Ubuntu & the underdeveloped world

[ABrady]

On Thu, 16 Dec 2004 20:31:34 +0100
Loptr Chaote <loptr.chaote at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, 16 Dec 2004 07:15:27 +0000, david <nux at blueyonder.co.uk>
> wrote:
> > On Wed, 2004-12-15 at 20:39 -0600, ABrady wrote:
> >
> > > Take your politics and black helicopter theories elsewhere.
> >
> > Not necessary and somewhat harsh!
> > I think you might owe an apology for that one.
> >
> 
> I'm not sure I fully agree actually. From how the original mail was
> formulated, Ubuntu users seemed to be divided up into two parts; Cuba
> friends and Fascists/bigots.
> 
> Since I am not a big fan of Cuba, does that make me a fascist?
> I think the one who needs to apologize is Shango.
> 
> I've been an active anti-fascist and sympathized with different
> anarchist and socialist organisations around the world since I was
> 13.. But I still do not call Cuba a "social democracy". Actually, I
> think it's a mockery. The last election by municipal delegates, where
> Partido Comunista de Cuba was elected for a five year period, no other
> parties were allowed. Wow.. Democracy eh?
> 
> Not fully supporting the Castro-regime does not mean that you consider
> the western Empire (Bush/Kerry/whatnot) less evil. And sure, Cuba does
> have a lot of good points concerning governing a country, but
> "democracy" is certainly not one of them.
> 
> And I think that what ABrady was trying to say was, this is a thread
> that can lead to very few places, most of them being total havoc and
> rampant political discussions.

Let me state specifically what I mean. You had it right there in a
limited way.

I'm saying whomever is decided to be the devil will be determined by the
viewer. Someone loves Castro, someone hates Castro. Someone loves Bush,
someone hates Bush.

At the same time some will blame this or that country for something they
supposedly did, the same people often excuse another who is documented
to be more repressive, either to their own people or to people of other
nations.

What's the point? It leads to disagreement, argument and often bad
blood.

If people want to make statements of a political nature, take it to a
political forum. There's nothing to be gained by splitting people into
camps based solely upon their own views about how the world works.

I'm usually a fairly tolerant person and can put up with differing
views, no matter how wrong-headed I consider some of them to be, or how
much I agree with certain aspects and disagree with others. But when
people take to starting fist fights, verbal or otherwise, intentional or
by mistake, my tolerance drops to zero rather quickly.

This and most other mailing lists to which I belong are international in
nature. Therefore it is common courtesy to respect that other people in
an international forum might think some of your beliefs and ideas are
flat out dumb. That being the case, it's wisest to steer clear of
political ideas that are guaranteed to create arguments.

Religion is another topic that's almost certain to bring nothing but
trouble.

Others are certainly free to disagree with some or all of what I just
wrote. But I reserve the right to put them out of my view permanently if
they decide to participate in discussions that I find inappropriate,
just as others are free to plonk me.

I find political and religious discussions in a group or mailing list
not dedicated to those subjects to be inappropriate, particularly when
most participants are from varying backgrounds.

-- 
MyDoom: An original Microsoft web crawler.