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.
--