Setting the Record Straight

[michelmanen]

We are entitled to our own assessment of how the debates went. We went further than any other faction to make it public and justify it with actual quotes from the debate. And we did so not on an official CDS site, but on our own website. I am certain that in doing so, we broke no rules of propriety and fairness, but simply exercised our freedom of thought and speech during an election campaign. Do you have any objections to this?

You may of course have a differnt point of view. And our citizens will decide in their own wisdom who won and who lost, and who deserves their support.

As to our website, we worked quite hard to develop in detail the information and arguments posted there just before the debate; the fact that we used such information and arguments during the debate in no way diminishes their value and relevance.

[Diderot Mirabeau]

[quote="michelmanen":1x8irf5r]We are entitled to our own assessment of how the debates went. We went further than any other faction to make it public and justify it with actual quotes from the debate. And we did so not on an official CDS site, but on our own website. I am certain that in doing so, we broke no rules of propriety and fairness, but simply exercised our freedom of thought and speech during an election campaign. Do you have any objections to this?[/quote:1x8irf5r]
No, what makes you think that? Are you trying to deliberately distort my argument per chance?

All I point out is that claiming that you "won" the debate yesterday is utter, shameless propaganda, which should be discounted by any thinking person who takes it upon him/herself to study the actual proceedings of the debate. To me it implies that you do not take your voters seriously that you try to pass off that account of the meeting as gospel to your voters.

I am sad to see that a party contributing to an election in the CDS feels it has to sink so low as to claim for itself imagined victories. I certainly hope that your policy will be based on a more substantial foundation than that should you manage to get yourself elected.

[michelmanen]

I distorted nothing. I only asked if you objected and I am glad to see you don't. As to the rest of your comments, I clearly do not share them.

Our citizens will decide on their own whom to entrust their votes to. Let us leave it up to them to decide whether I or any CARE candidate should "manage to get [him/herself] elected.

[Aliasi Stonebender]

[quote="Beathan":10y8fqex]Second, possibly, a request that the forum, wiki, and Anzere infohub be "publicly owned." At present, these are privately owned -- and it is not clear as a matter of RL law that the CDS can appropriate or condemn these private properties for the "public" CDS use. It is also not clear, as a matter of Linden and other hosting sites policies, that this taking of private property will be permitted. Finally, it is unclear that a democracy should even be engaged in such taking of private property for public use -- certainly it should not without payment of fair compensation to the owner being deprived of her property.
[/quote:10y8fqex]

In fact, I will confirm that it is outright impossible for the CDS to take the infohub - not merely unlawful, but impossible. All Infohubs are owned by Linden Lab.

Secondly, while I have offered the CDS the right to the wiki - and if the CDS wishes to simply use a web-spider to crawl all the information off, I can hardly object - but the CDS will [i:10y8fqex]force[/i:10y8fqex] me to hand over my webserver at approximately the same time Hell puts in an order for a million pairs of ice-skates.

[Diderot Mirabeau]

[quote="michelmanen":ib1a69n9]Our citizens will decide on their own whom to entrust their votes to. Let us leave it up to them to decide whether I or any CARE candidate should "manage to get [him/herself] elected.[/quote:ib1a69n9]
This is exactly the contradiction I do not understand: You have confidence in our voters to make up their own mind about whom to elect, but you do not trust them to judge for themselves what was the outcome of the election debate resorting instead to spoonfeeding selective excerpts and loaded descriptions like [quote="CARE website":ib1a69n9]Manen’s detailed, authoritative reply effectively ended the debate and sealed a clear triumph for CARE’s vision and values of absolute inclusion, deep diversity, and the power of the best argument.[/quote:ib1a69n9]
To me this reads like something out of China Daily. Not even the RL European party political newsletters that I subscribe to resort to such techniques.

[michelmanen]

We quoted at length speakers from all factions and put their comments in context. For those who want to read the entire transcript, it is freely available. No other faction took the time or made the effort to present to their members who were absent an overview of the debate.

As to our take on it - we believe we were able to get our message across clearly and cogently and answer our critics and detractors in no uncertain terms -all whilst remaining firmly focused on our positive message. We believe no other faction did that as well as we did. We are entitled to express our point of view on our own website (please note we did not post this on the CDS forums). As long as we focus on our message and what we do well as opposed to demolishing our opponents with negative or personal attacks, I am confident we remain firmly within our own guildelines regarding the conduct of this election. We said we would not be negative and engage in personal attacks against other candidates- we never claimed we wouln't strongly support our own position and points of view in our own information media...

Those factions who disagree with our version are also free to make the effort to publicise their own take on the debate on their website (if they have one).

[Gxeremio Dimsum]

[quote="michelmanen":banz0isl]We are entitled to our own assessment of how the debates went. We went further than any other faction to make it public and justify it with actual quotes from the debate. And we did so not on an official CDS site, but on our own website. I am certain that in doing so, we broke no rules of propriety and fairness, but simply exercised our freedom of thought and speech during an election campaign. Do you have any objections to this?[/quote:banz0isl]

I don't have an objection, per se, but a question: who is we?

Did anyone other than you contribute to your propaganda piece about the debate? Did anyone else other than you contribute to the CARE website at all?

[Beathan]

Michel writes of his efforts to distribute the debate transcript to CARE members, claiming that it was unique. [quote:1lr04e7m]No other faction took the time or made the effort to present to their members who were absent an overview of the debate. [/quote:1lr04e7m]

This is false. This very thread proves that it is false. The purpose of this thread is to do exactly what Michel is claiming the other factions did not do -- set the record straight and reveal the empty rhetoric and misrepresentation of CARE as seen at the debate. Contrary to Michel's claim, by staying on CARE's essentially empty "message" -- Michel failed to engage the issues, or the other debaters, or the audience, at the debate. He failed to answer any questions, or respond to the statements of the other debaters, in any substantive way. In fact, he used CARE's rebuttal and response time to merely continue his opening statements, rather than to engage with the other debaters. What kind of debate is that? At least we had a three person debate -- bracketed by a CARE stumpspeech.

I have actively publicised the debate, the transcript, and this very thread in the forums to voters I did not see at the debate or who may not have read this thread. I have not limited myself to members of the Simplicity Party -- because all voters, especially CARE voters, need to know the truth about the debate and about CARE as revealed through this thread. So far, voters have tended to be chagrined by the positions Michel has taken here -- which are radically different from the private but unwritten and therefore unprovable assurances and statements he makes to people inworld. Hopefully someone has been taking notes of these inworld promises just in case CARE wins a seat or two.

I believe that this thread is very revealing about all four parties -- although the DPU is mostly revealed by its silence thusfar (indicating an attempt to stand above the debate, regardless of how critical the debate it -- very patrician; although, to be fair, FR, Ranma and Claude have all participated). CARE's participation, like CARE, has been an increasingly unhinged one-man-show that claims to speak on behalf of a great, but silent, multitude (most of whom, as I know from conversations inworld, support the idea of CARE as a "grassroots movement for SL democracy" -- but not as a CDS faction with a radical agenda of Constitutional reform and lawyer supremacy). The CSDF and the Simplicity Party, scrappers that we are, have engaged and challenged Michel (and therefore CARE) to prove that CARE's positions are substantive and are not hypocritical, although we have taken up this challenge from our own overlapping, but distinct, positions. So far, his response has been as arrogantly dismissive as it is lacking in substantive or positive content -- which is quite a remarkable achievement, although not one to be proud of. As with most of CARE's website, manifesto and "platform" -- Michel's posts in this thread and speeches in the debate have the appearance of Chinese Communist sloganeering.

However, the crowning analysis here comes from Dianne -- who is radically unaffiliated, refusing to be tied to a party platform as something that, as a result of many hands other than her own, is not something with which she could ever wholeheartedly agree. Dianne's analysis of CARE is as insightful and true as it is damning -- I recommend it to all voters. http://forums.neufreistadt.info/viewtop ... c&start=30

Beathan

[michelmanen]

The fact that you choose to engage in negative campaigning and attack CARE in the forums, during the debate, in your discussions with CDS citizens solely for the purpose of destroying its image and message and damaging it with the voters at large well after the polls have opened is fully in line with your earlier statement in this thread that

[quote:2qr0f4yg]....there is nothing wrong with negative campaigning.[/quote:2qr0f4yg]

Therefore, we are not surprised by your actions; in fact, we would have been (pleasantly) surprised had you acted in a constructive manner and focused on your party's vision, principles, message and policies - just as CARE has done throughout this campaign.

CARE will not let your attacks against us, or those of other Simplicity Party memers such as Mr. Dimsum, or anyone for that matter, sway it from following the high road it has chosen to fight these elections on. We will continue to lead a positive, proactive, dynamic campaign, and refrain from any and all personal criticism of other factions' candidates.

We will let the CDS voters decide, in their wisdom, whether the power of negative campaiging whose champions are clear for all to see is indeed capable of overwhelming that of a positive, visionary, forward-looking attempt to change the direction of this community's polity by making it more inclusive, more diverse, more responsive to the power of the best argument, more accountable, more open, and more conducive to active citizen participation in its process of governance.

As to Dianne's post -when she wrote these lines she had never met me in-world or otherwise beyond a couple of meetings we both attended and where we exchanged brief hellos. Her personal opinions about me and about CARE were formed without once having sat to talk to me and get to know me or what CARE was all about.

The manner I handled this matter exemplifies our approach to such type of public criticism: instead of engaging in a war of words on these forums and making a sorry spectacly of this campaign, I contacted Dianne, met her in private for almost one hour, inquired as to her reasons for making this post purporting to know me personally and CARE in general so well before even having had the change to actually talk to me even once, then explained to her my poersonal and intellectual background and beliefs, and CARE's core agenda and approach to the political process in general and to these elections in particular. I'd like to think that by the end of our chat, I was able to clear any misconceptions and misunderstandings and establish more cordial relations between us than might be assumed from just reading her post.

[Beathan]

Michel --

All the parties, except CARE, have presented clear and substantive platforms. The details of the Simplicity Parties platform -- and the thinking of ALL its members (not just a single member) can be found here: http://forums.neufreistadt.info/viewfor ... 463d3e31a5

I note that the Simplicity Party forum posts: (1) have many responses by Simplicity Party members and candidates elaborating the original post, (2) start with a statement of policy and principles, and (3) contain specific proposals and legislative objectives. This is what true positive campaigning looks like.

The CARE forum is entirely different. As can be seen here: http://forums.neufreistadt.info/viewfor ... 463d3e31a5

Most of the posts by CARE members are posts from a single person -- Michel Manen. Most have had no response. Most contain a statement of principle (set forth as a suspect platitude) with little or no substance. This emptiness has not been elaborated by any responses. Further, most of the posts involve a process -- which apparently is failing -- to develop a substantive party agenda, rather than set forth a substantive party agenda. Nineteen of the twenty-five posts have no response -- and those that do have responses tend to have responses from non-Care voters asking CARE for more information.

So far, on any model I am familiar with, no party or person has engaged in negative campaigning against CARE (except me and Dianne -- with regard to CARE's position on the judiciary act, proposed use of eminent domain to nationalize the media of discussion and information in the CDS, and the proposed radio station). This is because CARE lacks anything we can campaign against. The negation of zero is still zero -- and the negation of a point infinitely close to zero might as well be zero.

Michel can make a virtue out of vacuity if he chooses -- but I trust the voters will not follow him down that barren road.

Beathan

[michelmanen]

Your total refusal to understand CARE's core message and approach to the political process in general and to this election in particular simply because it does not conform with your pre-conceived ideas about what a political party, an election campaign and a system of governance are all about is entirely predictable.

CARE was founded less than 3 weeks ago; during that time, it has had a positive, eneergising effect on this community, its citizens, and beyond.
It it easy for CARE's opponents to mount joint attacks against what we stand for; it is much harder to attempt to build a worthwhile, visionary and inclusive organization in the face of such obdurate resistance to change and progress from some of this community's most vocal citizens.

We are content to put our fate in the hands of the voters of the CDS, and let them, in their wisdom, decide, which path they wish this community to follow: that propounded by Beathan, Dimsum & Co, or that championed by CARE.

[b:3gg68qn6]
Alea jacta est.[/b:3gg68qn6]

The only poll that counts - the popular verdict of these elections - will have the final say in this matter.

[Beathan]

Michel --

Again with the Caesar references. First the marching XIIIth legion in your campaign video -- and now this. The die has been cast indeed -- and CARE has crossed the Rubicon. Fortunately, unlike Rome, the CDS does not stand open and undefended.

I think I do understand CARE's "program" -- as do most of its other critics. However, outside of Communist countries, programs are not platforms -- and we still want to see CARE's platform, which remains almost entirely empty.

CARE is replicating the primary defect of its favorite piece of legislation -- elevating form over substance, procedures over ends, to the detriment of both process and substance. CARE's language is prettier and more elegant than the JA's was -- but it is even more shallow for all its show.

Beathan

[michelmanen]

We realise that such is your opinion and that of some of your colleagues. I guess we won't be very high on your voting ballot then....

Fortunately, the CDS has 70-odd citizens - not just 15. Let's see what they decide.

[Gxeremio Dimsum]

[quote="michelmanen":20velxoh]We are content to put our fate in the hands of the voters of the CDS, and let them, in their wisdom, decide, which path they wish this community to follow: that propounded by Beathan, Dimsum & Co, or that championed by CARE.[/quote:20velxoh]

What is the path of CARE? That is what we all want to know. Is it the path of extending one's persons opinion into an endless stream of "we" statements, full of positive emotion but empty of practical plans? Is it the path of proclaiming your love of diversity and inclusiveness while using the term "that's your opinion" to dismiss the ideas of others? Is it the path of of claiming to be responsive while avoiding numerous clear and often simple questions? Is it the path of writing in ridiculously self-inflating prose in the third person? In short, because your actions and your ideals are in conflict, people need to know: which CARE party are they voting for?

Neither Beathan nor I speak definitively for the Simplicity Party, though we are members. Our party's proposals, when we call them such, have been worked out in dialogue. Yet you speak for CARE as if you are one and the same, and in spite of your swelled membership rolls no other member of your party has contributed to the discussions about the elections on the forum, or even to the party's "program," as far as I can tell.

Which path will people choose to vote for, indeed?
Here is the path of CARE, as far as has been demonstrated: empty words, hypocrisy, and pride.
Here is the path of the Simplicity Party: realism, growth, and improvement.

[michelmanen]

Congratulations on your superb demostration of the techniques of a politics of negative campaigning and personal destruction.

We will have none of it, despite your sustained and agressive attacks against what we stand for and believe in.