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RMS Cancels Lectures In Israel
Eesh writes "Globes and Haaretz report that Stallman cancelled his plans for lecturing in Israeli universities as part of a visit to the Palestinian Authority, due to threats by the Palestinian organizers that they won't be paying for his trip if he does so. Globes write: 'Stallman was scheduled to visit Israel in July and to speak at Haifa University, Tel Aviv University and Shenkar College. The Palestinians initiated the visit, but when they understood that Stallman would also be speaking at Israeli universities they told him they would no longer fund the trip. In response, Stallman announced that he would cancel the speaking engagements in Israel, and would be satisfied with visiting the Palestinian Authority regions only.'" Here's the email from RMS and response from the Israeli organizer. Hopefully RMS will brush off being named "Linux founder" by Haaretz. Update: 05/29 19:39 GMT by T : Oops! As user Windrip points out below, it's Globes, not Haaretz, which attributed Linux to RMS.
Maybe if universities in Israel want to have him speak there, they should invite him at a different time and by him some other tickets?
You can't handle the truth.
Can't he buy himself plane tickets?
Someone has to pay for the beer.
I'll give props to RMS in this case.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
I think in that situation, I'd be inclined to say "a plague on both your houses", and go to Brazil.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Stallman expects the rest of us to live some live of software purity, never compromising on closed software, despite the fact that we often do so for pragmatic reasons like getting paid, getting the job done etc. Yet here is he, quite prepared to give into bullying terms when it suits him.
Stallman has done more damage to the free software movement than Microsoft has or could.
I should have the freedom to choose any software license I want. I've had enough of his my-way-or-the-highway thinking.
Eddie says "However, personally I start to doubt your truthfulness about freedom." .
He should have said, "I understand, and we want you to come talk at our universities. Lets discuss making travel arrangements for another date."
I believe, and this article highlights, the palestinians value freedom enough to pay for it, while Israel expects it to be handed to them, and protected for them by and with other peoples money.
They refuse to call it "GNU/Israel".
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
This now sets a precedent that RMS will respond to fiscal pressure, as he's established that the head of FSF will change who he says it to based on who's paying.
Far better for RMS to have refused the trip entirely. Yes, it would have canceled the Israeli university talks anyway, but it would have at least said that he's unwilling to be bullied or change who he talks to.
And for those who say "He could go on a separate time on Israeli money": There is a huge logistical cost in his time and effort involved in traveling halfway across the globe. A trip like this takes two days near dead for travel time & jetlag alone.
This is a cost which RMS, not the Palestinians, is presumably paying. It makes sense, if this cost is incurred, to also give talks at Israeli universities, as this cost is something the Palestinians presumably aren't paying for, he is.
If, instead, the Palestinians are paying for his travel time as well as his ticket, this makes the precedent even worse.
Test your net with Netalyzr
"Richard Stallman" is his birth name, but "rms" (all lower-case) is his chosen identity. Kinda like "Norma Jeane Baker" versus "Marilyn Monroe", or "Robert Zimmerman" versus "Bob Dylan".
Circumcision is child abuse.
Will they be there, listening to Stallman, or will they be carefully segregated from their sexual superiors?
In his place, if someone tried to manipulate me like that, I'd do the opposite -- give them a big fat "fuck you" and go meet the other side instead, even if I had to pay for the trip.
Circumcision is child abuse.
"The funds for my travel to Israel are coming from Palestinians who invited me to give talks for them."
Only RMS would jump right into the middle of such a hot mess. Perhaps he can ask the Syrian government for a free bus trip to the Israeli border like the "Nabka Day" protesters.
Four killed on Israel's border with Syria
Israeli-Palestinian violence marks "Nabka" day
Um yeah....isn't there some free software you could like...video stream the lectures to everyone?
Free software is about receiving source code along with software and being able to modify and redistribute the software. There is nothing inconsistent about Stallman's behavior: you can get paid for software, you can create proprietary software, etc. if you like. Some of your business models may not work with free software, but that's not Stallman's intent, that's just a consequence.
The Palestinians are paying for the trip and they get to set the conditions they pay for; that's the way all invited talks work. "No side trips" is a common condition for invited talks.
What's actually going on is that Israel is forcing foreign scientists wanting to visit the Palestinian territories to travel through Israel, and then saying "oh, we made you come here, why don't you also give some lectures for free". Imagine the US used military force to keep international planes from landing in Canada and then asked foreign scientists diverted through the US to also give free talks in the US; it would be quite outrageous.
The situation is made even worse because the Palestinians are so poor compared to Israel. For Israeli universities to piggy-back on a trip paid for by the Palestinians ought to be a huge embarrassment for Israel.
The obvious thing would be for Israel to pay for the entire trip, including the trip to the Palestinian territories. That would be the obvious, right and peaceful thing to do. Apparently, Israel isn't interested in that.
I hope Israel will turn around and do the right thing.
Ever taken a side trip on a biz trip? Mightn't he have done that? Could have been the plan, articles don't say. Love how ev1's siding w/ pals by default.
TIL that Count Bernadotte, the man who negotiated for the release of over 30,000 Nazi Concentration Camp prisoners including almost 500 Danish Jews, was killed by a militant Zionist group when he tried negotiating a peace settlement between the Arabs and the Israelis.
How do you like dem apples now?
yeah, RMS, like various ships, or the root mean square, or risk management solutions, or roosevelt middle school, or so many others.
Only an idiot or an egotistical jerk that's also an idiot would refer to themselves by a tla (that's three letter acronym).
No, I've never met the guy, but if he really refers to himself as rms, the previous comments stand. If it's just the media doing this, then those 'reporters' are the ones the comments refer to.
Easy solution;
Both parties want him to Speak, let both parties pay half each. If both parties refuse, stay home, if only one accepts, then go there.
I fully understand why the Palestinians do not wish to pay the "Israeli" share, and the other way around. However, splitting the costs is fair, and all parties win.
Sure, I realize it might be impolite if the Palestinians had already been promised a visit, but I think at least the option of splitting costs should be proposed.
> How does Stallman pay his bills, anyway?
(For a detailed answer, you could read a biography about him: http://static.fsf.org/nosvn/faif-2.0.pdf )
Some organisations pay him for the talks he gives. He also won some awards in the 90s which came with chunky cash prizes which he said he would invest.
His bills probably aren't too big anyway. He asks his hosts to pay his travel and accommodation (usually staying with someone in their house rather than in a hotel). He has no kids, which saves him a lot of money.
FSF doesn't pay him any salary.
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
Refrain from talking about things you have no idea about. Rocks, weapons of mass destruction!
Rockets =/= rocks. The Palestinians toss plenty of those. You should also check the definition of a WMD before spouting more worthless bullshit.
That said, I don't favor either side. They are equally culpable. Just because one has more powerful toys does not make them the worse of the two. If you support either side, you're a sucker.
Well, opinions about the right or wrongness of Israel aside, it is a well known fact that Israeli universities are pretty well funded and staffed (especially if compared to Palestinian ones).
They already have top class academics working for them and plenty of funding to bring other academics to visit them pretty regularly. I have had the privilege to meet many famous Israeli academics, but I am yet to meet a Palestinian one.
If we just ignore the politics for a little while, I can see why an underfunded Palestinian university might feel cheated if they are paying for a guy to come from across the world to give a lecture, and the guys across the border who have lots more funding and better staff than they have tried to amortize Israeli costs of bringing a foreign academic by using Palestinian money. After all, they could have offered to split the bill or something.
On top of that, I'm not sure about the situation right now, but until very recently, Israel (which controls Palestinian borders and tax collection) was withholding tax money from the Palestinian Authority because they were in reconciliation talks with Hamas. Again, ignoring politics, but looking at a very real cashflow issue that their universities might be having, I can see why they might resent this move.
www.meneguzzi.eu/felipe
From his website:
"Richard Stallman" is just my mundane name; you can call me "rms".
He usually uses "Richard Stallman" or "Richard M. Stallman" for formal correspondence.
However in informal contexts like email signatures he is very likely to just use "rms".
This is not unlike a "Robert" being known informally as "Bob", except that this is a
nickname for the full name, not just the the first name.
Stylish sheet to fix many problems in Slashdot's D3: https://gist.github.com/801524
I'd have told the palestinians to grow up and get a life... it would be my travel arrangements or tough sh1t no visit at all...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
One of the posts in the linked thread goes to some Israeli biz-pub.
The Ha'aretz article about RMS' decision doesn't mis-attribute "Linux Founder" to RMS.
The error is in another publication
There's nothing in the free *software* philosophy about what conditions can be put on plane tickets. There's a hint in the name - it's about software, not planes.
His lousy options were to cancel the Israel gigs, or cancel the Israel and the Palestinian gigs. He went for the former, and apologised.
This isn't news at all. This part of his work must be pretty frustrating for him.
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
Yet here is he, quite prepared to give into bullying terms when it suits him.
I'm sorry, but: what?
I think a group that is in a heavily-embargoed, poverty-ridden country has every right to be furious at their scraped-together funds being used for speaking engagements in the highly-privileged nation that is doing the embargoing.
The fact that RMS went and booked the other speaking engagements shows that he truly has no political sensitivities, and has been the wrong person to represent the FSF for quite some time.
Please help metamoderate.
Since RMS consequently rejects any piece of software that restricts his rights or movements, the only right thing to do would be to reject the Arab invitation to visit the former British mandate of Palestine. Of course the Israeli invitees then should pick up the tab to pay for his travel expenses to Israel. The Israelis did not restrict RMS's whereabouts and should be lauded for their policy of sticking to freedom for all, including the Arabs.
The Palestinians don't believe in freedom of speech. RMS should cancel his entire trip; his talk would be wasted on them anyway.
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
However, even a turkey could see that would cause problems given the plans the "New World Order" has for the region.
I would have not accept funds in the first place from any political organization over there for transportation.
I would have a independent source of funds for travel expenses. I would then ask for donations from both sides when I got there to pay for the trip.
Richard runs the risk of looking like he is choosing sides by doing this, even though he might not feel that way about the politics of the region.
I say that because his mission is somewhat political due to the economics he will be discussing and social systems that make open source software very profitable as well as technically superior than close source commercial software.
-Hack.
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
Sounds like the only other thing you hated this vehemently was your own foreskin.
I have no idea why RMS is choosing to pick sides in this at all. That has nothing to do with the Free Software movement and a little bit to do with censorship. If someone doesn't want to pay for the trip now, that's their business but RMS is allowing himself to be held hostage. Cancel both trips or find alternative funding.
It's free as in FREEDOM, not free as in do as (the metaphorical I) say. Allowing the Free Software movement to be a pawn in any of this is not in the interests of the movement.
There really seems to be something in the water in that region that makes people crazy. It might not be a bad thing to not send Stallman, regardless. He might play his recorder at them and start an incident.
And yes, even US protesters have been slaughtered by Israelis.
Um, if you step in front of armoured bulldozer with a very limited view in an attempt to block it with your own body and get bulldozed, it's not called "being slaughtered" but "competing for Darwin Award".
The More You Know.
P.S. Also check out Wikipedia for some WMD's measures and usage. You'd be surprised how relatively small they usually are and how little they are used in Israeli-Palestinian conflict (not at all). As for rocks being thrown by Palestinian kids, you shouldn't omit rockets and mortar shells sent by their older compatriots, if you want to be fair (I know, I know, you don't, but I am such a hopeless case and sometimes give a benefit of doubt even where obviously wasted). Not mentioning the issue of proper training in stone throwing and suicide bombing for a modern army; they're really better off with machine guns and F-15s usable against anyone than wasting part of the practice on the stone age/WWII warfare methods useless against regular armies.
Troll 2.0 Fear my asocial networking!
That's why they give you the option to get the stamp on a separate piece of paper that you can just take out of your passport when you no longer need it.
I should have the freedom to choose any software license I want. I've had enough of his my-way-or-the-highway thinking.
Are you saying you don't?
I thought he only used the middle M when writing science fiction? :-)
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
You chose the "Free beer" giving up the "Free of speech" and that disappoints me very much since it has to do with the genuinity implementation of your own presented ideas.
Elsewhere in the response he gives the details
Boycotting the Israeli Universities since you get funds from Palestinians means that you accepted the Palestinians proprietary license. Neither you nor them want to help their neighbor.
I agree, and my respect for RMS' idealism is lessened.
I wonder how he'll do with the travel side of the equation - When someone lands at Ben Gurion and then states an intention to speak in Palestine, one typically faces an extensive set of invasive questions - Questions that I suspect someone like Stallman may be unwilling to answer. If that's the case, he may find himself back on the next flight to the USA.
I'm hardly a Stallman fan, but this seems a bit blown out of proportion.
As others have said, go to the Israeli universities on another trip.
Of course, he could do the payback thing and get the Israelis to pay for his second trip, schedule appearances in the Palestinian territories and then cancel them.
Would be a nice symmetry to that.
Never mind that Muslims enjoy more rights in Israel than they do in countries that are officially Islamic, except maybe Turkey.
Sounds like we got a free-thinker on our hands, boys! You know what you have to do.
Grammar nazis are to this community what excrements are to gold.
Isreal, this nation of "victims" has been growing its borders "in defense" of itself for decades. To see how Israel started and what it has become is astounding. When China does it, its wrong. When the US does it, it's wrong. When Israel does it it's wrong.
And it's good you know something about the bulldozer story. Did you catch how she was alive the first time they ran her over? Yeah, they ran her over three times. That story by itself was enough to polarize me against Israel and what they are doing. The complete lack of humanity behind such actions are beyond my imagination and seriously remind me of the atrocities claimed by the Jews in WW2. The victims of cruelty and disgusting slaughter have become the victimizers and butchers.
Could they have pulled her away by force? You bet! Where the occupants of that location even armed? No, they weren't. What could possibly excuse it? "the bulldozer driver couldn't see"??? Are you kidding me? The driver and the person who gave the order both knew what was going on.
So they basically wanted Stallman to speak payed by pallestinian money and AFTER palestinians had the idea of him speaking first. If they want him to speak at their universities THEY can organize another event and THEY can pay for it. They didnt like it when someone else won the pressuring/boycot game also, tipical.
The Palestinians toss plenty of rockets? You mean like that video Israel released as part of a propaganda campaign that was obviously CG? Or are there more out there?
Grammar nazis are to this community what excrements are to gold.
Ooh, burn.
right now, their ruling party is islamic, and they are eroding the secular nature turkey. it's just a matter of time.
The Jews aren't a race. They're a religion.
Except in the U.S. where the Supreme Court affirmed Jews as a race for the purposes of claiming racially-based discrimination.
Really? Not really. A great deal of the community follows his licence recommendations, and without that licence, often projects will flounder. Further, it leads to in-fighting over what licences should be used and which advances the cause of OSS the most, and that's the height of idiocy, because the answer is simply "all and none." Fighting over what licence is best is useless and redirects effort from where it should be, which is heightening the profile of OSS.
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
So all Israeli Jews are European? Really? Really?
Arab-Islamic terrorists like Hamas want the total extermination of the Jewish people and conquest of the world. Israel has every right to defend themselves from such psychopaths.
That was in 1948. What is happening today? In case you haven't noticed, Israel has done everything they could to bring peace to the region. They gave up large tracts of land hoping it would bring peace. It didn't. The terrorist simply moved their rocket launch points up to the new borders.
-- Will program for bandwidth
PA != Hamas. Dammit, at least try to keep up.
>>> ...misunderstand either how apartheid actually worked in South Africa or ... >>>
The majority opinion in SA is that Israel is an apartheid state.
Can you prove that the PA or Palestinian universities as such are "terrorist assholes"? No? Then why do you think such a group is behind this condition for paying for the trip?
As for the other way around, the Israelis do not take lightly on people who express a desire to visit the Palestinian territories.
Where do you get that? Interfaith marriage is not illegal in Israel, and non-jews can certainly own land.
I'm guessing slightly mangled second-hand information. The current state of affairs is that interfaith marriages are legally recognised by Israel, but it's impossible to actually conduct a legal interfaith marriage within Israel (or indeed any kind of secular marriage), due to the political influence of orthodox Judaism IIRC. Oh, and while it is legal for non-Jews to own land, a lot of the land is owned by organisations that are forbidden to lease to non-Jews or to sell it outright to anyone.
That may be, but that doesn't change the fact that they are second class citizens in Israel.
The other (greedy) Middle Eastern countries are bullies to Israel. Its about size.
Saudi Arabia is 103.75x bigger than Israel.
Syria is 8.9x bigger than Israel.
Jordan (a Palestinian state) is 4.3x bigger than Israel.
No, they should not be carving up any of the little land they have for the Palestinians or anyone else.
You can save your sympathies. Rachel Corrie knew what she was doing when she put herself in harm's way and made herself a martyr. She deserved to die.
Nobody (Muslim Arabs) wants the Palestinians in their countries so they picked the smallest target. http://gentwarrior.blogspot.com/2009/07/nobody-wants-them.html [blogspot.com]
Imagine if the situation had been reversed: Suppose an Israeli university had sponsored Stallman and then threatened to pull funding if he went on to speak at a Palestinian university. Do you think Stallman would have made the same choice? Do you think posters would say they "understand" the position of the Israeli university?
Unfortunately, Stallman (who is normally very consistent in his behaviour and his beliefs) has messed up this time. He's compromised freedom for the sake of politics.
Irony of irony, I don't hate Jews. I actually like Jews. Jews are generally good people. They eat terrific food and so I also eat Jewish food quite often. I disagree with their religion, of course -- I'm atheist. But as people go, I generally get along well with them. Their self-loathing is a bit annoying, but apart from that, I find them largely nice, intelligent and interesting people -- at least the ones I know which are generally east coast, northern, city dwellers.
What I hate is abusive government run by power-mad psychopaths. The list is LONG on who I feel is described under that criteria... and I'm still holding out a little hope that Obama is simply struggling to survive in a tainted and corrupt network of US politics, but I have no illusions that the US government is just as bad or worse in many ways.
No, the political branch of Hamas is also called Hamas. They were voted into power in Gaza because of the perceived corruption and disliked foreign-relations of the PA, remember?
Apartheid by definition is racial segregation within borders of a country.
That's what happens in Israel. Palestine Authority is not a country but a part of Israel, however its citizens are denied the right to move freely within the borders of Israel.
Well that's what would bother me more, give that it's my money.
As to taking sides on the issue, there's enough faults either way that you couldn't fit a discarded foreskin between them.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Read your own link... immediately following the assasination, Lehi (the militant group in question) was forcibly disarmed and dismantled. If only the PA would do the same with Hamas. The day the Palestinians have their own Altalena (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altalena), choose to centralize their authority, and reject terrorism is the day negotiations should begin, and not a day sooner.
This of course doesn't even consider the other big caveat to your point... Bernadotte saved Western European nationals (starting in May '45, when the biggest threat was friendly fire from Allied bombing) , a very few of which happened to be Jews, and he did nothing to save the vast majority of concentration camp victims, who were Eastern European Jews, and who were left in the DP camps, with nowhere to run. Nor of course, the complete utter failure of the Red Cross (of which he was the Swedish VP) to monitor and publicize the atrocities in the camps during the war.
Sort of like the imaginary bunkers in Sderot I'd imagine right? Or the anti-tank rocket fired at a yellow school bus full of high schoolers?
How many bulldozers in US construction sites need to be armoured 'cause they're being shot at? Armour tends to cut down on your visibility, as well as your inclination to get out of the cab. Lying down in front of an armored 'dozer exposes you to risk - nuff said. Even then, the death was accidental, unlike what the Palestinians do with their heavy construction equipment (http://www.voanews.com/english/news/a-13-2008-07-02-voa7-66670317.html). As always - if the Israelis were genocidal, they've been the most ineffecitve practitioners in history. Take a look at the extremely broad nature of Israeli politics, Israeli media, the judiciary, and their education - there's absolutely no basis to accuse Israel of genocidal or even murderous intentions. They want to live in peace in a dangerous neighborhood, and the day the Arabs decide they want peace, Israel will make extraordinary concessions to achieve it (see Sinai, Gaza).
Name a right they lack compared to Israeli Jews? The biggest difference is tthat they're not subject to the draft, though they can volunteer. Big hardship there....
Equating some Israelis to "The Jews" is a pretty sure sign of being anti-semitic...
(+1, Disagree)
At least Israel is defending its borders...
Would you care to point out where those borders are? Israel refuses to state them, and I'm sure the UN would like to know where to draw the line in September...
Work like no one is watching. Dance like you've never been hurt. Make love like you don't need the money.
It's disturbing to me that RMS, a person who has dedicated his life to freedom, would be willing to speak in Palestine at all. It is ruled by people who deny the right to live to anyone who don't follow a bloodthirsty religion that aims to dictate all parts of its believers' life -- that's pretty much the definition of "totalitarian".
Was one of his speaking engagements in Bethlehem, a majority Christian city? Maybe you should learn a bit more about Palestine and Palestinians, who are majority Muslim but have a vary large and varied set of minorities, including Christian, Druze and Bedouin, living with them.
I will give up the point above about Israelis being more even handed - they do appear to be equal opportunity oppressors of Palestinians, and will oppress regardless of race, religion or gender.
Work like no one is watching. Dance like you've never been hurt. Make love like you don't need the money.
They gave up large trackts of land they had now right to, like most of Israel. I dont support land thieves,
which Israle is entirely made up of. Israel of course was won by terrorism, which its supporters conveniently forget.
Well said sir, but the pro Israel mods dont like the truth.
Israel is far worse. Did you miss where they kill 10X the number of Palestiniansthan Palestinians kill them?
Israel was formed by the actions of terrorists, so it is particularly rich of them to complain about it when their own actions are returned. I can see only one reason for blind support such as yours.
It is watching the facts unfold for the last 30 years that has turned me from a strong supporter of Israle, to frankly
someone who would like to see it wiped from the earth.
ISRAELS OWN actions lead to me to my feeling NOTHING else.
Accidental? You ust be blind. It was Murder nothing less. Still there always seem to be plenty of posters who only arrive to defend Israel form any criticism.
You,sir, shall burn in the fiery depths for your failure to adhere to the established narrative.. Welcome to my nightmare
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
What Stallman does in his spare time in the Middle East is his business, not the Palestinian Authority.
Giving into the PA's demand was a wimpy thing to do, particularly from someone the likes of Eric Stallman, who has been known to take controversial stances because it was the right thing to do.
"The complete lack of humanity behind such actions are beyond my imagination and seriously remind me of the atrocities claimed by the Jews in WW2."
Cant disagree... this is how i see it.
Jewish people are historically amongst the most persecuted groups of people known.
In recent times, the Palestinian people should be considered to be amongst the most persecuted groups of people.
To look at this rationally for a second, shouldnt Jewish society, knowing the horrors of such persecution be the most vocal _supporters_ of Palestinians. After all, they should be able to empathize.
Unfortunately, people, particularly groups of them, donâ(TM)t always act rationally. In this case, its more like "the sins of the father are revisited on the son".
They where treated badly, so they think that makes it ok for them to treat other people badly, AFAIK its a classic psychological condition.
The state of Israel is the bastard son of NAZI's.
"Israel has done everything they could to bring peace to the region."
What is wrong with you? You absolute muppet, Israeli policy makers would laugh behind your back at your credulity.
They wouldnt even pay for such propaganda, as its glaring falsity would only highlight the opposite.
These days I have a different point of view and I simply wouldn't do any business in the region because ancient passions have caused all concerned to behave in a non-linear way. To put it bluntly. I have no desire to fly into an airport where the plane is met by a tank and soldiers wielding automatic weapons. Whether it is Israel, or Germany, or Japan for that matter. These days, RMS could have attended virtually on a big screen.
It's interesting to note (*) that the current state of affairs regarding marriage in Israel is more unpopular among secular Jews who want to marry other secular Jews without the overbearing involvement of an orthodox rabbi than among people who are interested in marrying someone of a different faith. The latter seem to be better organized and have better parliamentary representation, so something might actually change on their behalf.
(*) Interesting to me, at least...
Everybody that I know that knows him personally (which I don't) calls him Richard. I've had a few brief email conversations with him and he didn't sign the emails at all. RMS is his login name. Back in the olden days (which, through the fog of memory, I think I may have been party to) programmers used to refer to each other by their login name. Many people (even me) used to sign their emails with their login name (which would have been the same as their email address). Back when "finger" was the way to check up on what people were doing, it was important to know people's login name.
I still use my normal login name (which isn't wrook, BTW) on a lot of forums and there are people who I've talked with for decades that don't know me by any other name. I've almost certainly referred to myself that way online. That doesn't mean that I use it in daily conversation.
Ya know, this lost me a lot of respect for RMS. I can understand his need to make a living through speaking engagements (assuming that's what he's doing here), but for a man who's visible life and career has been almost completely focused on "free as in speech", this is somewhat of a backwards move.
Israel, an atomic state with military hardware which rivals anything in the rest of the west and with one of the best military forces to boot, is bombarded on an almost daily basis by rockets and attacked by "Palestine"/Muslim extremists intent on killing Israelis. Yes, the Israelis retaliate, but given their capabilities it is, at best, "measured".
The Palistine promoters are trying to silence RMS speech in Israel for political reasons. RMS succumbed for financial/prestige reasons. Isn't this precisely the issue behind RMS's ranting and raving?
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
What is your real game here?
Not playing any game. I'm clearly not involved, or able to really advice anyone on this topic. Just voicing my opinion. This is slashdot.
Who are you trying to depict as unreasonable?
The one refusing an objectively fair compromise. Both, either, or neither, I don't care. For reference, I don't have much bias in the question, I think both sides are partly responsible for the situation.
The point of the proposal is to force both individually to accept, or depict themselves as unreasonable. Doubly so if the other part accepts. I'm not pointing fingers.
Killing 10x more of your enemies than they kill of you is how wars are won. My support for Israel is not blind, it is well-informed and well-justified.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
There are about as many Jews in israel whose origins are in Arab and North-African countries as Jews of European descent. The claim that the state was erected "in order to oppress the people of the region" is patently false.
While Israel has its faults, many of which related to how it treats its internal non-Jewish minority as well as the semi-occupied west bank, your presentation of its origins and current state are completely misinformed and misguided.
In particular, Israeli prime minister (not president) Netanyahu made nothing like the statement you quote for him. His vision for the end of the conflict is unacceptable to Palestinians, but that's ok; no Palestinian leader has ever accepted any solution that is consistent with the existence of a Jewish state in the region.
Majority consensus of the world is that Israel is a virtual Apartheid state, so by consensus you are quite wrong. Continue living with your delusions at your peril.
In a letter to one of the Israeli Activists, RMS writes:
True. Israel does not need to exist. It was stirring up trouble from the very beginning and has been a constant source of hell for the whole world since. Has it been "worth it" so far? Has their been a net benefit to the world since it all started?
Still, right now too many generations have been born there. They are there now and it would be pointless to "move them" again. The world now needs to condemn and even fight back against Israel for violating international law. They need to return behind their borders and learn to live in peace without being an aggressive country.
I don't pretend to think it is as simple as all that, but I think we are underestimating the Palestinians a little. And the borders of Israel were defined by the UN long ago. They need to go back. The need to stop destroying the homes of people outside of their borders and they most definitely need to stop building new settlements in these same places which were supposedly cleared to create a safe zone between Israel and the outside. They violate their own law as well as international law. They are lawless and it is past time to bring them into account.
I haven't seen this much BS on one thread since the last global warming post. Palestinians will never be a State because Hamas, who is back by Iran, has in their charter that Israel and Israelis should be destroyed. Arabs of whatever sect have just as much right over Israel's land as they would over Spain's land. If you think Israel has no right to it, then Spain has no right to their land.
Israelis controlled much more than they have now far longer ago that the idea of a 'Palestinian State' was ever conjured up. I don't like giving $4Billion a year to Israel as much as the next guy (or any other country for that matter), but pretending like the Palestinians have some kind of claim to that land when King David ruled that land around 1000ish BC is delusional.
Israel won the land they have now from a war that was launched against them from 3 different Arab 'states' (I know, odd of Arabs to start a war). Israeli kicked their ass and the land was ceded to them. Anyone here in the US ready to give up the south west US states because Mexicans are pissed that they lost a war long ago?
In closing I'd like to say that if you walk in the Arab controlled parts of Israel, you (assuming you are a westerner) will likely be harassed if not maimed or killed. This is the reality of the Arab world and is why a US journalist covering the 'democracy uprising' or 'freedom uprising' in Egypt was rapped in the middle of the day, in the middle of the 'freedom protests' where everyone could see. They yelled JEW! JEW! JEW! as she was raped.
If you all want to pretend like war wont be launched against Israel as soon as there is a sign of weakness, you are a fool. If you think the Palestinians will ever accept the US in any way shape or form other than as an enemy, you will find disappointment at every turn.
"In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash"
Dont mention that most are civilians, where is the declaration of war?
Why do you support murdering land thieves who gained their country thru terrorism?
If one side say, "They started it!" and the other side say, "No, it was them!", then how does that work?
Seems like less effort to simply not believe any of them.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Are you saying BSD is dying?
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
"This move by Palestinian Authority it won't make any friends in Israel"
this is a familiar formula in situations of oppressor vs. oppressed, it was a major stumbling block for the blacks in america, hoping that if you were "extra nice" they would stop oppressing you and/or, if you aren't extra nice, they will oppress you worse. Bicyclists of today are in the same boat as you hear car drivers openly threatening death and dismemberment for crimes of impoliteness..."not staying in their place" (off of "their" roadway). Fairness and equal rights are anathema to those enjoying domination and control. it's foolish to play that game, you must fight for your rights.
look sig is kool
In 2006, the Palstenian civil society called for supporters of their cause to boycott, divest and sanction Israel whom is denying rights to over 4 million people who live in Israel based on thier religion.
Had the Palestenians not pulled the funding they would have been breaking their own boycott.
It cannot pssibly be well infromed if you havent recognised the war crimes Israelis regularly commit.
I supported Israel strongly 30 years ago. Their OWN actions have eroded that support to the point where I would happy to see Israel disappear from the planet and become a multi faith democratic state.
I suggest you look at examples like this:
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/features/barbarity-wielded-in-the-name-of-israel-s-eternal-capital-1.364876
The rest of the world is rapidly waking up to the constant lies and propaganda of Israel, except apparently you!
child labor laws
What are children supposed to do over extended vacations from school? What's the best way to teach children the value of work? Strict laws against child labor interfere with both of these.
The thefts is perpetrated by the government, who steals the purchasing power of all dollars that are already in existence, and that's why the sensible thing to do is not to be in fiat.
If both candidates in a given election are pro-fiat, what can a private citizen do, other than not buying Chrysler?