for the List [was neo-Nazis on the Net]

[Alan Westrope]

In a pair of recent messages, Vaska <vaska at geocities.com> wrote:

>If you have any more questions or comments on this topic, please post them
>on the list becuase the issue is not a private matter at all and it might
>have some relevance there in the context of Pynchon's own long-standing
>anxieties over things [neo-]Nazi. In fact, seeing how this indeed is the
>case, I shall post our exchanges, with your name and identity protected, so
>that other people may have a chance to express whatever opinons they have on
>this topic.

OK, since you asked, I'll point out that Pynchon also has long-standing
anxieties over free speech, as illustrated by his support for that other
reclusive novelist who wrote, "What is freedom of expression?  Without
the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist."

>The only right -- and not any authority at all -- at issue here is my [as
>well as your] right to vote.  Please allow me to bring that point to your
>attention once more:
>
>        To create such a group, [you] have to win a referendum that is
>        always organised when a new usenet group is created. All
>        persons with an email address, and only those, can vote in
>        this referendum.

>I don't know the procedure used in establishing the kiddy-porn group you
>mention.  If it involves a voting process of this kind, then all I can say
>is that it is truly tragic and unforgivably shameful that we, as a society,
>care about our children so little as to find it too bothersome to send an
>e-mail vote which might work to protect them from the more perverse and
>predatory expressions of human sexuality.  

Sorry to disabuse foax of their unsullied views of Usenet as a shining
example of "Electronic Democracy," but historically these votes have
been won by the side most willing to stuff the ballot box with forged
email.  I suggest making a pot of coffee, grabbing a copy of, say, the
alt.2600 FAQ, and, to paraphrase the Captain of the Seahorse, "Hard a-port
twenty-five!"  The technically clueless shall not inherit the Net.

>Perhaps some background information might help here.  A couple of years ago,
>one of the well-knows Canadian neo-Nazis, unable to push his stuff over here
>any more [since we do have hate-speech laws in Canada], tried to use the
>Interenet to disseminate the outright hate-mongering lies he was peddling.

>This was no joke, since some of the stuff was relatively well-written AND
>was finding its ways into our schools, both here in Canada and over there in
>Germany.  The German government, which also has some laws about this
>particular type of thing, then stepped in to deprive Zundel of his new means
>of poisoning some other people's minds
    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Ah yes, the poisoning of minds:  A capital offense, for which Zundel has
earned the gallows!  And then to hunt down the other Great Poisoner, the
blaspheming infidel Rushdie!

Seriously, I think there's quite a difference between posting to
alt.baseball groups that "Marge Schott should be shot!" and shooting
her.  I have no problem with Zundel's thugs posting their idiocies to
Usenet; I will likewise have no problem with shooting them if they try
to put their goals into practice.

>It is also a matter of record that Zundel and his cohort have found it
>EXCEEDINGLY hard to go on raising *any* money or attracting new members ever
>since they were slammed with a court order against further publication and
>dissemination of their anti-Semitic, white-supremacist propaganda here in
>Canada.  They have also been barred from using the postal system to send any
>kind of hate-literature abroad.  This is why he and other like-minded types
>are trying, once again, to gain a foothold on the Internet and are doing it
>under the guise of a rec.music usenet group.  

>Finally, and at the risk of being accused of blowing my own horn here, I
>will now say that I am probably the last person on this list who needs to be
>reminded of the value of free speech.  I have supported and actively worked
>for the right to free speech in places where doing so can land you in
>prison.  Even in Toronto, and because of the work I was doing to protect
>free speech, I've had my phone conversations monitored by a *foreign*
>government very eager to know what I was up to.

Ah Canada!  Ah irony!  Freedom of Speech for the Politically Correct,
Denial of Postal Service for the rest.  I believe a simultaneous Burning
of the Hate-Literature in Berlin and Toronto is in order, accompanied by
rallies and torchlight parades, broadcast on CNN.  Fortunately, the
Internet is immune to such statist attempts at censorship, whether
by the U.S. Congress or the Iranian Parliament.  If their newsgroup vote
fails (and I hope it does), they'll start a mailing list, web site, or
whatever, maintained someplace like Anguilla if necessary.  (The
transnational nature of this list is instructive.)

>For all I know -- since I
>have no means of tracing that -- they may still be reading my e-mail: and
>getting some insight into Thomas Pynchon's writings, at least.

If they are, it's only because you let them:  a lot of people have gone to
a helluva lot of work to bring free, easy-to-use, military-strength
encryption to anyone who takes the trouble to use it.  Check out www.pgp.com
and www.ifi.uio.no/pgp, or visit the privacy links on my web site.

In case I haven't been clear:  I detest the views of scum like Zundel.
I also devote time, money, and effort into making the Net unconditionally
secure so that anyone can state their opinions, no matter how reprehensible
they are to me personally.

-- 
Alan Westrope      PGP public key:  http://www.crl.com/~awestrop
<awestrop at crl.com>                  also via keyservers & finger
<awestrop at nyx.net>
PGP 0xB8359639:    D6 89 74 03 77 C8 2D 43   7C CA 6D 57 29 25 69 23