||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ||| ||| ||| A N T I F A ||| ||| ||| ||| I N F O - B U L L E T I N ||| ||| _____ ||| ||| ||| ||| * News * Analysis * Research * Action * ||| ||| ||| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ***** ||/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\||/\|| || * -- RESEARCH -- * -- June 12, 1996 -- * -- RESEARCH -- * || ||\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/||\/|| RESEARCH SUPPLEMENT ***** N E T W A R : THE BATTLE OVER REC.MUSIC.WHITE-POWER By Paul Kneisel APPENDIX ONE: A Selection Of Cybernazi Documents APPENDIX TWO: Cybernazi Statement Regarding ***** INTRODUCTION Efforts by the cybernazis to establish a USENET news group called "rec.music.white-power" are over. The results of the vote have been officially announced. The fascists were smashed by a vote of 33,000 to 500! This was both the largest voter turnout in internet history and the highest margin of victory. To understand the battle for the RMW-P group it is first necessary to understand what it was *not* about; it was *not* about free speech and it was not about censorship. ----- 1. UNDERSTANDING THE INTERNET; UNDERSTANDING CYBER NAZIS The internet is a combination of many things. All of these begin with the physical infrastructure of phone lines, high-speed switches, and communications protocols with unpronounceable initials like TCP/IP. It includes e-mail, the World Wide Web, Internet Relay Chat, private discussion or mailing lists, and the news groups of USENET. The sum total of these different things, plus the users' input has been called "cyberspace" after the "consensual hallucination" first described by cyberpunk author William Gibson in his novel _Neuromancer_. These have all been described in more colorful and less technical language. The communications infrastructure has been likened to the "global information superhighway." e-mail then is the international post office; the Web the global magazine stand; IRC is the world's largest telephone party line. The news groups of USENET are like the global Village Green where people go to have passionate political debates, discuss highly technical issues in computer science, or even relax with a pleasant chat about stamp collecting or the Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs they keep as pets. The news groups are arranged into a hierarchy just like the books in the library are shelved according to the Dewey Decimal System. While Dewey's system uses numbers, the USENET grouping uses words separated by periods as in "rec[reation].music.white-power." The battle over RMW-P was whether the group should be formally established on USENET, nothing else. The nazis continued to have their e-mail, their Web pages and mailing lists like STORMFRONT, and the ability to spout hate-filled speech on the IRCs. They also had other news groups already on USENET. The neo-nazi Stormfront White Nationalist Resource Page [http://www.stormfront.org/stormfront] openly advertised these groups on its Web page. They include: , , , , , and . Stormfront also identified three cybernazi groups: CLOC/CNG, the Stormfront-L discussion list, and the Aryan Corps (headed by Milton Kleim who formally proposed RMW-P.) Finally, Stormfront provided the web addresses of other web sites to which they had some affinity. There included sites titled "David Duke for U.S. Senate" and "Pat Buchanan for President" as well as the Aryan Nations, Resistance Records, National Alliance, Skinheads U.S.A. and sixteen other Web sites. This proves that the battle over RMW-P was not about "kicking the nazis off the net" or even "blocking the nazi message." Moreover, anyone on the net can confirm this by connecting to the Stormfront web page at the address above. LOOKING AT USENET AND NEWS GROUPS Understanding the battle over RMW-P also means knowing a bit about the USENET news groups hierarchy. One group called "alt[ernate]" is the most anarchistic of all the top groups in the hierarchy. Essentially anyone can create an "alt" sub-group by convincing a single Internet Service Provider (ISP) to create it. But there is no guarantee that the group will ever propagate to any other computer on the net. Some "alt" groups are on almost all ISP sites around the world; others exist on but one or two computers. Getting a group established under any of the other USENET top hierarchies like "rec[reation], "talk", or "comp[uters]" is a more complex process. First, the people who propose the group must publish a REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL (RFP), announcing what the group is, why there is a need for the group, and other related matters. This RFP is published on the net (in a special series of news groups, of course!) for everyone to read and criticize. The RFD may be modified and a new one published. Ultimately the proponents of the new group publish a CALL FOR VOTES and everyone on the net can vote on it. (An exception is made disqualifying accounts from traditional anonymous ISPs, but this generates little or no controversy.) The votes are then counted and the voter list published to show there was no fraud in the counting. Groups that pass the vote are then approved by people coordinating the vote process and messages are sent out to all of the ISPs to create the group. (This, technically, is a "voluntary process." No ISP need create the group, nor is an ISP forbidden to create a group outside the "alt" hierarchy. However, in practice virtually all of the large ISPs automatically create groups when "advised" to do so. Likely those ISPs who advertise "full internet service" to their users have a legal obligation to do so.) The cybernazis published an RFD to create their white-power music group. Two separate tendencies immediately developed opposing RMW-P. The first, or "technical" opposition was exemplified by people like Rich Graves; the second or "political" opposition was first presented by the VOTE NO CAMPAIGN. Many of the technical objections to RMW-P were formally correct. The technical tendency challenged Kleim to show that there was sufficient interest in "white power music" to justify the formal creation of a dedicated news group. They asked for evidence of some discussion lists and wanted to see previous posts to the already existing "rec.music.misc" group where white-power music could have been previously discussed. Kleim refused to answer their questions during the months-long discussion. They also asked Kleim why the RFD had not been published in the music groups already established under "rec.music". They asked Kleim why the RFD *had* been sent to the cybernazi STORMFRONT discussion list. Kleim also refused to respond. On this basis, the technical tendency stated their was no formal basis to establish RMW-P as a separate group and opposed the creation. All of the questions posed by the technical tendency were important and related to the issue of censorship. (The fact that most of the technical people did not draw this conclusion does not change any of the issues here.) The existence of censorship logically implies the existence of two other things: a censored person and a censored message. The "censored" nazis had their e-mail, web pages, and even "rec.music.misc" to discuss their famed "censored" music. But they provided no evidence of such a desire to actually discuss the matter. In this regard they resembled a person standing outside the Village Green demanding support because they were blocked from going onto the Green and sell their paper. One notices that no one is blocking them and that they have no papers to sell. When you ask them about this, they turn away and run to another group of people and repeat their censorship claim. Worse, in the middle of the debate someone established "alt.music.white-power" and this group was widely propagated on ISP computers around the country. In other words, the cybernazis suddenly now *had* a white-power music group on which to discuss white-power music. How many posts did the "alt" group receive now that the "censored" message could go out onto the net directly, instead of through "rec.music.misc"? Literally, one during a period of at least a month. I made the post. Several years ago public television ran a week-long series of R. Wagner's Ring Cycle of operas. I caught only the last part and have not been able to find it on video. I posted a query about this to . For about a month this was the only post on the group directly relevant to the formal title of the group. There were lots of other posts. Some were about the Beatles or other music not related to white-power but cross-posted there from other music groups. Other posts were white-power messages about Holocaust Revisionism but not related to the music. This also meant that the cybernazis had to argue that they needed RMW-P to handle the vast white-power music discussions while being unable to generate even one relevant post a week to . They did, however, have an incredible ability to cry that the non-existent messages were being "censored" by people opposed to "free speech." It was clear from all of this that the battle with the cybernazis was about neither free speech, censorship, or even white-power music. You may ask what, then, the battle over RMW-P was really about? ----- 2. UNDERSTANDING THE NAZI "BIG LIE" TECHNIQUE The lie comes as naturally to the nazi as the laugh to the hyena. Within traditional fascist ideology the lie, when exposed, does not discredit the liar in the eyes of other fascists. Rather, as T. Adorno and others have written, the dishonesty is "relished in a cynical and sadistic fashion" under the ideological belief that "power, not truth" is the world's dominant force. But the lie, in particular the Big Lie, does have an effect on those who are not fascists. The "Big Lie technique" is based on the belief that the bigger the lie the more likely people are to believe some of it. The Big Lie is an ideological technique that works on the uninformed political center elements, many of whom make a virtue of their objective ignorance and pride themselves on always "taking the middle ground." By dramatically shifting one pole of debate far to the right, the nazi Big Lie technique seeks to similarly shift the position of the "happy middle." State simply that "the Jews stabbed Germany in the back [during WW I]" and the middle element concludes that perhaps a few Jews profited from the war. But claim that the entire war was started as a secret Jewish conspiracy and the same middle element concludes that the Jews were the dominant force pushing war and the greatest profiteers. There is another aspect of the Big Lie technique: that of the primary and secondary Lie. The primary lie is the fundamental untruth; the secondary lie is the one told to justify or profit from the primary one. Today, the secondary Lie frequently takes the initial form of claims of censorship or violations of free speech rights by antifascist forces. One counters lies with truth; one counters historical lies with accurate history. The idea of the primary/secondary Big Lies also creates a concept of macro/micro history. That is one challenges the primary "stab" Lie with the macro-history of WW I; so also one reveals the primary Holocaust Revisionist Lie with a macro-history of WW II. The secondary aspect of the Big Lie is dealt with by educating people about a micro-history focused on the immediate past much closer to today's events. Given the perceived temporal discontinuities of life in cyberspace, this micro-history must deal with past events only months, weeks, or even days old. This can easily be seen in the secondary lies presented by fascists over the battle against RMW-P and the destructive role that the secondary Lie -- if unchallenged -- can have on antifascist activity. At stage one, the free-speech radical accuses the antifascist of "censorship." After the fascists are defeated and claim that they waged the battle for "publicity" and that "free speech was not involved," the radical accuses the antifascists of providing the nazis with "exactly what they wanted." Then one examines the real character of the publicity and sees it was most unfavorable to the fascists. At this third stage the nazis claim that their *real* purpose was to run an intelligence operation to get antifascists to "expose themselves." Now the radical accuses antifascists of "falling for a fascist intelligence operation." (Ultimately the most parsimonious interpretation of the data may validate the hypothesis that such radicals are simply rationalizing both their political abstentionism over antifascist battles as well as their organizational inactivity during those struggles.) ----- 3. THE CYBERNAZI PRE-HISTORY AROUND Whereas cyberwar refers to knowledge-related conflict at the military level, netwar applies to societal struggles most often associated with low intensity conflict by non-state actors, such as terrorists, drug cartels, or black market proliferators of weapons of mass destruction. Both concepts imply that future conflicts will be fought more by "networks" than by "hierarchies," and that whoever masters the network form will gain major advantages. "Knowledge must become capability. -- Carl von Clausewitz, _On War_" John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt International Studies Department RAND Corporation [Journal of] _Comparative Strategy_, v.12, no. 2, 1995 The nazi strategy for infowar seems based on the assumption that antifascist forces will remain Nice, Naive, and Non- controversial. Specifically the cybernazis attempt to establish RMW-P, as well as earlier tactics in the infowar, appeared to be based on the following: 1) That the battle against cybernazis would be separated from other fascist behavior off the internet; 2) That the battle against cybernazis on the internet would be separated from other past internet behavior by the cybernazis; 3) That the battle against RMW-P would be confined to those parts of USENET news group hierarchy where discussions about the creation of news groups are routinely held; 4) That the battle against RMW-P would be conducted only within past news.group norms centered on issues like data traffic and perceived contributors to the new group. The VOTE NO CAMPAIGN succeeded because it refused to follow any of these cybernazi projections. Fascists on the net have long been conducting what the think tanks call "netwar." This netwar was declared by the nazis, continued by the nazis, and openly bragged of by the nazis on the internet. This war included the normal forms of expected nazi propaganda on their "own" groups like . Messages to these groups were (and are) routinely cross-posted to other groups devoted to Jewish, black, or gay topics. Other declared nazi efforts included less openly disruptive interventions on USENET, like targeting food-oriented groups with messages attacking kosher dietary laws and befriending people writing to . Cybernazis openly bragged on the net of their ability to "destroy" other news groups in the "alt" hierarchy. These groups included , , and . Nazi documents also revealed more ominous activity, including the use of provocateurs and special spamming offensives. One article describe tasks the cybernazis coded as "PIR" or "PIRATE," defined as "A person who will 'pirate' an account for a one-shot high-saturation dissemination of propaganda." Another, coded "IMP" and "IMPERSON" reveals cybernazi activity of having members "impersonate the enemy in posting, embarrassing the left and infuriating the public." (Reports of massive spams, death threats, and other forms of unprincipled behavior against vote takers and computer systems in the RMW-P case should be interpreted in light of the above. Despite numerous charges of improper behavior, *no* single piece of evidence has been produced linking *anyone* associated with the VOTE NO CAMPAIGN with any improper action of this nature.) Cybernazis announced their intention to establish additional locations for their propaganda in the more prestigious parts of USENET outside the "alt" hierarchy. Cybernazis seemed to think that we would only sip cyber tea from silicon cups and conduct learned discourse on the likelihood that sufficient numbers of people wanted to discuss (or oppose) the joys of listening to racist bonehead bands singing of lynching, gaybashing, and extermination camps. If-and-only-if we did not believe this the case, then we could vote "no" on RMW-P. All other reasons opposing RMW-P were pronounced "wrong" not just by the cybernazis but by other conservatives, free-speech liberals and even a radical or two. The only "wrong" occurred when people made these assumptions about antifascist counter-netwar. The 33,000-500 vote was the greatest defeat that any group suffered in the history of the net, and all who participated in the struggle can be proud of this accomplishment. But the victory also needs to placed in perspective. First, it was a victory in but one battle of a broader netwar. Second, it did not eliminate cybernazi e-mail, web pages, nor any of their other news groups on USENET. Third, it was a formal victory formally limited to the internet. WHAT THEN WAS ACCOMPLISHED? The victory still represented an enormous victory over hate speech and broader nazi propaganda. A core part of nazi claims has always been that of the "Aryan superman" and the "unstoppable nazi juggernaut." The victory over RMW-P smashed both of these claims. The establishment of RMW-P would have been a substantial victory for their propaganda machine. It would have permitted them to claim that they could destroy other USENET groups "at will" while simultaneously establishing new groups for themselves. The tasks of antifascists on the net then are to continue the actions that led to this first major victory and to establish bases of our own to combat hate speech and organizing for things like genocide, lynchings, church bombings, gay bashing, and a wave of new anti-Asian violence. Moreover, we need to use these actions in cyberspace to deepen the war against fascism off of the net. The *war* against contemporary fascism will be won in the "real world" off the net; but *battles* against fascist netwar are fought and won on the internet. ***** APPENDIX ONE: A SELECTION OF CYBERNAZI DOCUMENTS A.C.: "Overcoming Internet Surveillance: A Little Essay by A.C." no date [1995?]. Kleim, Milton John Jr.: "On Tactics and Strategy for USENET," 1995. Kalb, Jim: "Counter Revolution: Frequently Asked Questions,"1995. Richards, R.C.: "The [alt.politics.white-power] Week in Review," September 17/24, 1995 et seq. Vos, Jeff: "The C[yber] N[azi] G[roup]: An Idea for An On-Line Organization." no date [1995?] Vos, Jeff: "The Manifesto of the C[yber] N[azi] Group: Let Your Life Be A Lightning Bolt!" 1995. Vos, Jeff: "Thirteen Suggestions for Effective USENET Policy," 1995. Vos, Jeff: "Propaganda of the C[yber] N[azi] G[roup]," 1994. ***** APPENDIX TWO: Cybernazi Statement Regarding ----- ** Topic: Statement Regarding rec.music.white-power ** ** Written 4:10 PM Jun 6, 1996 by bb748@FreeNet.Carleton.CA in cdp:alt.pol.nationalism.white ** Now that the results for our newsgroup proposal have been issued, we wish to make a statement concerning our objectives. Three objectives were sought in the rec.music.white-power project: #1: Generate mainstream media publicity for the Aryan Resistance Movement and disseminate the Holy Cause of the 14 Words -- "We must secure the existence of our People and a future for White children." #2: Encourage revelation of Enemy activists' identities to facilitate counter-espionage and prevent many instances of "anti-racist" activism against the 14 Words. #3: Create a newsgroup for discussion and promotion of Aryan music. On objective one, we succeeded beyond all expectations. No informed North American is not now unaware of our existence on the Internet. National Public Radio, _USA Today_, the _St. Paul Pioneer Press_, and Minnesota Public Radio, to name a few media organs, gave us priceless free publicity for our ideas and our Holy Cause. On objective two, we also succeeded well. We now have a comprehensive list of Enemy agents who are active on the Net. Aryan Corps Counter-intelligence is now undertaking a classification and cataloguing project which will make our counter-espionage efforts much more effective. On objective three, we obviously failed, but this was expected. Nonetheless, benefit has been gained from this defeat. The Aryan Corps succeeded in organizing hundreds of Aryan Resistance Movement activists toward a constructive goal, increasing the "esprit de corps" of our ranks. We would like to thank all individuals who, for whatever reason, voted in the affirmative for our group. A special thanks is extended to Mr. Michael Handler, our vote-taker, for his herculean efforts to process the massive results for our proposal. We wish him well. -- Milton John Kleim, Jr., Proponent, rec.music.white-power; Chief Organizer, Aryan Corps -- White Wolf (RH), Deputy Organizer, Aryan Corps And on behalf of the entire Aryan Corps Network. ** End of text from cdp:alt.pol.nationalism.white ** ***** None other than Adolph Hitler has been quoted as saying: "...Only one thing could have stopped our movement -- if our adversaries had understood its principle, and from the very first day, had smashed with the utmost brutality the nucleus of our new movement..." We should take heed. -- Lorenzo Kom'Boa Ervin, _Anarchism And The Black Revolution_ * * * * * Bay Area Coalition for Our Reproductive Rights (BACORR) 750 La Playa # 730 San Francisco, California 94121 Voice: (415) 437-4032 E-Mail: On PeaceNet visit BACORR's conference. For subscription information e-mail Wendi Jones, On PeaceNet visit ANTIFA INFO-BULLETIN on or by gopher --> gopher://gopher.igc.apc.org:7021/11/europe BACORR text files can also be found on the following sites: Arm The Spirit WWW:gopher://locust.cic.net:70/11/politics/Arm.The.Spirit/BACORR FTP: ftp.etext.org --> /pub/politics/Arm.The.Spirit/BACORR FTP: ftp.etext.org --> /pub/politics/Arm.The.Spirit/Antifa/Antifa.Info-Bulletin Institute For Alternative Journalism (AlterNet) http://www.alternet.org/an/demworks/html gopher://gopher.igc.apc.org:70/00/orgs/alternet ***************************************************************** BACORR: DEFENDING CLINICS, EXPOSING TERRORISM -- BECAUSE NO ONE'S GONNA DO IT FOR US! ***************************************************************** ++++ stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal ++++ ++++ if you agree copy these 3 sentences in your own sig ++++ ++++ see: http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/spg-l/sigaction.htm ++++