Re: [Last-Call] Last Call: BCP 83 PR-Action Against Dan Harkins

[Dan Harkins <[e-mail]>]

   Wow, what an incredible conspiracy theory! Truly astonishing.

   I'm "regurgitating" "tropes" (note the loaded terms) in the
service of nation state actors, one of which is a mistress of
a Russian diplomat! It ultimately involves Hitler and the
holocaust (of course it does!) and the removal or preservation
of statues raised to honor the cause of slavery!

   Yea, you're right. I don't believe any of this and I doubt
anyone else does. I want to say you're trying to troll here
but, sadly, I think you're serious. And seriously deluded.
And I say this sincerely: you need help, seek out some mental
health professional immediately.

   regards,

   Dan.

On 10/3/22 9:17 AM, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:
> A rejection of the IESG recommendation is not necessarily a 
> repudiation of it. The facts might have changed as a result of the PR 
> proposal. They have not but Dan could have chosen to react differently.
>
> I don't for a moment imagine that Dan is going to believe it, but 
> together with some colleagues I have been following the emergence of 
> some of the tropes he is regurgitating. At each point, there are 
> agents of a nation state actor that have worked to amplify and extend 
> the reach of ideas that would have otherwise quickly died.
>
> Nor are these agents particularly difficult to spot. One was part of 
> Occupy, anonymous, BLM, the Sanders campaign, the Stein campaign, the 
> Sanders campaign again and finally the Trump campaign in an 18 month 
> period. She was also the mistress of a Russian diplomat, or at least 
> his name was on the lease of her flat. These are the worst spies ever, 
> they constantly tweet their activities and their meetings and they are 
> the people that the 10-20,000 paid trolls work to direct attention 
> towards.
>
> What these people are doing is working a tactic originally developed 
> by David Irving who originally rose to fame on the back of 'Hitler's 
> War' which in the first edition claims the holocaust happend but 
> Hitler himself was not aware of it. As the subsequent libel action 
> demonstrated, the claim itself was pure bad faith and obviously 
> anti-Semitic in intent, but it was not anti-Semitic on its face.
>
> And these information engagement operations have frequently targeted 
> both sides because the end goal is division, not (say) the removal or 
> preservation of statues raised to honor the cause of slavery.
>
> The desire to be a part of a social group can be very powerful, so 
> powerful in fact that some people are willing to sacrifice their 
> principles, their reason or both. And we have created this vast 
> communication engine which allows the unprincipled to exploit those 
> desires on an unprecedented scale. And certain social media actors 
> have chosen to enable those operations.
>
>
>
> On Mon, Oct 3, 2022 at 10:21 AM Murray S. Kucherawy 
> <[e-mail]> wrote:
>
>     On Sun, Oct 2, 2022 at 9:24 PM Keith Moore
>     <[e-mail]> wrote:
>
>         On 10/2/22 21:16, Timothy Mcsweeney wrote:
>
>         > I have less trust now too, but for a completely different
>         reason.  The originating email to this thread states that the
>         IESG has already formed an opinion, (Dan is bad) thereby
>         tainting the results of the poll, even if only subconsciously,
>         so that those who may want to be seen in a favorable light by
>         the IESG would naturally back up their previously expoused
>         decision and respond accordingly.
>         >
>         > Where the originating email goes on to describe that the
>         IESG does not like to be rebuffed with communication that can
>         be considered both
>         > antagonistic and hostile, it puts the poll responder on
>         notice to get in line.
>         +1.
>
>         In a normal Last Call, anyone is free to object without
>         significant
>         reprisal.    In this case, anyone can see that by objecting
>         they'd be
>         courting disfavor from those in power.   That's not a
>         consensus call at
>         all.
>
>
>     I don't agree with the premise.  Any Last Call is in essence a
>     statement that the IESG is preparing to take some action it
>     believes is appropriate and justified, and wants (or, if you
>     prefer, is required) to test community consensus on that
>     decision.  That could be a WG being chartered, a document
>     approaching readiness for publication as an RFC, or a PR action
>     for which supporting evidence appears to exist.  This is no different.
>
>     I also don't particularly care for the insinuation that there
>     might be reprisals ("disfavor") if the community decides the IESG
>     got it wrong.  If the consensus goes against this action, then
>     we'll just end up having to figure out where we go from here. 
>     That presumes a lack of integrity.  Were I to engage in such
>     reprisals, I would expect to be recalled.
>
>     -MSK
>     -- 
>     last-call mailing list
>     [e-mail]
>     https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/last-call
>
>

-- 
"The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to
escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane." -- Marcus Aurelius