From: hallam@Etna.ai.mit.edu
Date: Fri, 7 Jun 1996 11:38:41 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: [NOISE] Re: whitehouse web incident, viva la web revolution
In-Reply-To: <2.2.32.19960606004349.006d8404@vertexgroup.com>
Message-ID: <9606061632.AA03941@Etna.ai.mit.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


>>it is an insult to the 10 million civilians
>>murdered by Hitler to use the term facist simply as a term of abuse,

>You insult everyone's intelligence by equating fascism to genocide.
>Suggested reading on the origins, meanings and definition of fascism include
>Friere, Foucault and even the damn Utne Reader among many others.

Meeks was intending to link Clinton's crypto policy to Hitler's. I see
no evidence from Meeks' style that he has read Foucault.

If Meeks wanted to be effective he could have accused Clinton and Freeh of 
seeking to build a Stalininst secret police, or make such an organisation 
possible. It would probably be more accurate to link Freeh to Hoover and point 
out how such power has been abused in the US political system before.

The point was that Meeks' article is not the type to advance our cause. It 
basically says "if you are a democrat you believe in cypto-control". Err yes, 
well done, you have just told half the country that they support the opposite 
policy to the one we are trying to get them to believe in. Plus Bush and Reagan 
advocated the same policy so he is also saying Republicans are against our 
cause.

If you want you could reduce the ranks of those fighting for crypto regulations 
to be removed to members of the Libertarian party, but it would be more 
effective to widen the base.


		Phill