups, like
news:alt.politics.socialism.trotsky , if only to laugh.
Therefore, one can merely assume the worst, and get
on with business, without the overhead of needing
self-appointed Inquisitors, a job little Lou Proyect
frequently seems to be on the make for.

 One needn't read articles in a Usenet newsgroup,
so it's easy to ignore off-topic spam.  Lots of
software is available for those readers who might
decide (for example) not to listen to my rants or
even waste modem time on them.  Control is better
than with e-mail.
 
 I'm willing to continue any M-G debates in progress
over at a.p.s.t.  One need not be a Trotskyist to
post on a.p.s.t.  -- just ask Louis Proyect! 

> Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 01:17:25 +0200 (MET DST)
> From: rolf.martens-AT-mailbox.swipnet.se (Rolf Martens)
> Subject: M-G: 1) A Spoon fairytale 2) David W.'s idea 3) Technical
> ...
> [Note: this goes to besieged and threatened Marxism-General
> mailing list (M-G) and to newsgroups. Also Cc-ed to Malgosia
> Askansas and Hans Ehrbar with a couple of questions - requests -
> to them at the end of the posting.]

 It is customary, even among us low-borns, to say "please"
when one is making a request.  It rather seemed as if you
were making demands and being purposefully insulting all
at the same time.

> >The "who" command has been disabled a while ago because people
> >on the marxism lists were getting spammed.  Maybe good, mabe
> >bad, maybe both.
> 
> Very funny. "Malgosia" of course is lying through her teeth.
> Also trying to make *all* of us believe she thinks we *are*
> idiots.

 IMHO it is because of _idiotic_ charges like Rolf's that
the Spoons Collective is motivated to put the Marxism 
spaces out of their miseries.  WHO NEEDS THIS STUFF?

 BTW, most people hate to get spammed with off-list mail,
and the "who" command raises privacy and security concerns
as a direct result, which is why the software allows the
option to be changed.  I happen to think you _are_ an
idiot, for failing to consider that Malgosia means
precisely what she says.  I've seen that stuff happen,
even when no explicitly signed-up-for mailing list was
involved, like on Commie Ring.

 On Commie Ring, one guy tried to cobble together his own
ad-hoc mailing list.  Given the nature of webrings, there
is really no way I can or would stop someone from doing that.
(After all, one could merely circumnavigate the webring
and record all the e-mail addresses of site webmasters).
This person send out spamcasted "discussion" bulletins,
how-to-teach-your-grandma-to-suck-eggs type technical
newsletters, and he cc'd a long laundry list of people
who then propagated the list by hitting "reply all."

 It's a great way to disrupt a bunch of email accounts,
since people as clueless as Rolf then start sending
messages to the ad-hoc list saying "take me off this
list" or "what is this shit?" to even more of the
innocents involved in the chain.

 I do _not_ want to be a part of any such list people
attempt to cobble together from M-G subscribers.

 Frankly, I am sorry that Malgosia and Hans released the
list of subscribers to Rolf for that avowed purpose.
Marxism General comes to me in -digest form; even that
is not always worth my time to read ... look how long
it took me to reply to Martens about Mumia Abu-Jamal!
But I'd not have signed up for some sort of spamcasted
private list in the first place.  I assure all comrades
that I vigorously resist participation in  any list run
by private e-mail.
> 
> The disabling of the "who" command at some point in late 1997
> was the first act of fascist suppression against the M-G sub-
> scribers. 

 It is because of _idiotic_ charges like Rolf's claim
of "fascist suppression" that the Loonie Left is not
taken as a serious force in the labor movement.

 (Rolf makes the job much harder for the more sober
of us among the Lunar Progressive crowd).  ;-)

 but there is one person today even stupider 
than Rolf Martens (although I admit it is
very close):

> Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 05:49:23 +0200
> From: "Bob Malecki" <malecki-AT-algonet.se>
> Subject: M-G: SV: On our situation
> 
> Dear lists,
> 
> Been thinking about a temporary solution to keeping M-G and thaxis open. Why
> not move over to one of the "Usenet" lists like "alt.society.revolution" or
> in the future start a Usenet site..like "alt.discussion Marxism" or
> something..

 This guy who wants to "start a Usenet site" -- he means a
newsgroup -- was not even able to figure out how to cast
a vote for Paul Kneisel's newsgroup RFD.  This is even
funnier/stupider than the idea of Martens running a list
from a private account.  Malecki, why don't you cast a vote
on some Usenet group -- you can actually cast an explicit
abstention as ABSTAIN, you don't have to vote YES or NO --
but why don't you cast one (1) vote on one of the current
oustanding proposals before you tell us you know what
it takes to prepapre an RFD (Request For Discussion)
and guide it through the publication and discussion
process until the Call For Votes (CFV) is issued?

 After you vote on something, even as an ABSTAIN,
you get a nice little machine confirmation tickie.
Post it here, to this M-G mailing list, and then
we will know that you at least know how to cast
your own silly vote on a CFV.  Think of M-G as
a bar, and we'll give you a free drink on election
day when you come in and show us your ballot stub.

 And on Usenet, every day is election day.  ;-) 

 The last time Malecki gave a pretext for failing
to vote at all on the anti-fascist CFV, he claimed
it was because I had not spent enough time showing
him how to do it.

 Well, I'm _still_ not gonna spend much time
showing him how.   

 Bob Malecki has bent more Spoons than Uri Geller.
But that hardly means that Bob, Rolf, or any of the
other critics of the Spoons Collective are in a
position to make magic.  I'm still waiting for an
elephant to fly, but I'm not gonna hold my breath.
Such comrades never understood, or appreciated, what
Spoons was doing for us all in the first place.  It's
a sure bet they cannot successfully do it themselves.

See you on a.p.s.t.,
- David Stevens


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