RE: The Email Bombing Incident

From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Tue Aug 07 2001 - 23:14:22 MDT


Joe Dees has kindly responded to my inquiring about the so-called
email bombing incident (I called it that). I had asked that the
language be free of political partisanship, and there was really
only one *flagrant* violation, to wit, "to the right of the NRA".
I hope that any replies omit further political polarization.

Sadly, instead of just the facts, for which I asked, there were
a few totally unnecessary insults delivered, e.g., "two-bit satraps".
Now I think that I'm getting the picture, thanks. I'm not making any
judgments, and I believe that you were probably far from guiltless
yourself. Please, let's not get into virulent or extended discussions
of this, if we can avoid it.

Thanks,
Lee

> >I am very curious about an historical event in which Joe Dees
> >was the alleged victim of an email campaign. It has become
> >unclear whether there was a "campaign" at all, or whether it
> >was directed at his own personal email address (or a list to
> >which he merely was subscribed), or to what degree people went
> >in order to suppress dissenting views.
> >
> >(I myself would prefer that Mr. Joe Dees tell his story first,
> >if he is so inclined, in non-partisan objective language.)
> >
> >And, if I'm not being insulting towards anyone with these
> >requests (for which I do apologize), I would be very happy
> >if all accounts were free of political partisan content,
> >i.e., that no observer would be capable of determining
> >who was liberal or who was conservative, or whatever.
> >
> >Needless to say, insulting terms like "droogies" or whatever,
> >should be omitted when it's just the facts that should be
> >foremost first.

Joe wrote

> I received the emails because I was on the list; they were posted to the list,
> but directed to me. This travesty was meant to enforce a progun hegemony
> somewhere to the right of the NRA on this list, by means of attack, insult,
> intimidation, mischaracterization and outright lying. They accused me of
> wanting to ban all guns for anyone, even though that was never my position,and
> I own five of them myself, questioned my patriotism (I'm a military vet), as if
> not sharing their views was an act of treason that should be punishable by
> death, accused me of being a stalking horse for various gun-control groups even
> though I have never been a member of one or knowingly corresponded with anyone
> who was (not that there's anything wrong with that), and branded me the worst
> thing they could dream up, a left-liberal socialist collectivist commie pinko
> (not all in one email, but those terms were used). In fact, I'm a fiscal
> conservative and social liberal. The people who were engaged i!
> n !
> this attempt to silence/suppress me by means of a combination of
> cyberbrowbeating and sheer volume, included, mainly, James Rogers, Lee Daniel
> Crocker and Brian Williams (although there were others), but was spearheaded by
> Michael Lorrey. All people have to do is look in the archives for email from
> these individuals and replies posted by me to them to substantiate that such a
> sustained blitzkrieg occurred. The funny thing about the whole debacle (funny
> as in self-contradictory) was witnessing self-labeled libertarians, who
> ostensibly despise dictatorial, totalitarian, single-view, party-line,
> enforced-uniformity, no-tolerance-for-dissent/differing-views regimes, behaving
> like two-bit satraps by attempting to engage in the cyberequivalent of a pogram
> of memetic cleansing (Can anyone say 'true colors"? I know you can). In my
> opinion, Sean Kenney's characterization was mild and over-kind. And in A
> CLOCKWORK ORANGE, the term 'droogies' meant friends who got together to perpe!
> tr!
> ate violence; therefore I do not consider it an unfair characterization. I,
> however, refused to back down, roll over and be a willing victim - I'm just not
> built that way. When a moratorium was declard on the topic, the major
> perpetrators formed their own list, exi-freedom (free from dissenting views,
> I'll wager). Of course, far be it for these individuals to actually own up to
> their own past actions, even though there were many list witnesses to this
> cyber-pile-on, and this message will most probably provoke them to, oblivious
> to the blatant irony, deny them, even with archive evidence and as they attempt
> to repeat them.



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