5 ms·

I mean I would've been a lot more rude. It's hard to not take that as an intentional provocation.

by drt5b7j 3y ago

Biganon 3y ago
I fail to see how that could be taken as an intentional provocation...?
- drt5b7j 3y ago
  A) A picture of che Guevara is always an association with communism B) RMS is very well known as someone who is, amongst other things, not a communist. Frankly I fail to see how this could be taken as anything other than a provocation. Why would you have a picture of RMS as Che and then ask him to sign it? The only other explanation I can think of is you're too stupid to not see A or B.
  - jraph 3y ago
    If the person with the t-shirt is both sympathetic to communism or the Che, and RMS, I can see how it can not be a provocation. RMS was probably right not to sign it though. I also believe producing a t-shirt with RMS depicted as the Che is not quite right.
    - drt5b7j 3y ago
      Of course the person with T-shirt is sympathetic to communism and RMS, but their sympathy to RMS is very superficial. Otherwise they would know that RMS wouldn't approve. So it's option 2 I guess.
      - jraph 3y ago
        Intent matters. It's only a provocation if it's meant to be a provocation. Otherwise it's mere faux-pas, at worst. What's more, you don't necessarily know everything about a person. I would not know anything about RMS's political opinions if I had not read his website a bit, I would only know him for his stance on free software.
    - rvnx 3y ago
      There is some soft irony that the t-shirt depicting Stallman supporting "revolution" is made in China and coming from Aliexpress. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005081587056.html https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005081587056.html
      - DonHopkins 3y ago
        Wow, to add insult to injury, that t-shirt calls RMS an "OS Liberator" as in "Open Source Liberator", not "FS Liberator" as "Free Software Liberator". That would really piss RMS off: he HATES it when you refer to Free Software as Open Source! On the other (left) hand, I'd definitely buy an ironic t-shirt of ESR as Che labeled "Free Software Liberator" and ask ESR to sign it, just to piss him off and provoke him to threaten to shoot me, like he did to Bruce Perens. The irony of Eric S Raymond threatening someone else for behaving "like that kind of disruptive asshole in public" is rich -- very rich. ESR's Death Threat Email to Bruce Perens: https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/1999/04/msg00623.html https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/1999/04/msg00623.html Bruce Perens Dead: https://geekz.co.uk/lovesraymond/cat/bruce-perens/page/10 https://geekz.co.uk/lovesraymond/cat/bruce-perens/page/10 Terrorismistic: https://geekz.co.uk/lovesraymond/archive/terrorismistic https://geekz.co.uk/lovesraymond/archive/terrorismistic
        dralley 3y ago
        I assume "OS" in this context actually refers to "operating system"
        DonHopkins 3y ago
        Some people call Emacs an Operating System. And "FS" stands for "File System"?
  - Biganon 3y ago
    Well first of all I was 15 or 16 at the time, so I guess I didn't give it as much though as you currently do, and besides, Che Guevara is (to me at least) not a symbol of communism first and foremost, but a symbol of a man fighting for his ideas (not saying that's my opinion of him especially nowadays, I'm talking about the symbolic power, especially of the famous photograph we all know). So... no. Besides, it was in Europe. Us Europeans do not have the same epidermic reaction to communism that Americans have.
    - boffinAudio 3y ago
      Che Guevara was responsible for the murder of an awful lot of innocent human beings. That fact is lost on the edge lords who want to worship him as a saviour of mankind. He was far, far from that.
      - drt5b7j 3y ago
        [flagged]
      - Shekelphile 3y ago
        Gonna go out on a limb here and say that Che almost certainly did not kill anywhere near the same number of 'innocent people' as the overtly fascist south american heads of state from the 1950s-1990s did, namely Bautista, Barrientos, Pinochet, Videla, Stroessner.
        boffinAudio 3y ago
        14,000 people executed without trial makes Che a mass murderer, whether you like it or not. Worship of this mass murderer is repugnant: “We don’t need proof to execute a man. We only need proof that it’s necessary to execute him.” “We executed many people by firing squad without knowing if they were fully guilty. At times, the Revolution cannot stop to conduct much investigation.” “My nostrils dilate while savoring the acrid odor of gunpowder and blood…I’d like to confess, Papa, at that moment I discovered that I really like killing.” “We must eliminate all newspapers; we cannot make a revolution with free press.” “We send to Guanahacabibes [i.e., Cuban labor camp] people who have committed crimes against revolutionary morals…it is hard labor…the working conditions are harsh…”
  - flir 3y ago
    It's funny, I read those Che t-shirts completely differently to the way you do. What could be more capitalist than remixing a photo of a communist revolutionary and selling it for profit? I see them as ironic, not endorsing, especially in their remixed state. I guess this just underlines the fact RMS shouldn't have signed the t-shirt - it's just a graphic, so you could make out it means anything.
  - Shekelphile 3y ago
    How can this be viewed as a provocation, unless your views align with the regimes who people like Che faught against? Regardless of your views on 'communism' (and I say that as someone who will quickly detest any of those governments at that time in history), they faught against overtly fascist regimes that trampled on all personal freedoms and routinely rounded up dissidents to be summarily executed. RMS 'not endorsing' fighting for personal freedom is an endorsement of the status quo of that era, where governments like Pinochets would literally kidnap dissidents, sedate them, throw them into the cargo holds of 747s and dump them out over the ocean from tens of thousands of feet in the air.

I mean I would've been a lot more rude. It's hard to not take that as an intentional provocation.

Biganon 3y ago

I fail to see how that could be taken as an intentional provocation...?

drt5b7j 3y ago
A) A picture of che Guevara is always an association with communism B) RMS is very well known as someone who is, amongst other things, not a communist. Frankly I fail to see how this could be taken as anything other than a provocation. Why would you have a picture of RMS as Che and then ask him to sign it? The only other explanation I can think of is you're too stupid to not see A or B.
- jraph 3y ago
  If the person with the t-shirt is both sympathetic to communism or the Che, and RMS, I can see how it can not be a provocation. RMS was probably right not to sign it though. I also believe producing a t-shirt with RMS depicted as the Che is not quite right.
  - drt5b7j 3y ago
    Of course the person with T-shirt is sympathetic to communism and RMS, but their sympathy to RMS is very superficial. Otherwise they would know that RMS wouldn't approve. So it's option 2 I guess.
    - jraph 3y ago
      Intent matters. It's only a provocation if it's meant to be a provocation. Otherwise it's mere faux-pas, at worst. What's more, you don't necessarily know everything about a person. I would not know anything about RMS's political opinions if I had not read his website a bit, I would only know him for his stance on free software.
  - rvnx 3y ago
    There is some soft irony that the t-shirt depicting Stallman supporting "revolution" is made in China and coming from Aliexpress. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005081587056.html https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005081587056.html
    - DonHopkins 3y ago
      Wow, to add insult to injury, that t-shirt calls RMS an "OS Liberator" as in "Open Source Liberator", not "FS Liberator" as "Free Software Liberator". That would really piss RMS off: he HATES it when you refer to Free Software as Open Source! On the other (left) hand, I'd definitely buy an ironic t-shirt of ESR as Che labeled "Free Software Liberator" and ask ESR to sign it, just to piss him off and provoke him to threaten to shoot me, like he did to Bruce Perens. The irony of Eric S Raymond threatening someone else for behaving "like that kind of disruptive asshole in public" is rich -- very rich. ESR's Death Threat Email to Bruce Perens: https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/1999/04/msg00623.html https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/1999/04/msg00623.html Bruce Perens Dead: https://geekz.co.uk/lovesraymond/cat/bruce-perens/page/10 https://geekz.co.uk/lovesraymond/cat/bruce-perens/page/10 Terrorismistic: https://geekz.co.uk/lovesraymond/archive/terrorismistic https://geekz.co.uk/lovesraymond/archive/terrorismistic
      - dralley 3y ago
        I assume "OS" in this context actually refers to "operating system"
        DonHopkins 3y ago
        Some people call Emacs an Operating System. And "FS" stands for "File System"?
- Biganon 3y ago
  Well first of all I was 15 or 16 at the time, so I guess I didn't give it as much though as you currently do, and besides, Che Guevara is (to me at least) not a symbol of communism first and foremost, but a symbol of a man fighting for his ideas (not saying that's my opinion of him especially nowadays, I'm talking about the symbolic power, especially of the famous photograph we all know). So... no. Besides, it was in Europe. Us Europeans do not have the same epidermic reaction to communism that Americans have.
  - boffinAudio 3y ago
    Che Guevara was responsible for the murder of an awful lot of innocent human beings. That fact is lost on the edge lords who want to worship him as a saviour of mankind. He was far, far from that.
    - drt5b7j 3y ago
      [flagged]
    - Shekelphile 3y ago
      Gonna go out on a limb here and say that Che almost certainly did not kill anywhere near the same number of 'innocent people' as the overtly fascist south american heads of state from the 1950s-1990s did, namely Bautista, Barrientos, Pinochet, Videla, Stroessner.
      - boffinAudio 3y ago
        14,000 people executed without trial makes Che a mass murderer, whether you like it or not. Worship of this mass murderer is repugnant: “We don’t need proof to execute a man. We only need proof that it’s necessary to execute him.” “We executed many people by firing squad without knowing if they were fully guilty. At times, the Revolution cannot stop to conduct much investigation.” “My nostrils dilate while savoring the acrid odor of gunpowder and blood…I’d like to confess, Papa, at that moment I discovered that I really like killing.” “We must eliminate all newspapers; we cannot make a revolution with free press.” “We send to Guanahacabibes [i.e., Cuban labor camp] people who have committed crimes against revolutionary morals…it is hard labor…the working conditions are harsh…”
- flir 3y ago
  It's funny, I read those Che t-shirts completely differently to the way you do. What could be more capitalist than remixing a photo of a communist revolutionary and selling it for profit? I see them as ironic, not endorsing, especially in their remixed state. I guess this just underlines the fact RMS shouldn't have signed the t-shirt - it's just a graphic, so you could make out it means anything.
- Shekelphile 3y ago
  How can this be viewed as a provocation, unless your views align with the regimes who people like Che faught against? Regardless of your views on 'communism' (and I say that as someone who will quickly detest any of those governments at that time in history), they faught against overtly fascist regimes that trampled on all personal freedoms and routinely rounded up dissidents to be summarily executed. RMS 'not endorsing' fighting for personal freedom is an endorsement of the status quo of that era, where governments like Pinochets would literally kidnap dissidents, sedate them, throw them into the cargo holds of 747s and dump them out over the ocean from tens of thousands of feet in the air.