Ian & Stuart's Australian Mac: Not for Sale/Another.not.for.sale (Australia).iso/hold me in your arms/Michael Ney's Cyberculture/Cyberculture/Electronic Activism-har

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ELECTRONIC ACTIVISM (I) (1360 lines 1 response [e-mail] - Youth and Activism - Oct
4, 1992 From: Harel Barzilai (misc.activism.progressive co-moderator)

Harel Barzilai is a graduate student at Cornell University. He is co-founder and co-moderator of
the *ACTIV-L* mailing list and UseNet's misc.activism.progressive  (MAP), and an avid electronic
activist, currently working on the PSN-phase (Electronically linked Progressive Student
Newspapers) of the PACH project, described in Part II of this article.

C o n t e n t s

.1: Purpose & Overview .2: Introduction to Electronic Activism .3: How E-Mail Works .4: Using
email and the Usenet for Electronic Activism

.5: An overview of the UseNet .6: The Usenet Newsgroups .7: Explosive Growth

.8: Electronic Mailing Lists and "Listservs"

.9: {Transition section and} IGC - Networks for Activists .10: A.P.C. {The Association for
Progressive Communications}

.11: ACTIV-L and IGC Confront the Gulf Crisis .12: Side-Bar I on Gulf Crisis .13: Side-Bar II on
Gulf Crisis .14: Side-Bar III on Gulf Crisis

.15: A New Usenet Newsgroup {misc.activism.progressive (MAP)} .16: MAP's Mission

.17: Side-Bar I on "Spreading the Word" .18: Side-Bar II on "Spreading the Word" .19: Side-Bar
III on "Spreading the Word" .20: Final Page

This is the TEXT version. "TeX" and ".dvi" (fully typeset versions are available by ftp - email
for details). (Part (II) continues with "MAP (17) Today and the PACH Project")

E L E C T R O N I C   A C T I V I S M : Part I  -  B y   H a r e l   B a r z i l a i

PURPOSE : This article is in response to the call for articles ("long-standing projects ...
accomplishments, plans, problems, and reasons why new people ought to become involved," Journal
of the 5th Year, Feb. '92 issue). It is also a response to Edward Herman's article {Democratic
Media} in {Z Papers}, since:

(1) Herman's otherwise comprehensive article lacks substantial coverage of electronic activism
and electronic media; and (2) We would like to show (in the second of the article's two parts)
how electronic activism can address some of the key problems and issues Herman raised as
essential to "democratizing the media", and how it can help overcome, more generally, obstacles
to effective activism.

The article covers: (A) WHAT'S OUT THERE: A (Partial) Overview of the Electronic Networks; (B)
OUR PROJECT: Describing the projects we are working on; (C) HOW Electronic Activism can address
problems raised by Herman, and how Electronic Activism can enhance activism in general; (D)
THINGS we need help with now, why people should get online and become electronic activists, and
possible future projects.

(A) and (B) are integrated into a "guided-tour of the electronic world" in the first part of the
article, while (C) and (D) are dealt with in the second part of the article, which also sheds
more light on (B).


O V E R V I E W

The first part of this article is essentially a "crash course" on the electronic networks - more
accurately, on some of the main ones, since there is a whole "electronic world" out there the
description of which would take entire books. We will look at several facets of that world, and
then, alongside each one, offer an example showing how it applies to activism. We will be going
from simpler to more elaborate forms of electronic activism; in so doing, we will be tracing the
evolution of the projects described more fully in the second part, which grew out of a series of
earlier and simpler experiments in electronic activism.

The second part of the article describes the specific project a number of us are working on,
including what we've accomplished, the future potential, and some problem areas and places where
we need help.

*** *** ***

IT WAS BACK IN '86, when I was a first-year student at Dartmouth, that I started "playing"
online, sending and receiving electronic mail ("email", pronounced "E-mail") - mainly between
Dartmouth and Harvard University where a similarly inclined friend was enrolled. Although email
was not new then, it was very exciting to be able to correspond with a friend miles away in this
manner - without using stamps and envelopes, or spending money on long-distance phone calls.

Back then, the "transmission times," or how long it took from the moment you told the computer to
send your message to when your recipient's machine received it, usually took several hours, and
sometimes one and a half or even two days. Still, this was better than what the "online"
community oftens refers to as "US mail" or "paper-mail" - a common derisive pun being to replace
the "m" with an "n": "I will send that by USnail" - that incredibly slow medium taking two or
three {days} to arrive at its destination, or "Snail-mail."

Today, email is an essential tool in a world-wide community of people and information-exchange.
Every day, this community uses email to exchange countless pieces of information - not just
letters, but articles, newsletters, and so on; other components in this world of
telecommunications are "posts" on electronic bulletin board systems (BBSs), and even digitally
encoded graphics and video images.

Email today is also generally much faster; at least, on the primary electronic networks (for
example, the {Internet) which are accessible from most major universities and many businesses. In
fact, sending and receiving email is often "instantaneous," taking under a second, and among the
"well-connected" networks, usually within a minute or so, even between locals thousands of miles
apart.

As a test, I just logged into my California-based {Peacenet} account, and sent an electronic
"test message" to my Cornell account where I am composing this article. It then took me seven
seconds to return to my Cornell account and check my mail, by which time the message was there.
This is what is meant by "essentially instantaneous" - as instantaneous as one is able to
notice(1).

________________________________________________________________

Note (1): {Peacenet} and {Econet} are run by the Institute for Global Communication, and are
described in more detail below.

________________________________________________________________

Many of us on the "Nets" - whether electronic activists, hackers, hobbyists, or just electronic
pen-pals - have corresponded with people in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, and Japan, as well
as Canada and Latin America(2) and transmission times between such remote locations can be very
short as well, when messages are not sent during times of "peak load." The "Culture Shock," in
the pleasant sense of the word, I can only compare with the wonderful experience, following my
fairly insular high-school years, of going to college and meeting so many people from all over
the world - including anti-apartheid activists from South Africa, friends I made from India, and
others.

________________________________________________________________

Note (2): Africa and other parts of the third world are also getting online, including NGOs
(Non-Governmental Organizations), in particular, in preparation for the UNCED (United Nations
Conference on Environment and Development) conference this summer in Brazil. Microcomputed-based
"FIDO" systems like NGONET and ESANET (Eastern and Southern African Network) are linked to the
nodes of the Association for Progressive Communication (APC). {APC} is described below following
"{IGC} - Networks for Activists"

See "Low cost global electronic communications networks for Africa" by Mike Jensen and Geoff
Sears (Director of {IGC}), posted, Jan 19, 1992, to {Peacenet}'s "reg.africa" conference.}

________________________________________________________________

Email is - or rather, can be - a very intimate medium. I will not try to convey how or why this
is so, leaving the discovery to be made by those who venture online. However, it is worth noting
here that this is so, perhaps, because of and not in spite of the anonymity the medium affords -
your race, sexual orientation, whether you are tall or short, how much you weigh, the way you
dress, how often you shower, etc (and, if you have a name like mine, your gender) are not very
obvious to the people with whom you communicate, nor are these attributes of others obvious to
you. Ideas, humor, personality - - whatever the participants choose to reveal of themselves, and
not more - - is what comes through(3)

________________________________________________________________

Note (3): Various visual aides have been developed to convey **italics** and *_underlined_* or
*>>EMPHASIZED<<* words you can even *< - - POINT at*. On the {Usenet} (see below), there are the
famous "smileys" conveying humor, anger, surprise, etc, and based on modifications of the
sideways smiling-face comprised of three characters: (-:

________________________________________________________________

HOW E-MAIL WORKS:

I don't know {exactly} how email works - any more than most people who don't have a degree in
electronic engineering know the precise workings of their television set - we will examine the
analog of "How to use your Television set"

It should first be noted that there are many different mail-sending and mail-reading utility
programs available, depending on the system you use. But generally, sending email is as simple as
putting an address on an envelope. If you know a valid email address for your intended recipient
(there can be more than one), you just type it into a line starting with a phrase like *To:* in
your mail-sending program. The text of the letter is then either typed in or else "pasted" or
"included" in from a pre-written file, and then the mailer program is given a command telling it:
"send away!"

These email addresses are not very different from ordinary addresses, which start with an
identification of the individual (their name), followed by information about the person's
location, starting with the narrow (street address) and proceeding to broader and broader
"locators" (town/city, state, and zip). The same is done with email, with a few minor
differences.

The first difference is that the entire address is put in one line; in fact, one expression. In
this expression, the person's account-name (their "user ID" on the computer they use) takes the
place of the recipient's name which would be written on the first line on the envelope, followed
by an at-sign (*@*), and then the rest of the address, with dots (*.*) separating the parts
comprising the "domain" or main part of the address.

For example, the email address of an online friend and fellow electronic activist, Rich Winkel at
Missouri, is:

[e-mail]

Here *rich* is the account name Rich has on a computer nicknamed *pencil* at the Computer Science
(*cs*) department at the University of Missouri, with *edu* (EDU-cational) being standard for
{InterNet} addresses of colleges and universities (4).

________________________________________________________________

Note (4): {InterNet} is sometimes confused with the {UseNet}, which is described below; the
{Internet} is a major global network, parts of which are subsidized by various governments. It
carries many kinds of traffic, including but not limited to {Usenet} BBSs. {Usenet} is also
carried by other networks, for example, {Bitnet}.

________________________________________________________________

Sometimes "smart" machines simplify addressing; for example, you don't need to know the names of
the machines - Sun workstations in this case - in the math department here at Cornell to send me
email; rather than using:

[e-mail]

or

[e-mail]

("mssun7" and "wright" being among the "names" of these Suns)

You can email me at:

[e-mail]

which a machine translates into the full address.

Some institutions have gone further. Dartmouth, for example, has a complete online "Dartmouth
Name Directory" (DND) of all their students, faculty, and staff. The Dartmouth computer
facilities receiving email use the {DND} to figure out how to reach the person you are trying to
send email to.

The format used is "[e-mail]" - for example:

[e-mail]

In fact, less information can be supplied so long as it uniquely identifies one individual - thus
*[e-mail]* worked when this fellow electronic activist (and former math professor
of mine) was the only "Lamperti" at Dartmouth; when professor Lamperti's son was involved with
Dartmouth (teaching rock-climbing), John could be reached by supplying the Dartmouth computers
with an extra "j" to uniquely identify him: *[e-mail]*

Not unlike a person would, the computer figured out from the information given which unique
person "j lamperti" on the {DND} I had in mind.

This {DND} system is also set up so that if the recipient does not have an email account, the
{DND} prints out the received email letter and delivers it to that person's student or
departmental mailbox.

USING EMAIL AND THE USENET FOR ELECTRONIC ACTIVISM:

The origins of our current project start with the murder of the Jesuit priests in El Salvador in
November of 1989, with my ordering Amnesty's 1988 report, {El Salvador: "Death Squads" - A
Government Strategy}, and with the outrage I felt upon discovering how clear and explicit the
documentation had been, by none other than A.I., that the so-called "Death-Squads" - these shady
right-wing extremist groups as the nooz-media invariably portrayed them - were in fact
army/government run. Something had to be done to educate people about this, to use the tragic
occasion to spread the word and put an end to Washington's complicity (often much more than that)
once and for all.

The email contacts I had were primarily people I had met by using the {Usenet} network of
Electronic Bulletin Boards, or "newsgroups" as they are called (the {Usenet} is described in more
detail below). By using newsgroups on topics such as "Activism", "Latin-America," and "Human
Rights," information could be exchanged, like-minded people met, and "online discussion" as well
as planning could take place in the newsgroups and by email.

It may not be clear, a priori, that "electronic" planning and coordination of real-life projects
(activist or otherwise) is necessarily an improvement over the exclusive use of the traditional
methods (telephone, face-to-face mettings), or even that it is workable. However, so it proved in
the present example, and it is my hope that the "time-line" of the projects we are tracing will
provide concrete settings for the abstract - but very real - recurring themes:

*** the money and especially the time saved;

*** the ability to coordinate the activities of more people at more remote locations more easily;

*** and the tools allowing for information-access and information-processing power on a scale
which is a quantum leap ahead of the strictly non-electronic, traditional methods.

The project we organized was to send copies of the A.I. report to all U.S. Senators along with a
signed letter demanding a change in U.S. policy, with copies going to the major media, stating
also that this key Amnesty report had been made available to Congress, and what the report said.
Using the electronic networks, and with two primary co-organizers at Dartmouth College (John
Lamperti) and the University of Chicago (Mary Pugh), we were able to raise almost all the funds
needed to buy and send the reports through online contacts.

Electronic mail was used to joinly revise the Statement to be sent to the Senators and the media,
by rapidly swapping back and forth by email, half a dozen times, the latest draft. And, by
"advertising" on the {Usenet}'s newsgroups, we were able to get the Statement signed by dozens of
people from over twenty states. We were then able to have the statement signed by Archbishop
Gumbleton of Detroit, one of the few co-signers(5) whom we contacted by phone rather than email.

________________________________________________________________

Note (5): The co-signers gave their consent to add their name to the Statement, rather than
signing one physically circulated copy of the Statement.

________________________________________________________________

AN OVERVIEW OF THE USENET

The {Usenet} is an interactive bulletin board system currently read by more than 2 million people
worldwide, with some 10 million email accounts having access or potential access. (Electronic
surveying devices keep these and other statistics which are cited below.)

The {Usenet} "system" is often referred to, with some merit, as an "anarchy" - in the political,
not derisive/chaotic sense, although given the vast amount of people, data, and interactions in
question (see below), "chaos" is unavoidable, and it is merely a question of how "well-managed"
the chaos is (6)

________________________________________________________________

Note (6): To put this in perspective, it should be noted that there is substantially more
"chaos", or "random information" - really, huge, convoluted webs of interactions and cause/effect
- in the non-electronic ("real") world; it is merely that less of it is kept track of (e.g. how
many items of "junk mail" do you get on average during the month of March? What are all the phone
conversations you've had this month in which you mentioned the word "green"?) in ways the average
person can access, so we ignore them and they join the informational "background noise" in our
minds.

________________________________________________________________

As one user put it, the {Usenet} is a "logical network" not a physical network (such as
{Internet}) (7).

________________________________________________________________

Note (7): Zbigniew J. Pasek, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, compilation of Electronic
Resources, Feb. '92.

________________________________________________________________

In essence, informational "traffic" is passed along between the main {Usenet} "nodes" and thus
the articles (as items posted to the newsgroups are called) get "propagated" across the system.
In the U.S., anyone with a capable machine and the proper software can get a {Usenet} "feed" and
thus become part of the {Usenet}.

Few of us can afford this means of access to the {Usenet}(8) however, and two of the most common
ways to gain access is by means of a computer account at a major university or through where one
works, by which students, faculty, and staff, and employees with an account can get on the net
and read the {Usenet} newsgroups. From computers running the Unix operating system, news-readers
such as "readnews," "rn" and "nn" (9) are available.

________________________________________________________________

Note (8): The costs are not entirely prohibitive: the {Usenet} article describing What Is the
{Usenet} (in the official monthly post to {Usenet}'s *news.newusers.questions* newsgroup) states
that "Computers capable of taking {Usenet} feeds are down in the $500 range now, and UNIX-capable
boxes are going for under $2000, and there are at least two UNIX lookalikes in the $100 price
range."

________________________________________________________________

Note (9): "nn" standing for "No News" is Good News - see below regarding the quantity of "news
traffic" on the {Usenet}.

________________________________________________________________

From a Vax system, another popular system at universities, *VMSNEWS* is available. There is
usually online help available - - from unix, for example, type *man rn* to get the MANual
description for that newsreader program; or e.g. *help vmsnews* on Vaxs - or else one can ask the
local system operator for help.

If you cannot gain access to the {Usenet} from a university or your company, and if you have a
computer and modem at home, there are public-access unix systems, or "Nixpubs," which you can
dial into using a modem. A monthly list of Nixpubs is posted to {Usenet}'s *alt.bbs* newsgroup,
and many of these machines, some of which are freely accessible, carry {Usenet} "news" (the flow
of "newsgroup" postings). In fact, by the time this article is published, I hope to have my
mother in Massachusetts online thanks to these nixpubs, and thanks to tips about where to find
good cheap modems which the readers of *alt.bbs* were kind enough to provide.

The individual sites which carry {Usenet} news are completely independent:

Every administrator controls his own site. No one has any real control over any site but his own.

The administrator gets her power from the owner of the system she administers. As long as her job
performance pleases the owner, she can do whatever she pleases, up to and including cutting off
{Usenet} entirely (10).

________________________________________________________________

Note (10): CAVEAT: You should {not} interpret this gender-neutral language in the official
administrative posts to mean there isn't any sexism on the {Usenet} - not to mention racism,
homophobia, and some holocaust revisionists to boot.

________________________________________________________________

According to the official documents, insofar as anything on {Usenet} can be "official;" even in
the one domain where {Usenet} functions as a "democracy" rather than "anarchy," the voting
procedure for the creation of a newsgroup (see below), one merely has The Official {Guidelines.}

The {Usenet} is also not "software" - there are dozens of software packages in use today for
reading and transmitting {Usenet} articles. It is for these and other reasons that in describing
{Usenet} as an electronic bulletin board "system" that word belongs in quotes, and why the
official "What Is {Usenet}" description in the newsgroup *news.newusers.questions* spends most of
its time stating what the {Usenet} is {not}, and finally contents itself with the seemingly
all-purpose description:

{Usenet} is a set of people who exchange articles tagged with one or more universally-recognized
labels, called "newsgroups."

These people reside at universities, research institutions, government agencies (e.g., one sees
addresses like *[e-mail]*) as well as companies big and small (email addresses often
ending in *.com*), and even high schools and private homes.

THE USENET NEWSGROUPS

A typical {Usenet} newsgroup name, *rec.sports.baseball*, reveals two things: words/identifiers
are separated by periods (pronounced "dot," as in "rec[-reation] dot sports dot base-ball"); and
that the name starts with a broad, general category, then a more specific identifier, and
continuing in this manner if necessary.

The {Usenet} is organized in a logical hierarchy, by means of seven broad categories, and the
first word in a "mainstream" {Usenet} newsgroup name is one of the following:

*** *news* for things having to do with the {Usenet} itself; for example:
*news.newusers.questions* or *news.lists*;

*** *comp*, for example *comp.sys.amiga*, is all about computers;

*** *rec* is for "recreation" as in *rec.sports.baseball*, *rec.games.chess*,
*rec.music.classical*, *rec.food.veg*, and so on;

*** *soc* is for things "social" as in *soc.women*, *soc.singles*, *soc.motss* ("motss" is a
{Usenet}-ism for Member Of The Same Sex; also in use are MOTOS ("opposite") and MOTAS
("appropriate")). there is also a whole *culture* sub-hierarchy - "soc.culture.*" where "*" can
be *celtic*, or *african*, *jewish*, *arab*, *japan*, *turkish*, etc, etc;

*** *talk* includes "high-noise" groups for "discussion" like *talk.politics.misc*,
*talk.abortion*, and *talk.guns* (Go NRA!); few converts are made in these newsgroups' debates,
and many "flames" are exchanged between hostile parties, to cite another {Usenet} term;

*** *sci* is for scientific or science-related discussions, e.g. *sci.space*, *sci.math*,
*sci.med.aids*;

*** *misc* includes "everything else" from *misc.kids* and *misc.taxes* to our own activist
newsgroup, *misc.activism.progressive* (see below), which is specifically designed to be an
informational resource, not a discussion ("*talk*") group (for which we have an electronic
mailing list).

There is also a hierarchy for unofficial *alt*-ernative newsgroups like *alt.co-ops*,
*alt.atheism*, or *alt.angst* - no vote needs to be taken for the creation of a {Usenet} "alt"
group, although the propagation of such newsgroups to other machines is more limited -
administrators sometimes cut off all *alt* groups to avoid newsgroups like *alt.sex* and the rest
of the alt.sex.* hierarchy. This happens despite the fact that *alt.sex* is usually at or near
the top in the {Usenet} readership ratings - in February, for example, it had roughly 260,000
readers; that month, *misc.jobs.offered* was second (surprise, surprise) with 210,000 readers,
and *rec.humor.funny* third with 180,000 readers - this according to the {Usenet}'s automated
electronic "Nielsen"-type ratings system, the results being posted monthly to *news.lists* It
should be noted that *alt.sex* is fairly tame by {Usenet} standards; in *alt.sex.bondage*, for
example (still not the most daring newsgroup, and, interestingly, on a higher level of maturity
than *alt.sex*) you can tune in to (or join) women and men discussing different types of knots,
and the {safe} way to use gags, practice bondage, etc, with their "SO's" (Significant Others).

EXPLOSIVE GROWTH

According to the newsgroup *news.lists*, in a two-week period in February, 195,672 articles,
totaling some 388 Mega-bytes (11) were submitted from over eighteen thousand sites, by some
50,000 users (or only about one in forty news readers) and to over 2,000 different newsgroups,
totaling an average of 27.7 Mega-bytes (Mbytes) per day (12).

________________________________________________________________

Note (11): A Mega-byte (Mbyte) is 1,024 Kilo-bytes, or "K" - for comparison, parts I and II of
Noam Chomsky's {The Victors} which we have online, are about 70 K each. Thus the equivalent of
roughly 400 such articles are posted each day - the content and overall "info to noise ratio,"
however, are another matter.

If the "headers" of the articles are included, the figure comes to 476 Mbytes over the two weeks.

________________________________________________________________

Note (12): "Total traffic through uunet for the last 2 weeks" Message-ID:
<[e-mail]> Date: 12 Feb 92 16:50:56 GMT Sender: [e-mail]
(News Statistics)

195672 articles, totaling 387.926123 Mbytes (476.163834 including headers), were submitted from
18092 different Usenet sites by 49442 different users to 2045 different newsgroups for an average
of 27.709009 Mbytes (34.011702 including headers) per day.
________________________________________________________________

The explosive growth of the {Usenet} is such that percentage growth is measured monthly - for
example, below are the data from two readings at the end of last year (Note the growth
approaching 40\% in Mbytes-per-day between October of '91 and the quoted figure for Feb. '92):

* 91/10/23        91/11/27      growth /Articles               142161          163345         15%
/Mbytes/day             20.124          22.330         11% /Sites posting          14572
 15860           9% /Users posting          38388           43955          15% /Newsgroups
     1758            1891            8%

*

In fact, based on more detailed statistical analyses drawn from the data automatically collected
by different {Usenet} machines, the estimate for August of 1995 volume is 365 Mbytes per day; for
August of 2000: 12,154 Mbytes per day if the growth patterns continue (13)

________________________________________________________________

Note (13): Brian Smithson ([e-mail]) in: Re-post of Usenet stats (LONG; was: Re USENET
ANALYSIS REPORTs...) Message-ID: <[e-mail]>)

________________________________________________________________

In translation, on any given day of the week, many books' worth of material is posted (many dozen
books in 1995 if that rate is realized) on the {Usenet} alone, which does not count other
networks, or the several {thousand} electronic mailing lists in operation.

Clearly, tools for narrowing down from this flood of information to what you are looking for, and
making sense of that information, are crucial. Fortunately, the same technologies which opened
this Pandora's Box and its floods of information, can be used to design and implement exactly
such tools, and the tools available today ("newsreaders" editors, etc) make the task far less
formidable that this introduction, upon first reading, might suggest.

ELECTRONIC MAILING LISTS AND "LISTSERVS"

Following the El Salvador project, I organized an (electronic) mailing-list of the participants,
over which information and updates could be exchanged and through which long-term discussion and
support could take place. This list, which was known as the Activists Mailing List (AML), rapidly
grew as the word was spread by email and over the {Usenet}. Fortunately, by the time there list
approached 100 members and was becoming difficult to manage "by hand," one of {AML} members and
original participants in the El Salvador project, Rich Winkel in Missouri, offered to put the
{AML} on a "listserver" (courtesy of his system administrator) and thus came into being the
*ACTIV-L* "Listserv"-based electronic mailing list.

The *LISTSERV* software manages an electronic mailing-list by creating an email address like
*[e-mail]* such that all email sent to that address is forwarded to everyone else
who is subscribed to the mailing list. Listserv maintains and updates a list of all current
subscribers, and "understands" simple commands such as *JOIN ACTIV-L* (which are emailed to it at
*[e-mail]*) and by which people can have their address added to or removed from the
mailing list (were it so easy to have one's name removed from the "paper-mail" mailing lists!)

By maintaining a list of everyone currently subscribed, the Listserv eliminates the need for each
person on the list to keep and update their own private list of current list members and to list
for their computer's mailer-program all the corresponding email addresses each time s/he wishes
to post to the list.

There are today literally thousands of listserv-type electronic mailing lists, from *AMALGAM*
("*Dental AMALGAM and MERCURY Poisoning*") to *YACHT-L* ("*YACHT-L@GREARN The Yachting Sailing
and amateur BoatBuilding*") and almost everything in between, for example:

MAPS-L [e-mail] Maps and Air Photo Systems Forum

MEDIA-L [e-mail] Media in Education

MEDIMAGE [e-mail] Medical Imaging Discussion List

Which brings us to another example of things Listserv is useful for. Since there are so many such
lists, and and since the list of such lists changes increasingly rapidly as new lists are
created, there is a mailing list, serviced by a Listserv, which sends out to it's subscribers an
announcement each time a new list is created summarizing what it is about, so you can decide if
you want to join it, for example, something like:

New list: PORTLVEG-L, issues of concern to Portuguese left-handed vegetarians. To Sign up, send
email message "SUB PORTLVEG-L" to [e-mail]

This listserver-for-listservers does something else, too: it maintains an up to date list of all
these mailing lists, adding new entries as lists are created, and removing names of archaic lists
which "die out" as a result of lack of interest. You can give it a command to send you at any
given time the most up to date list of mailing lists. Warning: the last time I sent out for this
list I received a list of over 2800 mailing lists. However, a good unix editor like "emacs"
(pronounced "E-macks") has no trouble editing the such a big file, nor, for that matter, and
almost instantly, finding in it all lines which have "*dog*" or "*eco*" or "*fish*" in them,
allowing you to try out the handful of lists you might be interested in.

Many of the mailing lists (and {Usenet} newsgroups) are concerned with topics which may seem
frivolous next to activism, but there are many useful non-activist forums where information can
be shared or help solicited (taxes, home-repair, etc), as well as lists providing intimate
support forums which the lists members might not have easy access to elsewhere (former
abused-children, the disabled, etc).

*** *** ***

The successes as well as frustrations and shortcomings of the El Salvador project led me to write
up a proposal for a big project, called PACH (pronounced "patch", and standing for Progressive
Alliance Clearinghouse), which is the primary subject of the second half of this article.

At about the same time the Activists Mailing List "became" *ACTIV-L*, an *ACTIV-L* subscriber who
also had an account with {Peacenet} (described in the following section), Andy Lang, forwarded my
PACH files which I posted to *ACTIV-L* to then- {Peacenet} Director Howard Frederick.

Dr. Frederick was impressed enough to write back to offer a complimentary {Peacenet} account from
which information and articles from the {Peacenet} and {Econet} systems could be forwarded on a
regular basis to *ACTIV-L* (Rich Winkel, who set up the Listserver at Missouri for *ACTIV-L*, had
been forwarding items occasionally from {Peacenet} for some time).

The {Peacenet} and {Econet} systems are part of broader nation-wide and world-wide networks,
which are described below.


IGC - NETWORKS FOR ACTIVISTS

{Peacenet} and {Econet} are sister-networks dedicated solely to promoting peace, human-rights,
social justice, and environmental issues through education and by providing resources for
activists.

Jointly run by the Institute for Global Communications (IGC), a division of the non-profit Tides
Foundation, based in San Francisco, these networks allow users to gather information from and
post items to over 900 {IGC} newsgroups (called "conferences") on topics ranging from Central and
Latin America, Disarmament, Economics, Energy, and the Environment ... to Labor, the Media, the
Middle East ... on through Toxics and Waste, Women, and Youth. There are also special conferences
listing calendars of events, announcements, and general references and resources (not unlike
"Zaps" online), and besides these conferences dedicated to news and information, there are others
which serve as forums for discussions and for the planning of activism and long-term
coordination; for example, Amnesty International has a whole array of "private" (internal)
{Peacenet} conferences which it uses to coordinate its work).

{IGC} also offers its subscribers an email-to-fax link by which faxes can be sent for as little
as 25 cents per page by addressing to the "email" address *fax:1CCCNNNNNNN* where
1-(CCC)-NNN-NNNN is the fax machine's number. A similar service is offered for
email-to-telex-machines, as well as telex-machine-to-email (there is no fax-to-email service as
yet, although improved scanner technology and a better funded {IGC} may bring that about some
day). {IGC} "News" conferences include wire services that are online, as well as legislative
bulletins, newsletters, and even magazines that are online; for example, Propaganda Review is now
entirely online.

{IGC} has over 7,000 users in the U.S., but deserves to be far better known, offering resources
on a scale that would have been unimaginable before the advent of electronic networks.

One thing lacking in the unix-based {IGC} accounts is the power that comes with an {individual}
unix account. However, if you have access to such a machine, through a university for example,
{IGC} offers a "telnet" login as an alternative to modem dial-ins ("telnet" is a unix program
allowing log-ins to remote machines) Telnetting into {IGC}, which is more convenient for the
user, is actually preferred by {IGC} as it adds less to the load on their systems, and is offered
on a discounted "off-peak" basis 24 hours a day, at $3/hour.

For me, this has meant "the best of both worlds," using the emacs editor's built-in {telnet}
feature which provides a nice interface with {IGC}. Namely, emacs is designed for multi-tasking,
whereby you edit several files at the same time, each residing in one of several {buffers} among
which you can instantly switch. From emacs you can also send mail, receive mail, manipulate
entire directories very nicely with its directory-editor {dired} and so on, each of these
functions in a different buffer.

In this manner, {IGC} conferences can be read in one buffer while reading {Internet} mail,
sending mail, etc, in the other buffers. An interesting {Peacenet} or {Econet} article can then
be saved in my private directory, emailed, saved on a remote machine, or posted to the {Usenet},
each with a few keystrokes, by using one of the customizable emacs "macros" (14).

________________________________________________________________

Note (14): Emacs' customizability and expandability is legendary. I will say a little more in
part II about the radical software-for-the-people project, the GNU project, of the Free Software
Foundation - GNU Emacs being one result of this project. For example, emacs' {telnet} facility
was designed for an interface different from {IGC}'s, making the cursor "jump up" annoyingly;
within a day or two of my posting to {Usenet}'s *gnu.emacs.help* about this, I was emailed a
"patch" to modify (customize) emacs's telnetting, nicely fixing the emacs-{IGC} telnet link.

________________________________________________________________

To briefly survey the vast array of information on the {IGC} networks:

Online news wires at {IGC} include Inter Press Service ({IPS}), ranked by UNESCO as the world's
fifth largest news agency. {IPS} is a non-profit cooperative and the leading Third World news
agency, and provides several dozen stories per day through conferences (which typically hold
roughly the 800 most recent stories at any given time). Other examples include the Environment
News Service, the world's only news service devoted exclusively to the environment; the U.N.
Information Centre Newswire; the Harare-based Africa Information Afrique; and the Women's Feature
Service, based in New Delhi and New York.

U.S.-based news services include the Alternet News Service, a news and feature syndicate for the
alternative press which also uses {Peacenet} as a medium for electronic distribution. Based in
Washington, D.C., it was formed by alternative journalists to circumvent the corporate monopoly
on information, and currently has one hundred newspaper clients in the U.S., distributing 20 - 25
stories per week. Another example is the San Francisco-based Pacific News Service, one of the
world's top alternative news agencies.

________________________________________________ One of PeaceNet's "*INFO-COMPASS*" login banners
________________________________________________

Welcome to PeaceNet / Bienvenido a PeaceNet.  For help, type "?"

<<<INFO-COMPASS for March 20-22, 1992>>>

Matti Peled Tour [Israeli Army Officer+Peace Activist]       mideast.action
++++++++++++++++++++++++ COUNTERSPIN: FAIR Campaign Memo
media.issues Earth Summit: Talks Fatally Flawed+NGOs Denounce U.S.        ips.englibrary East
Timor Peace Ship/Rainbow Warrior+French Testing      nonviolent.action Listing of Imprisoned Gulf
Resisters                         military.draft Madison Resolution on Cuba
                  reg.cuba New World Order Dictionary!
pn.opinions Radio station bans the name "Redskins"                        gen.nativenet
STOCKWELL: CIA's Secret Wars                      misc.activism.progressive -==>> New
Publications Online <<==- RESULTS               hunger.general    PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE
gen.newsletter FRONTLINE          nonviolent.action    MEXICO UPDATE        carnet.mexnews PEACE
NEWS                  wri.news    IPB NEWS                   ipb.news MEDNEWS
misc.activism.progressive    INSIGHT FEATURES      nfd.ifeatures

You have new conf entries in pn.alerts pn.announcements pn.calendar ...

PeaceNet Commands:  (c)onferences (h)elp (m)ail (d)ata (u)sers (s)etup (bye) ?

------------------------------------------------------------------


Also online are press releases by SANE/Freeze, Greenpeace, AFSC, and others; newsletters and
bulletins, for example the Environmental and Energy Study Institute's (EESI) "Weekly Bulletin";
and information about bills pending on Capitol Hill - for example, *fcnl.updates* contains the
Friends Committee on National Legislation's weekly legislative alert.

I cannot come close to covering the range and diversity of online resources on {IGC}, but to cite
one more example, the "mosconews" conferences contain articles from Moscow News, an independent
weekly newspaper founded in 1930 and distributed in more than 140 countries, and which is
independent from all state and party structures in the former USSR.

{IGC} subscribers also have access to the several thousand {Usenet} newsgroups.


A.P.C.

{IGC} is a founding member of the Association for Progressive Communication (APC), a worldwide
umbrella group of progressive networks dedicated to peace, human rights, and the environment. The
{APC} Member Networks are: {AlterNex} (Brazil); {Chasque} (Uruguay); {ComLink} (Germany - note
the pun); {GlasNet} (Russia); {GreenNet} (England); {IGC} (USA); {Nicarao} (Nicaragua); {NordNet}
(Sweden); {Pegasus} (Australia); and {Web} (Canada). Membership is pending for {EcuaNex}
(Ecuador) and {Lega per L'Ambiente} (Italy).

All {APC} partners are independent organizations, and retain full control over their network,
paying fees to a fund to further the global spread of the network.

While there are 10 countries with member-networks, people in over 90 different countries call
those machines; for example, many people in Africa and Europe call GreenNet. In all, there are
some 15,000 {APC} users.

The subscribers of these networks can exchange electronic mail not only with other subscribers,
but also with people on other networks, including {Internet}, {Bitnet}, {CompuServe}, the {WELL},
and {MCI mail}. The {APC} networks also share a more intimate link among themselves, by directly
exchanging daily the information posted to their newsgroups, with a 2-way information "feed"
between the different {APC} machines.

For more information about {Peacenet} or {Econet}, write to:

{IGC}, 18 De Boom Street, San Francisco, California 94107.

Phone: [phone].

*** *** ***

With *ACTIV-L* in place and linked to {IGC}'s {Peacenet} and {Econet}, the first stage of the
PACH network we are still working to expand was attained, a network which, like Z and the rest of
the alternative press, could help circumvent the media information blockade, as well as serve as
a focal point for democratic participation, discussion, and action. This potential was tested
during the critical months leading to and following the Gulf "War."

ACTIV-L AND IGC CONFRONT THE GULF CRISIS

As Z readers are well aware of, one of the (few) positive concomitants of the Gulf Crisis was a
surge of activism and the possibility of building a national consciousness leading to a
broad-based long-term movement or coalition.

Space for critical thinking and coalition-building also opened in the electronic domains (even as
it was slammed shut for viewers of mainstream TV Nooz), and during the Gulf Crisis and subsequent
Gulf War, there was a swelling in "online" activity and interest as well.

*ACTIV-L* in cooperation with {IGC} responded by distributing critical information and updates to
activists, not readily available elsewhere, about what was happening and why. This included
detailed reports on the destruction in Iraq, and analyses of the war and the U.S. media by
commentators generally excluded from public view, including editorials from the Nation, In These
Times (typed in by readers) and news releases and articles by FAIR (posted by FAIR to {Peacenet}
and forwarded to *ACTIV-L*). *ACTIV-L* subscribers were also informed about protests and projects
in Europe far more extensively than their TV-viewing counterparts.

There was also extensive discussion on *ACTIV-L* and interaction among subscribers, for example,
soliciting specific information for a pamphlet or exchanging information among campus activists
about what sorts of actions were taking place elsewhere, with what tactics, and with what
success.

Besides the regular email subscribers to the list - by then some 1,000 people - many readers
would download articles and print them out, distributing them to their local activist groups or
using them for public education, in pamphlets, talks, and so on. The net effect *ACTIV-L* and
{IGC} had during the Gulf Crisis we cannot measure, but it is my hope that a glimpse is provided
in the accompanying side-bar by the sampling of electronic mail I received during that period.


######################################################################## #SideBar:
                  # ######################################################################## ##
#==========================================             # #Electronic Activism during the Gulf
Crisis             # #==========================================             # ## #>>SPREADING
INFORMATION:<<                                           # ##
#________________________________________________________________     # ## #From: Michael
Perelman <[e-mail]>               # #Subject: thanks
                     # #To: [e-mail]                                   # #Date:
Thu, 28 Feb 91 13:42:22 PST                                # #Mailer: Elm [revision: 64.9]
                             # ## #The material that you post has been invaluable in preparing
talks    # #and spreading information about the war.  Thanks.  Michael Perelman  # ##
#________________________________________________________________     # ## #>>MORAL SUPPORT AND
SPURRING LOCAL GROUPS:<<                         # ## #Date: Sat, 19 Jan 91 18:29:05 -0500
                      # #From: Carl Turner <[e-mail]>                         # #To:
[e-mail]                                 # #Subject: Thank you
                               # ## #Thank you for the stories posted about the anti-war
activities going # #on around the country.  I pulled a bunch of them off alt.activism    # #and
read them at a meeting of the Middle East Peace Group here in    # #Gainesville.  To the 60 or so
people at the meeting, it was          # #obviously a great feeling to know that they were part
of a           # #nationwide movement.  Really, people were clapping and cheering at   # #some of
the stories.                                                 # ## #There seems to be a virtual
news blackout in the media about         # #anti-war activities, and the things that do get
reported are grossly # #misleading (e.g., the San Francisco demonstrations).  [...]          # ##
#- Carl Turner, [e-mail]                   # ##
########################################################################

######################################################################## ## #Date: Wed, 30 Jan 91
17:04:15 pst                                # #From: marie weston <[e-mail]>
              # #Subject: 2nd article on Gulf...                                  # ## #Thank you
for posting this speech by Phil Agee.  I found it very     # #interesting and I even printed off
copies for several people I know, # #including my SO, who is an Air Force Pilot.  I don't think
he        # #appreciated it as much as I did but it gave him something to think   # #about.
                                                        # ## #Thanks again,
                                 # #Marie
       # ## #["SO" stands for "Significant Other", another common UseNet phrase   # #- HB]
                                                     #
#________________________________________________________________     # ## #>>SUPPORTING
COMMUNITY EFFORTS:<<                                    # ## #[From [e-mail], Jan.
15, 1991]                    # #[Subject: praise for ACTIV-L                ]
# ## #Greetings from Indiana University in Bloomington.  Our activist      # #community is
growing steadily. Activ-L has contributed to this       # #growth by helping to inform many folks
of events concerning the      # #Gulf, Central America, and other places around the US and world.
 We # #now have over 70 people getting some to the things that come in on   # #ACTIV-L! Interest
is high.                                           # ## #I speak for all of us here that we
really appreciate all the work    # #you are putting in to this. Believe me, your efforts have
helped     # #us a lot. We would not have access to this info if you were not      # #doing what
you do.                                                   # ## #In solidarity,
                                   # ## #Roger Morris
            # #Bloomington, IN                                                      # ##
########################################################################

######################################################################## ## #>>IN THE U.S.<< ...
                                                # ## #Date: 5 Jan 91 16:16:00 CDT
                         # #From: "Mary Lynne Dittmar" <[e-mail]>
# #Subject: P.A.C.H.                                                    # ## #Harel:
                                               # ## #Hi.  My name is Mary Lynne Dittmar, I'm a
faculty member at       # #University of Alabama, Huntsville.  There is a busy, thriving        #
#activist community here, probably in response to the fact that the   # #Redstone Arsenal and
NASA (Marshall Space Flight Center) are also    # #here.  ACTIV-L has been tremendously helpful;
it has spurred on a    # #local group of academics (we're currently putting together a series  #
#of public forum/lecture/discussion meetings on the Perisan Gulf),    # #provided networking with
other activists across the country, and     # #generally provided emotional and spiritual support
 -  we are not,  # #after all, alone; there is a focus and direction to what we do.  I   # #just
wanted to let you know this  -  especially after having read   # #your posting of 4 January about
effectiveness.  Also, after reading  # #it, I wanted to ask for the P.A.C.H. document which you
indicated    # #was available by e-mail [...]                                        # ##
#BITNET:  RADICAL@UAHVAX1 or UAHMLD01@UAHVAX1                     # #Thanks,
                                      # #Mary Lynne
       # ## #________________________________________________________________     # ## #... <<AND
IN EUROPE:<<                                               # ## #Date:     Tue, 5 Mar 91 14:47:48
MET                             # #From: Stefan Merten <[e-mail]>
  # #To: harelb@arthur                                                # #Subject:  Your forwards
from PeaceNet                            # ## #Hi!
                  # ## #First of all I want to thank you for forwarding all these very       #
#interesting (and little biased :-) ) articles to UseNet.  I          # #extracted many of them.
Though the following holds true for the     # #rest of the net, the best for me European is to
get informations     # #from inside USA this way.  A quite difficult thing for a normal      #
#person.                                                              # ## #Don't stop to forward
backgrounds about the war, I need them! For    # #example parts of these informations are used in
a series of          # #flyers which present backgrounds of the conflict and which is        #
#continued after the war.                                             # #- Stefan ##
########################################################################


A NEW USENET NEWSGROUP

This flurry of activity prompted us to create a new {Usenet} newsgroup, misc.activism.progressive
(MAP), hoping to expand the project by reaching a wider audience.

This necessitated having an online "vote" - newsgroup-creation is the only facet of {Usenet}
which follows a pattern of {democracy} rather than {anarchy} - and hence building up enough
support to attain the necessary two-to-one margin over the significant minority of vocal (and
paranoid) reactionaries opposed to anything "leftist", let alone a "moderated" forum which we
were requesting to host, with the specter of electronic indoctrination camps used often - an
absurdity in light of the ability of any {Usenet} reader to press a key to read any of countless
other political, un-moderated, and mainstream- or right-wing-dominated forums.

The lengthy process was an emotional strain which took its toll, yet today that mentality can be
a source of amusement, paralleling paranoid Senators worrying about a "leftist" PBS and
threatening to freeze funding - this in light of the documentation, recently circulated again by
{FAIR} on {Peacenet} (and through our newsgroup and other {Usenet} newsgroups, to tens of
thousands of online readers), showing the pervasive {right}-wing bias on "public" TV.

The newsgroup "passed", but not before several more attempts where made to wreck the enterprise,
including charges - actually, totally groundless assertions - about every conceivable type of
impropriety or "fraud," including unprecedented post-vote "surveys" to ask the voters listed as
"in favor" whether they in fact voted this way. The voters replied in the affirmative, but not
before voicing their disgust at the charges, including charges that the {IGC} directorship
"faked" the crucial hundred-odd {Peacenet} "yes" votes. Judging by this quite hostile reaction,
one might have concluded there and then that we were on to something good...

MAP'S MISSION

Aside from wanting to create a forum with a potentially larger audience, {MAP} was to become
{Usenet}'s first genuinely activist group, since the existing *alt.activism* had been all but
taken over by "conservatives" - reactionaries and general weenies bent on endless arguments,
infantile sarcastic "jokes" and otherwise "flaming" any post which might lead to something
constructive in the vague direction of that newsgroup's name - "Boy, Saddam would really love
your positions!" was (and is) par for the course (15).

________________________________________________________________

Note (15): In fact, I recently received email from an old acquaintance which opened: "After a
year without net.access, I'm pleased to see you're still there. Looks like I missed the virtual
abandonment of alt.activism to the sabateurs and the creation of misc.activism.progressive"

________________________________________________________________

This was possible because alt.activism is an "un-moderated" newsgroup, to which anyone could post
a message (and usually did). {MAP}'s charter was for a {moderated} newsgroup which would:

...provide news, information, and resources of interest to activists and anyone interested in
promoting peace; economic, legal, and social justice and equality; a clean environment and safe
workplace; democratic control over domestic and foreign policy, and other issues of concern to
the progressive community.

...and which "is not for political discussion, although we welcome inquiries and requests for
information and references, announcements of local activist organizing..." - *ACTIV-L* would
serve as a forum for discussion (16). Together with forwards from the {IGC} networks, other
mailing lists, and readers' contributions, these resources include books (reading lists),
listings of alternative publications, videos, media and government telephone numbers,
announcements of speaking tours, and other data activists rely on.

________________________________________________________________

Note (16): *ACTIV-L* has since spawned *ACTIV-D* for discussions, while *ACTIV-L* now runs just
the articles posted to {MAP}, for people who do not have access the {Usenet}.

________________________________________________________________

############################################################################# #[SIDE-BAR:
"Spreading The Word"]                                          #
#############################################################################
#===================================                      # #How the Nets help "Spread the Word"
                    # #===================================                      # ##
#>>INFORMATION:<<                                                          # ## #Date: Fri, 1 Feb
91 15:12:13 -0500                                        # #From: [e-mail] (Alan J
Painter)                              # #Subject: FAIR report  -  Re: The media and the war:
unbiased coverage    # #or rooting for the home team?                             # ## #I simply
wanted to thank you for the great information that you have      # #been posting to alt.activism.
 I have just started reading this           # #group (in fact, just started reading news in
general due to my            # #previous unconnectedness) and I find that the raw information
about       # #El Salvador, statistical reportage and such are extremely useful.         # #[...]
                                                                    # ##
#________________________________________________________________          # ## #[Referring to an
article we posted to the UseNet                  # #which came from a post to PeaceNet by Project
Censored:]          # ## #Date: Mon, 25 Feb 91 21:14:24 PST
  # #From: robert Arrignton <[e-mail]>                              # #To:
[e-mail]                                            # #Subject: Re: TOP TEN
CENSORED STORIES FOR 1990                            # #Newsgroups:
alt.activism,talk.politics.misc,                              # #alt.desert-storm,alt.censorship
                                 # #Organization: University of Nevada, System Computing Services
            # ## #VERY GOOD, INFORMATIVE POST.  THIS HAS GOT TO BE THE MOST                 #
#INFORMATIVE, UNDERRATED ARTICLE I'VE SEEN THIS MONTH.                     # ##
#________________________________________________________________          # ## #Date: Sat, 1 Jun
91 05:33:25 MDT                                          # #From: Harry Brooks
<[e-mail]>                           # #To: [e-mail]
                                  # #Subject: compliment
             # #Cc: [e-mail]                                             # ##
#Hi Harel,                                                                 # #I just wanted to
compliment you on howyou have listed                     # #and grouped items in the "activ-l
index activ-l" file:                    # #it is very easy to read and to locate desired
information.                # #Also it communicates plainly.
       # #Keep up the good work!                                                    # #harry
                                                               # ##
#############################################################################

############################################################################# ## #Resent-From:
"Rich Winkel UMC Math Department" <MATHRICH%UMCVMB.bitnet>   # #Date:         Mon, 21 Jan 91
20:19:35 EST                                 # #From: Susan Bramhall <SUSAN%YALEVM.bitnet>
                        # #Subject:      Re: Re: Are we still alive?
   # ## #Thought you'd want to see yet another bit of encouragement ...            # #Rich
                                                              # ## #P.S.  There seems to be a
hangup on the net today, which has blocked      # #most list subscribers from getting anything.
I've tracked it down        # #and complained to the appropriate people.  Hopefully it will clear
       # #soon.                                                                     #
#--------------------------Original note follows ------------------------ # #It turns out that
the list was held at this end because the spool         # #was over 40% full.  So I now have all
the backed up mail.  I am           # #sorry to have bothered you but I guess this tells you how
incredibly      # #valuable the list has become to me.  Many, many thanks for the time       #
#you put into it.                                                          # #Susan
                                             # ##
#________________________________________________________________          # ## #>>ANALYSIS:<<
                                                         # ## #From: [e-mail]
                                       # #Date: Wed, 30 Jan 91 21:22:27 MST
                  # #Subject: GULF NEWSpeak - "Pundit Watch" by Greenpeace                     #
## #Please forward my wholehearted praise to the authors of the above         # #piece.
Excellent writing!                                                #
#-------------------------------------------------------------------       # #Eric Iverson
                    Internet: [e-mail]       # #Computing Research Lab
                                 # ##
#________________________________________________________________          # ## #>>VIDEOS:<<
                                                         # ## #Re: COVERUP video
                                       # #Hi--
                  # ## #I saw your recommendation of the video COVERUP: Behind the
# #Iran-Contra Affair a few months ago and I finally got around to           # #ordering it.  I
had heard some of the stuff before, but it really         # #fueled my discontent with the Bush
Shadow Government.  Just wanted        # #to thank you for recommending this video, and for your
excellent          # #posts on Usenet [...]                                                     #
## #Freedom,                                                                  # #Drew
                                                         #
#############################################################################

############################################################################# ##
#+---------------------+--------------------------------+-------------------# #| Drew Davidson
   | Disclaimer:  These are my own  |  JUST SAY KNOW!   # #| [e-mail] | opinions, not
those of UNC-CH. | HEMP FOR VICTORY! #
#+---------------------+--------------------------------+-------------------# ##
#________________________________________________________________          # ## #>>The
Alternative Press:<<                                                # ## #Date: Thu, 20 Dec 90
16:58:02 -0500                                       # #From: [e-mail]
(Doug Scofield)                      # #To: [e-mail]
                # #Subject: In These Times                                                   # ##
#[e-mail] (Harel Barzilai) writes:                       # ## #) For a free
issue of the national weekly newspaper In These Times,       # #) just cut and mail their card,
which is reproduced below... The          # #) address to put on the back of this "postcard" is:

# )                                         In These Times                  # #)
                       1912 Debs Avenue                # #)
  Mt. Morris, IL  61054           # ## #I tried the sample copy of "In These Times" because of
your               # #signature, and i'm glad i did.  Finally i've found a newspaper            #
#that's got the slant i like, reporting on issues i care about,            # #and a size that
allows me to read it in an hour.  It's like               # #a concentrated news pill.  Thanks!!
                                     # ## #doug scofield
[e-mail]  (preferred)     # #harris computer systems
uunet!hcx1!doog                  # #"Nothin' left to do but :-) ;-) 8-)"
# ## #________________________________________________________________          # ## #Hi
                                                              # ## #I am on the faculty at USC
and I recently read your posting of Phil       # #Agee's censored speech.  In the article you
mentioned Z magazine.         # #Could you tell me a little more about this magazine and how one
can       # #get a subscription.                                                       # #Thank
you.                                                                # ## #Sarma Sastry
                                                  # #Dept. of EE-Systems
                             # #Univ. of So. Cal.
        # #LA,CA 90089-0781                                                          # #email :
[e-mail]                                             # ##
#############################################################################

############################################################################# ## #From:
[e-mail] (Andrew Pape)                                  # #Subject: PEACENET
                                               # #To: [e-mail]
                          # #Date: Sun, 19 May 91 21:48:14 ADT
     # #X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]                                          # ## #Hi
                                                                # ## #I wrote you a letter last
week to find out more about Peacenet. It        # #looks incredible!  I want to join.  Thank you
for sending me              # #information on it.
       # ## #############################################################################
________________________________________________________________

Note (17): Currently with over 12,000 readers.
________________________________________________________________

POINTER New Software for Activists igc:harelb      youth.online     6:36 pm  Feb 21, 1993

Feb 15, 1993 by [e-mail] - igc:media.issues

New Software for Activists

"Changewater Letters 2.0" is a new PC program for activists who write letters - a combination
database/word processor for contacting people in power and authority. The broad database of world
leaders (government, business, & media) allows a single letter to be sent to many leaders.

The program includes a powerful new word processor, a 100,000 word spell checker, and an
automatic telecom link to download the current database from our computers. The program costs
$49.95 and can be networked in an office or school. From: Changewater Computing, PO Box 4468,
Warren, NJ 07059. For further information, visit our Peacenet/Econet conference,
changewater.letters.