[Air-l] AOIR on AUT

[Bernie Hogan]

Derek, 

Not supporting AUT is of course a political gesture, although perhaps a more
conservative and/or easy one. I don't know. But I don't think that's what
was what people had in mind as apolitical earlier (namely Barry and Jeremy).

By encouraging the group to take a political stance can likely marginalize
those that don't agree. Its not really a sensible move to make when we want
a coherent and welcoming group on topics relating to the social impact of
the Internet.

I don't want you to feel unwelcome because you support AUT any more than I
want others to feel unwelcome because they don't. It just seems far enough
out of AoIR's range that energy directed towards this issue could be spent
better in a host of other groups that are more effectively poised to take
action and/or discuss the intricacies of this issue.

To restate, its not that I want to silence discussion on AUT, but rather
that I don't want AUT to silence discussion on Internet research topics.

But that's just my opinion, and hey, I haven't yet paid my dues this year :O

Take Care,
BERNiE

Bernie Hogan
PhD Student
Department of Sociology
NetLab, Knowledge Media Design Institute
University of Toronto


I received a message from Derek McMillan at approximately 5/28/05 2:33 AM.
Above is my reply.

> LOL. I am amused by the idea that supporting AUT would be political but
> opposing them is OK because it is non-political. This is doubleplusungood
> doublethink isn't it.
> 
> FWIW I support AUT.There is an advert on British TV to encourage people to
> vote It says "If you don't do politics, you don't do anything." and suggests
> that if you are interested in the world around you then you are de facto
> interested in politics.
> 
> I favour a boycott of Israel, not because of its effect of otherwise on the
> brutal oppression of the Palestinians but because we do not have to be
> accomplices in that brutal oppression and a boycott is a non-violent
> civilised way to express that.  You have only to listen to the intemperate
> language with which the Israeli right has responded - rejecting AUT as
> irrelevant and in the same breath denouncing them as terrorists - to see
> that it is having an effect.
> 
> 

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