 |
 |
Dear John, thank for your reply and I'm sure I've been over-egging my yoking of you, the UN and freedom, although there are a few things that are UNresolved in my mind. You ask me not to prejudge what you are going to say when you moderate this meeting, which of course is fair enough, but I suppose I'm trying to establish why anyone with your politics (again, I'm not entirely sure what your politics are, but I presume you swing to the left) would put themselves in that situation. Here's another bit from Rams UN letter to me If you wish to be involved, I will need a serious commitment on your part because the program will involve the United Nations and major corporations and private foundations who will help to under-write the event I find this stuff...head exploding. and what exactly is a dialogue between 'civilisations'. What civilisations? I understand country, nation etc, but are you planning to dress someone up like Plato. It sounds a bit Monty Python. But it's nowt to do with me. You also say the list has nothing to do with the UN, fine but that's a bit contradicted by Candice's message yesterday, which included - For my own part, I've wondered about the UN project and had some mixed feelings about John's original proposal for a series of worldwide poetryetc-linked readings having been assimilated to it. which suggests some seepage or suggested seepage on your part. And to push another point, I'm not the only one prejudging it seems after your apology for threatening removal of individuals from the list. In your apology you mention you were taken up with back channel comments, which is something else I've got beef about. BCing is Ok but on this list already I've had 2 examples of the strategic BC which I neither like nor understand. Yesterday Mark announced to the list like Jacques Cousteau I'm taking this backchannel. and then he wrote me something that might as well have appeared in the front, and then Joseph who I thought had left, sent me something saying don't trust what other people say etc, which is fair enough, but 2 things occur to me. 1, what has happened to me in the past is that someone goes BC, you don't realise and your comment back enters a void and people think you're crackers. 2, you can go BC be horrible and then reappear in public space as nice as pie, leaving the receipient to decide whether to paste it in to public, or let it lie and feel hurt. I think BC is a rarefied space within a list, not totally private, unlike if i e you and say do you fancy a pint? I fancy a pint regards Paul ps it's Paul not egg, my little press is called eggpress %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%