Sometimes I amaze even myself, or whoever people think I am. This was written by Tallpaul, everyone's favorite anti-fascist activist. -rich INFORMATIONAL FOLLOWUP TO INTERNET NEWS GROUPS "rec.music.white-power" "soc.politics.marxism" "talk.politics.natl-socialism" Because of the role I played in the campaign to get people to VOTE NO on "rec.music.white-power" many people have sent me e-mail asking about the vote results on several political news groups on the internet. The following is the latest data available as posted in the official USENET news group called "news.groups". 1. "rec.music.white-power" (RMW-P) Today, May 21 at 04:46 GMT, the vote taker Michael Handler posted a message to "news groups" that read: "I have completed the tabulation of the rec.music.white-power vote, and submitted the results to David Lawrence. They should be posted shortly. "I will comment more on the subject, including regarding the delay in the posting of the results, once the results have been posted to news.announce.newgroups." The battle over RMW-P was perhaps the most intensive in the history of the internet and informal earlier reports indicated the raw vote broke the all-time internet record by a factor of two. The results of the vote, whatever they are and however they were counted, promises to be equally if not more controversial, particularly because of the two+ month delay between the vote deadline and the announcement of the results. I will inform all of you what the vote is as soon as it is posted. 2. "soc.politics.marxism" Yesterday, May 20 at 22:12 (GMT -04:00), the vote taker Brennan Price posted a message to "news groups" announcing that the group passed the vote 355 to 106. There is now a formal five-day waiting period for people to comment/protest/etc. on how the vote was counted, the method(s) used to invalidate ballots, and so forth. I will also keep you informed of how this discussion unfolds. 3. "talk.politics.natl-socialism" (TPN-S) R. Graves was the original proponent of TPN-S. He had opposed the earlier RMW-P group but on technical, not political reasons, and he does, as he once put it, "not consider [himself] anti-racist." Rather Graves opposition centered on whether the nazi news group had demonstrated sufficient interest as a music group, whether it had been properly proposed in terms of proper USENET/uunet electronic paperwork at the like. His version of the Kleim proposal for a nazi group was designed, in part, to straighten out this paperwork. Highly skilled technically, Graves seems quite clueless about the nature of fascism as a political tendency off the internet in the real world. He has opposed individual cybernazi dirty tricks in cyberspace, including some first-class technical tracking of cybernazis using anonymity and other devices to hide their identities. On the other hand, he has announced, for example, that there are only some one-to- two thousand hardened nazis in the entire world. Before the vote on SPM was announced, Graves stated he was "thinking of dropping" his proposal for the nazi group on the grounds (among others) that even the cybernazis themselves showed little interest in it. However, today at 00:35 (GMT -7:00) he posted to "news.groups" under the subject line "Going forward with talk.politics.natl-socialism after all" that: "The recent 60 Minutes interview with Dr. William Pierce, in which Mike Wallace was obviously uninformed about the person with whom he was speaking, has reestablished the need, as far as I am concerned, for a public forum dedicated to the discussion of national socialist movements. With Milton Kleim's permission, I will list him as an official co-proponent on the third RFD, for which I believe we just barely have time." Kleim accepted almost immediately. Graves's new view threatens additional ominous organizing by cybernazis on the net as they go for an additional news group even before the results of their previous organizing effort is announced. Nor does Graves's reason for going ahead seem particularly convincing. A search of the internet reveals only four mentions of Dr. William Pierce in recent times. One of them is by Graves himself a week or so before the Wallace interview. The other three were all responses to the interview. Nor does it seem likely that Mike Wallace or his staff will be avid readers of Graves's proposed TPN-S. Graves's decision also comes immediately after the statement that the votes on the earlier cybernazi proposal RMW-P were counted. It is possible that Graves's genuinely changed his mind (as did Milton Kleim) independently of the success of SPM and the vote on RMW-P. But one wonders how many will be convinced that this is the case versus the number that will see Graves's reference to Pierce/Wallace as more rationalization than reason. Still, until Graves's third version of the proposal is written and posted there seems little to be gained by any formal speculation on his motives or those of the cybernazis. Nor, until the vote on RMW-P is announced does it seem beneficial for new people to closely follow the post-announcement followups to "news.groups." I and others will be closely monitoring the group and will keep you informed of what is happening, what we think the significance is, and our thinking on how best to support, oppose, or avoid it. The short time line is uncertain. (Thus I am not even getting this ready to mail until I have again checked the group when I next log on.) But for political activists it promises to be an "interesting" summer and fall. --tallpaul@nyc.pipeline.com Post Script to New Readers: This series of letters originated with what a few of us jokingly call the ANOREV INTERCEPTS. I returned to the internet in September 1995 after a long absence. Various technical people who were anti-fascist but not activists had been following cybernazi organizing attempts in cyberspace. They had assembled a series of documents and analyses of the nazis, and, knowing that I was an antifascist activist sent me copies. (Some years ago Anglo/US intelligence intercepted and decoded some detailed material from Soviet intelligence that was code-worded VERONA. ANOREV is just that word spelled backwards.) The ANOREV material proved to be highly accurate. Based on this, I started the series called "This computer kills fascists," posting material to friends and other net activists.