Harel Barzilai 1 Webster Terrace Hanover, NH 03755 (603)643-3038 Email: harel@dartmouth.edu James Weinstein In These Times 1300 W. Belmont Chicago, IL 60657 Dear Jim Weinstein, Following our conversation, I am enclosing some informational material about the UseNet and our activists (electronic) mailing list, ACTIV-L. I have also contacted the folks at PeaceNet, who will be sending you the PeaceNet brochure along with the IGC (*) manual and other information given to new subscribers of PeaceNet/EcoNet. [(*) IGC is the Institute for Global Communications, which "runs" PeaceNet, EcoNet, and 2 other nets, and is a division of the Tides Foundation, "a nonprofit corporation under section 501(c)(3) of the IRS code"] Following my contacting PeaceNet, consultant Jeff Lohrman has created a "demo" account for In These Times. The account name is pndemo4 and the password is 4words. Jeff is "jlohrmann" on PeaceNet and Director Howard Frederick is "hfrederick" or "peacenet." Enclosed below are excerpts of a letter Frank Bertoldi, with whom I have been working on ACTIV-L and related projects, wrote (actually, emailed) to the Lies Of Our Times people (Bill Schaap and Brian Tenenbaum). Frank had called them and obtained permission to run LOOT material on ACTIV-L and our UseNet newsgroup misc.activism.progressive -- they already have a PeaceNet account, "instmedia" for Institute for Media Analysis, by the way -- and I don't think I could improve on his summary of "who we are" and what we do. Enclosed separately: -- A description of ACTIV-L's "archiver" and the files available through it. The "archiver" is an automated feature, by which one sends it "commands" (one sends electronic mail (email), in a simplified and English-like language to a special email address), and the archiver responds by sending the person (by email) the files requested, or the listing of all files with the word "cuba" but not "cia" in the title which were posted between June 1989 and Aug. 1990, for example. The listing enclosed is actually of the "library" of select files; the general archives one would make such a search through is many megabytes in size. -- Some "testimony" I've collected about ACTIV-L, including a letter in which someone wrote saying he had seen the ITT "send me a free issue" card I posted and "I'm glad I did. Finally I've found a newspaper that's got the slant I like, reporting on the issues I care about, and a size that allows me to read it an an hour. It's like a concentrated news pill. Thanks!!" (Doug Scofield) [Wish I could read that fast. I am letting my sub. run out only due to my moving and will renew once I am settled in (Cornell) and stipends do as well...] -- Some info on getting access to the UseNet privately (i.e., not through one's university of company) which someone sent me. By subscribing to PeaceNet, you'd have access to all the UseNet newsgroups (electronic bulletin boards), but I thought you'd appreciate the information. I could also dig up more background regarding usenet, as outlined in Frank's letter below. -- A copy of IGC's monthly "NetNews." I don't want to inundate you with information, but in summary I'd like to say that this medium has in my view enormous potential. Things that take hours can be done in minutes with email; access to information is similarly speeded up; in a matter of 20 seconds, for example, I can search through my 6 megabyte library of files to find exactly the file I'm looking for and to electronically search, within that file for the keyword of quotes I'm looking for, be it how many acres of rain forests are depteled each year, "WASHINGTON, June 7 -- Tropical forests, which play a vital role in regulating the global climate, are disappearing much more rapidly than previously estimated, an international research group said today. Each year recently, 40 Million to 50 million acres of tropical forest, an area the size of Washington state, has been vanishing.... [Which quote I just located in the file lib/environ/rainfrst.destruct] ...to Amnesty's quote on who runs the death squads in El Salvador: "Amnesty International has concluded that the Salvadoran `death squads' are simply used to shield the government from accountability for the torture, `disappearance' and extrajudicial executions committed in their name. The squads are made up of *regular army and police agents*, acting in uniform or plain clothes, *under the orders of superior officers*." [emphasis added] [Who Runs the ``Death Squads''", pp. 8-9] [which quote I just located in the file lib/elsalv/AI.ES.briefs] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [Note: this was by running "emacs" on my unix account and is not available through PeaceNet (These types of free and powerful tools could pretty easily be made available to ITT by any of countless friendly professors or students, however). What PeaceNet does offer is an *enormous* warehouse of information; very cheap and nearly instant contact with countless progressive organizations through email; and the interactive nature of the "conferences" which hold all the information and on which one can, among other things, "conference" electronically and plan things out very quickly.] Best wishes for continued success -- and expanded readership, perhaps in part to our helping "get the word out" -- for your excellent newspaper, Harel Barzilai P.S.: PeaceNet accounts include "zeta" (Michael Albert) and "fair" (Martin Lee), and I know the Nation is currently close to going online there as part of an arrangement with PeaceNet. ################################################################## (Frank Bertodi emailing to LOOT, excerpts) ################################################################## Following up on our telephone conversation earlier today, let me briefly summarize who "we" are and what we do. To start, "we" are not an organization, but a loose group of individuals scattered across the country, mostly at universities. We mainly know each other through electronic mail, have no financial budget, but the common idea to utilize electronic media as a participatory news source, a communication and organizing tool for progressive causes. The driving source behind this year-old project are Harel Barzilai (Dartmouth) and Rich Winkel (Univ. Missouri). One year ago, we have set up an Internet mailing list that distributed information and served as a discussion forum for progressive organizers across the country. The list is called ACTIV-L, has about 1000 subscribers, and carries about 20 postings per day. As a next step, we have just initiated a UseNet newsgroup called "misc.activism.progressive" that is moderated by us and that you can access through peacenet as the conference "misc.activism." - have a look and judge for yourself. UseNet is a worldwide, anarchically run, but well organized news and discussion bulletin board that has an estimated 1.6 million readers. About 6 million people have access to UseNet by having accounts on computers that carry it (essentially all universities, private corporations [AT&T, e.g.], and other networks such as PeaceNet, FidoNet). The most popular of UseNet's more than 1000 newsgroups is read by an estimated 160,000. The UseNet audience is rapidly growing. Since UseNet is free and widely accessible, we think it is the ideal alternative medium for the distribution of (non-corporate media) news and opinion. The next item on our agenda is an electronic news service that shall distributes print-ready news articles drawn from alternative sources to progressive campus newspapers, such as the one I am editing at Princeton, "The Information Gulf" (a bi-weekly, 4 page (soon 8) tabloid, no ads, free, 6000 circulation). This news service will be an integral part of ACTIV-L and misc.activism.progressive. [...] We also suggest that you think about posting all of LOOT on PeaceNet as an electronic journal. Howard Frederick, who manages PeaceNet, has some very good ideas on how this could be done to everybodys benefit and you should contact him about it. ##################################################################