CDR: Re: [OT] California senator tries to mandate remote kill switches
Michael Motyka wrote:
I enjoy the rhetorical device of visiting death and destruction on the bad guys and clearly there is no shortage of politicians whose actual passing out of this life -by unspecified means- would make the world a safer, cleaner place but calling McVeigh a "freedom fighter" is off the mark. 0 points for that one.
Why?
On Tue, 12 Sep 2000 anonymous@openpgp.net wrote:
Michael Motyka wrote:
safer, cleaner place but calling McVeigh a "freedom fighter" is off the mark. 0 points for that one.
Why?
Interesting question, actually... The difference between a "random crazy" and a "freedom fighter" can be awfully dang thin. I think that in order to qualify as a "freedom fighter" there has to be a significant faction who support your actions and a nonzero chance of bringing about real change. Mcveigh, as he is, is just a random crazy. But if, say, one out of ten American Citizens or so had looked up from the news story and gone, "It's about time somebody started fighting those bastards" then he'd have a constituency to whom he could be a freedom fighter. And also a nonzero chance of causing real change. Not a bit of difference in his own actions -- but the context in which his actions took place -- and his decision to make exactly those actions in that context -- make him a random nut rather than a freedom fighter. It's just my opinion. But that's how I see it. Freedom fighters do what they do because they have constituency whose interests they are fighting for and a realistic belief that the fight will change something. I think these were lacking in Mcveigh's case. Bear
At 2:08 AM -0400 9/13/00, Ray Dillinger wrote:
Interesting question, actually... The difference between a "random crazy" and a "freedom fighter" can be awfully dang thin. I think that in order to qualify as a "freedom fighter" there has to be a significant faction who support your actions and a nonzero chance of bringing about real change.
This is not a terribly interesting line of analysis. I use "freedom fighter" in nearly all contexts in which the dominant paradigm uses the word "terrorist." Consider some of the many thousands of examples: * Those who blew up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in 1947-8...terrorists, freedom fighters, or "random crazies"? * Those who blew up the Air Cubana airliner off the coast of Florida in the late 60s... terrorists, freedom fighters, or "random crazies"? * Those who blew up an aspirin factory in Khartoum... terrorists, freedom fighters, or "random crazies"? * Those who blew up police stations in Northern Ireland... terrorists, freedom fighters, or "random crazies"? * Those who blew up British soldiers and their families garrisoned in New England in 1776... terrorists, freedom fighters, or "random crazies"? * Those who laid mines in a harbor in Nicaragua so that commercial ships would be blown up, even though no state of war existed... terrorists, freedom fighters, or "random crazies"? (BTW, done by the same nice folks who taught the secret police how to torture and kill, how to assassinate political opponents, and how to rig elections.) * Those who blew up the Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983... terrorists, freedom fighters, or "random crazies"? I think it's obvious that the "random crazy" analysis is flawed. Even the Unabomber was political. Perhaps the "Mad Bomber" of several decades ago was a "random crazy," but the actions of Baader-Meinhof, Red Army Faction, Cuban exile community, IRA, CIA, and so on, are clearly political. If McVeigh's actions were not political, nothing is. Whether one agrees or disagrees, his actions were politically motivated (and with various links I won't get into here with Elohim City, the German government, and dissident factions in the USG). I thought it unexceptionable that I would use the standard shorthand of referring to a "terrorist" by a more descriptive name. If they're our bombers, they're freedom fighters. If they're the other guy's bombers, they're terrorists. The Hezbollah guerillas who offed a couple of hundred of U.S. Marines in Beirut in 1983 were dubbed "terrorists" by U.S. sources and U.S. reporters. Absurd. By any even slightly objective analysis, this was a military action. Yeah, some "innocents" died...some chambermaids, the children of the housekeepers and front desk clerks who were playing while their parents worked, gardeners and handymen, the usual bunch of innocents. Just as innocents died when the U.S. firebombed Dresden and Tokyo. Just as when the U.S., in a battle which was not part of a declared war, routinely napalmed villages in Viet Nam and killed obvious nonparticipants (children, for example). War is hell. The Federal Building in OKC was, to McVeigh and to many others, a military target. Get used to it. Strong, untraceable crypto means the capability for coordinating far more impressive attacks. And learn to deconstruct the underlying meaning of words like "terrorist." If some "sand niggers" in Palestine fight back to keep Polish and French Jews from stealing their land, they're "terrorists." If Menachem Begin and the Stern Gang and similar gangs blow up a hotel filled with British soldiers trying to stop this theft from occurring, these Jews are hailed as noble freedom fighters. Understand and internalize the reality that "terrorists," "freedom fighters," and "random crazies" are just loaded terms, set by masters of spin. --Tim May -- ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
participants (3)
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anonymous＠openpgp.net -
Ray Dillinger -
Tim May