X-Message-Number: 30529
Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 19:58:36 -0700
From: "Finance Department" <>
Subject: Some Followup on the Alcor Self-Electing Board Issue

------=_Part_10091_22822191.1203908316803
Content-Disposition: inline

In terms of himself, Freeman is right to complain that I post anonymously.
It makes it harder for him to engage in his favorite hobby of ad hominem
attacks.  Just think about what he would have to say if I were a real-name
person whom he knows.  I'm suspicious of "Tim Freeman" though - it sounds a
lot like "John Doe".  Is "Freeman" his real name or his political
philosophy?  Either way it is inconsistent with Alcor members not having the
freedom to elect their Board.  So many questions and so many ways to
distract, but I digress.

Next we have Greg Crouse who thinks every new post about the Alcor
self-electing board issue is just more of the same old stuff; it is
therefore obvious he has not actually read any of them.  All that I have
read, and my own, discuss new and different aspects of the issue.  I have
yet to see a "Yes, me too" post, or a post consisting only of "Rah Rah".
The least important posts have been Freeman's who brings up unrelated side
issues and in some cases meaningless babble, probably a conscious attempt at
distraction from the real issue.  Case in point:  His pretended worrying
about how Alcor should count instances of X - a distraction from what is
truly important, that being what is actually said, regardless of whether the
writer is anonymous.

And Crouse, of all things, thinks that Alcor's political setup is
satisfactory to him, being "republic oriented (rather) than democracy
oriented."  Had he been reading the information presented, he would have
learned that Alcor's board is actually a dictatorship, not a republic.  In a
republic you at least get to vote for the people who make your decisions for
you.  So if Crouse wants a republican oriented structure for Alcor, he needs
to be reading David Pizer's latest material which advocates going back to
one that Alcor once had:  the Director Electorate.

Henson's posts are not redundant either, though their content is a bit
disappointing and unrepresentative of his real capability.  This is probably
because he too does not really want to get down to the real issue.  He
prefers to divert the conversation to accusing me of missing his point, and
citing historical reasons for Alcor's board not being forthcoming to its
members.  I suppose he thinks it is therefore still a valid reason 15 years
later, when the only board member now who also was then is Carlos Mondragon
(and he wasn't for most of the intervening time).  Anyway, he starts with
the assumption that members would not know about such agenda items and
therefore could not possibly make informed voting decisions based on board
member performance.  That the ordinary member cannot be trusted with
information that is crucial to the organization, is hogwash.  Indeed, they
should have the right to know, and realization of that right will make them
informed voting members.

Then Henson asks who should be replaced and by whom.  Good question - since
none of them publicly support member election of the board, I say replace
them all.  Well, at least make them all run for election by the entire body
of Alcor members.  In another post he concludes with rambling, pointless
remarks about other non-profits - of such little relevance that again they
appear to be simply attempts at distraction from meaningful discussion about
Alcor's board.

And now we have Dave Pizer and the California Corporation Code.  Wow.  And
he politely asks Alcor's Board to, along with a committee of ordinary
members, get a legal opinion on it.  Of course he had to ask that, but does
it surprise anybody that the silence in response has been deafening?
Chances are they have already been to legal counsel and advised to not
comment or take any action on such an issue that might end up in
litigation.  And separately Dave laments that all the Alcor members have
done thus far is discuss.  I'll have to admit I'm a bit perplexed as to who
is going to litigate, since most Alcor members seem like Greg Crouse -
unconcerned.  If I were an Alcor member I would chip in to a legal fund for
it, but being only someone who is interested in Alcor becoming an
organization worthy of my future membership, I think it is fair for me to
expect something closer to that to happen before I join up and throw in
money of my own.

Best regards,

FD

------=_Part_10091_22822191.1203908316803

 Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1

[ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] 

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=30529