Totally off-topic, but nonetheless probably needed...

Dear friends,

I apologize for this post. It is totally off-topic and thus probably appears as some form of narcissistic self-justification. However, considering the quality and, worse, quantity of personal attacks against me in this forum I felt like I would do everybody a service and post a clarification once and for all to which I could point out the next time and thus hopfully avoid the kind of lame yappings I have been the object of. I also want to make clear here that I don't give a damn about what any of the lamers venting their impotent frustration at being unable to come up with a meaningful argument might say about me, I am writing the following only in order *not* to have to answer them any more.

So why am I posting here? Am I some sleeper agent for Teheran, Damascus, Caracas or even Pyongyang? A convert to Islam with a crude knowledge of English? A moron barely able to cut-n-paste without a original personal thought? Maybe all of the above? :-))

My personal details really do not matter in any way. I post here mostly in the political forum because I think that it is important to hear out and think about the arguments of all the 'bad guys' whose opinions are never reflected in the US media and because I believe that discussing such "bad" opinions can be very interesting. I also believe that most Debian users, in particular those who understand and endorse the values which make Debian GNU/Linux possible, already are capable of original thought. I would not bother with, say, a political forum on a RedHat website. I strongly believe that at its core, Debian is deeply political, just as the entire free software movement is. The driving force and main objective of the Debian Project and of the Free Software movement is not making cool software, but enhancing our freedoms, freeing us from the shackles of the corporate domination and resisting the single-OS and/or single-thought society. And freedom is *always* about the freedom to dissent, about pluralism and about choice. This is also why such pro-corporate "linux" (no "GNU" from them) websites as Newsforge are filled with anti-Debian/RMS/GNU/FSF/GPL labels as communist, socialist, kibbutznik, hippe etc. These guys understand little about Debian/RMS/GNU/FSF/GPL but these (correctly) feel that all these are politically 'loaded'.

It is my opinion that in a Debian political forum it really makes no sense to debate Democrats vs. Republicans, Coulter vs. Hillarly or Pepsi vs. Cola. That would be a waste of time and an insult to the intellects of the forumites. However, listening to such admittedly repulsive characters as, say, Hamas' Meshaal is not only appropriate, but crucial to the understanding of the Middle-East. Just as it would be crucial to understand the arguments of a Kim Jong-Il to understand the developments in the Korean Peninsula or understanding the arguments of a Dubya-like Republican to understand what is going on in the USA. Those who take pride in hating National-Socialism or Communism but who have never read Hitler, Lenin (or, even more so Trotsky) are *by definition* nothing but well-indoctrinated bigots who obediently follow their current political masters (how many Nazis do you think read Trotsky or how many democrats have ever read Kim Il-Sung's writings on juche?). Ignorance is what breeds totalitarianism, *any* ignorance. I would also add that those who have expressed outrage over the "revisionist conference" in Teheran would be well-inspired to first read the books of Roger Garaudy or Jurgen Graff and then visit the excellent www.nizkor.org website before basking in their self-righteous ignorance and outrage. In fact, I would suggest that one should *NEVER* condemn *ANY* idea before at the very least being exposed to it less one be like the typical Soviet citizen who hated Solzhenitsyn but who also said that "I don't read this kind of garbage".

Why do I often cut-n-paste? Simply because I have nothing to say! All I want to do is pass on a controversial and/or interesting newsitem. When I want to say something of my own, I do so, but why would I paraphrase an interesting newsitem, in particular when I totally disagree with it? I have a strong dislike for Hamas and for the entire Wahabi/Salafi movement from the original Al-Ikwan Al-Muslimun to the modern Al-Qaeda types. However, I find the writings of Sayyid Qutb or Osama Bin-Laden most interesting, as are the writings of Trotsky, Thomas of Aquinas, Nietzsche, Eckhart or Hegel even though they all gave birth to amazingly evil ideologies. Remember the words of Christ about about how the "truth shall make us free" and consider that knowing the truth does require the ability to chose between good and evil. Ignorance or censorship is never a virtue, only the cloak to hide the ignorance and intellectual inadequacy of the insecure and frustrated.

In conclusion, let me repeat here that I will continue posting here as I have done in the past regardless of the personal attacks which this might trigger as long as IntnsRed does not ask me to stop. This is his website and his opinion is the only one that counts on this matter.

Again - my apologies for this off-topic clarification and kind regards to all,

Vees