Re: Fw: Re: [WDDM] I spit in your face

[Dan Smith <draciron(at)gmail.com>]

Thank you for the welcome. I've actually been on the list for probably
6 months or so. Lurking mostly as nothing has come up that has really
stood out one way or another.  My focus has been more in American
politics (If I remember correctly this is a multi-national group with
members in various nations).  The recent tea parties and activities
akin and or related to them.

I voted against the need for moderation in that if members clearly
denounce such posts as the one that provoked me and they are rare
things then it is no big deal. If such posts stand unchallenged or
repeatedly appear on a list the impact is immediate and severe.
Especially with the growing political tensions in the US this impacts
US members greatly. Two different reports are linking every dissenting
political group on even the most tenuous evidence and sometimes purely
fictional evidence to the Neo-Nazi movement which is code named Right
wing extremists by the American Left. For years the media and the Left
have worked hard to discredit any Conservitive movement in the US with
the taint of racism, anti-semetism, etc. This effort instantly
discredits the group in most people's eyes. The Right in turn smears
any Left wing group as Communist again discrediting any group they
don't like in most people's eyes. A post like the one I responded too
is recorded. Even if deleted off the list, even if moderated it is
still recorded. That specific post will have triggered a zillion flags
in both the US and UK internet monitoring bringing the entire groups
posting to the attention of the US and UK governments in an
unfavorable light. Both nations watch every internet communication for
keywords and that particular post I'm sure scored extremely high,
especially on US lists. The US is gearing up for a campaign against
"Right Wing extremists" and that post alone could qualify this group
as such if left unchallenged and undenounced.  Once on the list the
IRS will tend to pay special attention to members, if repeated
postings are made then Federal agents are likely to infiltrate the
group in efforts to get members to incriminate themselves which leads
to arrests of a wide sweep of the membership not just the specific
members.

These tactics have long been used against political groups in the US.
They were used against the Libertarian party early on in it's life. An
extremely unusually high number of Libertarians were targeted for IRS
tax audits. Many of the leadership of the group were convicted of
minor tax charges in these audits and a few sent to prison. The SS
(Secret service) under the Clinton administration targeted BBS's (A
sort of pre-cursor of the Internet)  because of their political
activities and dissent. It has repeatedly been used against militia
members and environmentalists in the US, even a few Islamic groups
where a Fed agent infiltrates a group that has caught the attention of
the US Gov. The Fed then stirs up the group, gets a few people to look
like they might agree to do something radical then sweeping arrests go
out. Even if cleared of charges massive damage to the home is done in
the searches, every piece of electronics in the house is confiscated,
most is destroyed if returned, as often as not it turns up "missing".
Other valuables get "lost" or are kept on technicalities. Thousands of
dollars in legal fees mount, people lose their jobs, they are slimed
by the media as Neo-Nazis or whatever it is that the group is accused
of being. Black listed from Federal jobs. That's the people that beat
the charges. The rest go to prison.

Direct Democracy is a real threat to the current regime that's held DC
for the last 20 years. There is no way bills like the bail out plan,
patriot act, CDA, Clipper chip, Schip, current budget, etc would have
passed a popular vote in the US. Every year bills that are strongly
opposed by the majority of Americans are rammed through Congress to
the dismay of the American people. This is alone is compelling
incentive to change from a representive Democracy to Direct Democracy.
If this happens the pork ceases, attacks on civil liberties cease, and
the people are actually governing themselves.

Lets just take the recent S-Chip bill. It was soundly denounced when
introduced under the Bush administration. Public opinion was so
against it they shelved the whole idea. Then suddenly a couple months
ago an almost secret vote was held, the bill was passed and signed
into law before anybody knew it was being voted on. The passing of
this bill was an affront to Democracy. It was passed in the same
secretive manner in which the CDA and Patriot acts both bills that
less than %10 of the US population would have supported were passed.
Both major US parties have repeatedly abused their power and betrayed
the people of the US in passing such bills. Were we to switch to
direct Democracy they could not pull such fast ones on us. So this
organization if it gains any momentum is a threat to the current US
power mongers. Enough of a threat that if we were considered a viable
organization we would be infiltrated and any possible means to
discredit us would be used.

The people on this list come from varied backgrounds and beliefs. It
would be extremely easy for an entity seeking to tear the organization
up to just hammer on existing divides such as Left vs Right. This post
is a great example. Extreme Right and most on the Left tend to favor
the Palistinians while centrists, Libertarians and the Right not
hooked into the KKK/Neo Nazi movement tend to favor Israel in the
conflict. The Jewish community also favors Israel as well as
non-Islamic Arabs also tend to favor Israel in the conflict. It would
be quite simple to divide the group on such an issue or issues like
abortion, gay marraige, gun control, etc. Since there appears to be a
mix of Left and Right on the list all that's needed is a red herring
to spark conflict in the group. Then you have a split, Left direct
Democracy vs Right Direct Democracy and another group disgusted with
both. Instead of working toward a common goal that transcends such
politics we are at each other's throats over an issue completely
unrelated to the goal of the group.

My suggestion is this. As members sign up they get an introductory
message. This defines what the group is about, it's goals,  some
guidelines on posts. Sometimes people will get a bit off topic, so
moderators would be helpful to herd folks off divisive topics, but
pre-moderating posts to prevent unwanted topics I think would not go
over well. Repeat offenders could of course get the boot from the list
and forums. Some of them will likely be Federal agents anyway.

My 2 cents.




On Thu, Apr 16, 2009 at 3:43 AM, M. Kolar <wddm(at)mkolar.org> wrote:
> Hi Dan (and all the newcomers, and everybody else, too)!
>
>   First, this is definitely no Neo-Nazi group!!!
>   You are here relatively new.. Have you read some of the history of WDDM?
> There is plenty of info on the site, in the archive
> (http://www.world-wide-democracy.net/archive/), in the wiki
> (http://www.world-wide-democracy.net/Wiki/ - if you are willing to spend
> some time to dig through the wiki), on what we've tried in the past.
>   This recent phase of WDDM over which I have sort of reluctantly sort of
> presided as the webmaster (after long persuasion by George Sagi, one of the
> original founding members, who has left us since then mainly because of his
> health) I have started in 2005 as an attempt in self-organization, as an
> experiment whether people who believe in DD can organize themselves as a
> group of equals without somebody giving them an initial complete set of
> rules how to operate. It was apparently not very successful, and so we still
> have only those trivial rules that I described in my previous posts. It also
> explains why all the garbage in the mailing list.
>   I definitely share your concerns "All it takes is one piece of garbage
> like this to get the whole group labelled as some skinhead, Neo-Nazi,
> Racist, Anti-Semite, KKK type group. It discredits anything we would attempt
> to accomplish."  This is also what I am afraid of. I am happy about your
> post. Maybe it will provoke members to think again more seriously about
> better organizational rules, especially membership rules.
>   I am considering my personal options, but first I guess I should finish
> reading all previous year's e-mail to have a complete picture of what was
> going on recently. I hoped that people on this list, i.e., those who prefer
> interact over e-mail in the discussion-only mode rather then on the website,
> are able to self-police themselves, respect each other ... But it doesn't
> seem so again!  Sometime it seems to me that people here want to prove by
> their behaviour that DD is not possible.
>   An extreme option would be to shut down everything, and walk away from it,
> but I will probably not do it (yet) - too much effort already put into it
> the past.
>   Or just shut down this mailing list - before digging out all the usefull
> past contributions and repost them somewhere?
>   Ideally, after all the previous experience, I would prefer/suggest to
> abandon a separate mailing list like this, and switch to an web-based system
> (Drupal, Kuro5hin) where a contribution is posted for the world to see it
> only if it gets enough support from enough other members, is discarded if it
> gets enough negative ratings. That would be best collective
> self-policing/self-organization.
> But it would not eliminate the possibility that you would have to read
> offensive contributions from other members - in order to be able to rate
> them. But maybe one could set it so that too many negative ratings in a
> certain period of a member could trigger an automatic discarding of all
> their contributions for  awhile?
> It would require some effort/time to switch to such a system. Would you use
> it???
>   Is there somebody else (especially younger, with a lot of energy left),
> who would want to take over the administration of this site, and do some
> desirable changes better and faster than me)?  I'll be happy to pass my
> webmastering to somebody else.
>   I hope that you will be thinking about all this, and make some
> suggestions.
>   In the meantime, do you want this list to be moderated??? Please, use for
> your answer the voting I have just created for this purpose,  called "Should
> the WDDM mailing list be temporarily moderated?" here;
> http://www.world-wide-democracy.net/vote/   (you have to be logged in to
> vote, and if you forgot your password, you can get a new (temporary) one by
> mail if you got  this, see here how:
> http://www.world-wide-democracy.net/forum/read.php?6,100,100#msg-100
> Are 4 days enough to complete this vote?
>
>    Mirek
>
> P.S. Fred has very recently
> (http://www.world-wide-democracy.net/forum/read.php?6,944,944#msg-944)
> brought to our attention this new voting system:
> http://zelea.com/project/votorola/d/theory.xht
> Have a look. I am not yet sure it could help us to go forward better if we
> implemented this.
>
>
> Dan Smith wrote:
>
> > I was under the impression this group was dedicated to promoting
> > direct Democracy not hatred of people for ethnic or religious
> > persuasion.
> >
> > I am not Jewish, I am not Left or Right wing, unless you follow the US
> > Homeland security doctrine. If anything I am more of a Libertarian.
> >
> > I find the Neo-Nazi bull rather offensive, counter productive and
> > having no place in any group I am a member.   I believe in direct
> > Democracy, that it's time has come. That an end of representive
> > Democracy is coming soon and that this is a good thing.
> >
> > So is this some sort of cover for a Neo-Nazi group? If so why is
> > garbage like this allowed on this list? All it takes is one piece of
> > garbage like this to get the whole group labeled as some skinhead,
> > Neo-Nazi, Racist, Anti-Semite, KKK type group. It discredits anything
> > we would attempt to accomplish.  I've heard it all before. Had many
> > Neo-Nazis attempt to recruit me over the years. The Jews are not what
> > is wrong with the world. They are people some good some bad.
> >
> > Drac