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____/ The Ghost In The Machine on Tuesday 08 July 2008 14:28 : \____
> In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Roy Schestowitz
> <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> wrote
> on Tue, 08 Jul 2008 17:21:43 -0400
> <1491381.8vscdJHCkz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
>>
>> The Continued Cheapening of the Word "Terrorism"
>>
>> ,----[ Quote ]
>> | Now labor strikes are terrorism...
>> |
>> | [...]
>> |
>> | Terrorism is a heinous crime, and a serious international problem. It's
>> | not a catchall word to describe anything you don't like or don't agree
>> | with, or even anything that adversely affects a large number of people. By
>> | using the word more broadly than its actual meaning, we muddy the already
>> | complicated popular conceptions of the issue. The word "terrorism" has a
>> | specific meaning, and we shouldn't debase it.
>> `----
>>
>> http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/07/the_continued_c.html
>
> Terrorism is a funny animal anyway. The Nicaraguan
> "contras" were freedom fighters, in their own lights.
> The US Revolutionary War heroes were protesting a 2%
> stamp tax [*] on tea, sparking the Boston Tea Party,
> the Revolutionary War, and ultimately the founding of
> this particular country. Other countries have their own
> stories -- ask a Frenchman about Bastille Day, July 14,
> 1789 -- Bastille Saint-Antoine was a notorious prison,
> for example; the Mexicans have their independence day
> September 16, 1810, apparently known as 'El Grito'.
> (Not to be confused with Cinco de Mayo, the 5th of May,
> which celebrates a Mexican victory over the French later
> on, in 1862.)
>
> The Taleban is presumably fighting against oppressive
> Western culture (by being oppressive itself, though that's
> a Western judgement; they will not see it that way).
> FARC is fighting Columbian corruption, though I'm not sure
> they're all that effective now.
>
> Tamil separatists were active in India for awhile;
> Sikhs have been mentioned there as well. Crimeans
> and Georgians have their agendas. The US Civil War
> was pretty major as well, way back when, in the 1860's.
>
> The Bolsheviks were overthrowing the Tsar, the ruling
> monarch at the time. Iran overthrew the Shah, with some
> help from us. (I'm not sure how intentional that help
> was.) Saddam Hussein overthrew Abdul Rahman Arif in 1968
> in a bloodless coup, and the US overthrew *him* in 2003.
>
> The Sunni, Shi'a, and Kurds have their own agendas.
> Not sure I could tell them apart myself, though I know they
> are different; there are even issues where individuals
> possess both Sunni and Shi'a names, and using the wrong
> one in certain areas of Iraq can lead to the death of
> the individual. For their part Kurds have a delicate
> situation, as Turkey is very annoyed at them -- and they
> also have a region populated with a number of Kurds,
> which they'd rather not lose.
>
> As for labor strikes -- Solidarity comes to mind,
> in Poland; the Communist government was overthrown,
> relatively peacefully, in 1981. It has since become a
> more traditional labor union, and is apparently no longer
> a major driving force in Polish politics. The same could
> be said for many of our unions, especially after Reagan
> fired 11,345 striking PATCO union members, effectively
> breaking the union; the union was then decertified -- also
> in 1981.
>
> And of course Linux is a response to the perceived
> oppressiveness of Microsoft Windows, though far less
> violent than much of the above. ;-)
It's proprietary software at large, don't you agree? The GNU project predates
the absolutel monopoly on desktop computing. It dates back to times when PCs
were rarely at homes.
Microsoft likes to flatter itself by calling Free software a 'new thing' that's
a reaction just to its own 'greatness'. The problem is much broader though.
> Welcome to the New World Order.
>
> [rest snipped]
>
> [*] I'd have to look, but my understanding is that this was
> a "straw breaking the camel's back" sort of thing.
> Current income taxes are more than 20x this amount
> in certain states, when federal and state taxes are
> considered -- and at that, they are lower than they
> were during Eisenhower, where maximum tax rates were
> over 90%.
Speaking of 'terrorism' losing its meaning, it's the same with SPAM. Just look
how the trolls label everything they don't like "spam".
- --
~~ Best of wishes
Roy S. Schestowitz | Useless fact: Sharks are immune to cancer
http://Schestowitz.com | RHAT GNU/Linux | PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
run-level 5 Jul 3 20:37 last=S
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