Posted by Tomás Bueno on October 10, 1998 at 04:37:39 PM EDT:
And then, judge for yourselves. Against whom do you think Billy the Bad Kid is trying to protect himself with such a "mission statement"?
(This message was kindly sent to me by Baruch ben Shimon, a very good friend, indeed.)
Read and laugh:
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Is this mission statement acceptable to you?
This "situationlist" listserv was created in June 1998 and is maintained by Bill Brown (aka Little Billy not de Bored), publisher of the situationist fanzine NOT BORED! and operator of the website http://www.thorn.net/~rose
which combines NOT BORED!'s archives with archives of situationist and lettrist materials (images as well as texts). The only place this listserv is mentioned is on the first page of the NB! website.
The "situationlist" is not moderated: all posts (except those specifically addressed to me) are addressed to the "community" of subscribers, which
right now totals about 40 people from all over the world. Anyone can respond to anyone at any time. But this list is a closed list: to subscribe to it, one must e-mail me first. Anyone I know from past experience to be either a joker (someone who is not seriously committed to the overthrow of global capitalsim and its total replacement with a superior form of society) or an idiot (someone willfully ignorant or misinformed) will not be allowed to subscribe. If either a joker or an idiot has made it on to the list, they will be removed immediately and with no warning.
The only circumstances in which someone else -- someone who is neither a joker nor an idiot, but is counter-productive nevertheless -- will be
removed from the listserv are as follows: if the person ignores a warning from me to keep to the purpose of this listserv, and continues his or her
counter-productive behavior.
The purpose of the "situationlist" is rather narrow: to facillitate the transmissal of relevant and useful information about the international situationist movement. That is to say, its purpose is two-fold:
1. to assist materially in the on-going creation of on-line libraries of historical situationist materials. Subscribers to this list are thus encouraged to keyboard and post texts (as well as to scan and post images)that are currently not on-line, but should be; to alert others to on-line and print resources previously not noted; and so forth.
2. to inform situationist-inspired anti-capitalist activists of what practical struggles are taking place at the moment. Subscribers to this list are thus encouraged to post reports on what they themselves are doing in the places that they live.
This listserv is not intended to be a forum for theoretical discussions,which we consider to be counter-productive (see above) given the restraints
of a listserv, on which SHORTER is BETTER. Theory is not banned: far from it. It is just that I assume that anyone on a situationist listserv is in basic accord with Marx's 11th thesis on Feuerbach: "To this point,
philosphers have only sought to interpret the world; the point is to change it."
LB not de B
Poor little Billy, he's beyond hope...