Date: 16 Jul 96 02:19:18 EDT
From: "Chris, London" <100423.2040-AT-compuserve.com>
Subject: Photographs of subscribers


It has taken me some time to work out from the various
comments, indignant or ironical, because I cannot easily use uuencode,
that the files posted by Jay really were pictures of Luis and 
Marcelina, on a public demonstration on July 4th this year.

I had assumed benevolently when New Flag first protested about 
a week ago, that they were referring to photos that Jay had taken
as souvenirs last year, and that New Flag were being a bit 
paranoid about the security problems of being half public half
clandestine. 

It now appears probable that Jay has become so convinced by the "Maoist"
rhetoric that he either volunteered to Adolfo or was asked by
Adolfo to take photographs which Adolfo could look at. This would
be consistent with Adolfo's desire to see people's faces. So 
Adolfo could identify whether Luis and Marcelina are individuals
suspected previously of being enemy agents.

If so Jay and Adolfo have to take responsibility for their actions.

In a situation of solidarity with a banned organisation fighting
a guerilla war, in which there is undoubtedly espionage going on
by the state, marxists could not say that counter espionage 
is in principle wrong. Jay had a right to take the photographs
and Marcelina also had a right to protest. Whose credibility is 
damaged most is a matter of judgement by all subscribers.

But why did Jay publish the photos on this l'st? That seems very 
hard to understand and defend. Arguably he is convinced already
by the rhetoric that Luis and Marcelina are 95% probable enemy 
agents and the widest circulation of their pictures is in the 
interests of the proletariat, or words to that effect. 
He wished to challenge Marcelina by nailing "her hide to the wall".

But I suspect that Jay was more influenced by anger at 
Marcelina's attacks on his comrade Tony.

Jay has not responded to my challenge himself to put up or shut up
about the allegation that New Flag are in the pay of the intelligence
services.

As one of the few people on this l'st who has had contact with them
it is now urgent he clarifies his position, in the light of any
last minute information he has received.

For we have crossed a threshold. This is not about political line,
or censorship. Participants from the right or the left could
equally be suspected just conceivably of being in the pay of
the intelligence services. Anyone might have their 
photograph published by a political opponent convinced they 
should be unmasked. Someone might decide that Zeynep's words 
are honeyed and conceal an act of gross treachery towards
a small but pure revolutionary group in Turkey and she should be
unmasked. 

I do not think the gravity of this question should be overlooked
by a lot of sound and fury, by Adolfo taunting Marcelina about her
understandable anger, or trying to treat Malecki as a fool
for threatening to expose such actions far and wide. 

I would ask members of the l'st to try to think about the implications
of whether we expected a threshold on this question, 
whether Spoons could possibly discuss any technical way of 
dealing with this (the attached files question may be 
important in its own right, particularly if anyone wishes to 
poison this l'st with a virus), or whether we just want to 
try to police ourselves as a community by emphasising the need for 
some common standards for polemic.

And on this last point I would end by again asking  Jay to 
produce the best evidence he has available that New Flag are
in the pay of the intelligence services, or withdraw the charge.

Chris B
London.

(I take the next wave of denunciations by Adolfo that I am a bourgeois
liberal, and new Orwell, a Jesuit, a Home Secretary, or otherwise
in the pay of the government, and should be mocked by having a mantra 
sung about me for my pains, for granted. I am quite used to this now, 
and it is counter-productive as a diversionary tactic as it just prompts
me to attempt to focus more.) 
 


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