Re: [Gnu-arch-users] [OT] facism gaining ground in US

[Frank T. Pohlmann]

> > would make me classify you as one of those. Stupid
> answers like yours make 
> > a lot of people think you get what you deserve. 
> 
> This is rich, coming from someone who admitted to
> lying to try to
> provoke a reaction.  You accused me of being
> "racist" and then engaged
> in blatant stereotyping (farther down in your
> email).  Why don't you
> take your hate and hypocrisy and stuff it?  That
> bile is not any
> different from what we hear from USian fascists --
> or from terrorists.

Please, guys.  Hold your horses. Shouldnt we leave
this tone of voice to the elected fascists and
religious fundamentalists to the US government and
their "back-to-the-middle-ages" counterparts in the
Middle East?

It is annoying that some of us are rather uninterested
in learning anything by reading about and living in
the Middle East, Central Asia, North Africa etc. They
dont realize that much of what they say is deeply
unsettling.

But we are all anthropologists here. Some of us are
good at it and others are not so good at it.

I live in England, my room mate is Pakistani, my
nationality is German, my wife is Indian. Our
frustrations with some USians are well known and
unfortunately, many Americans refuse to learn from
people who know something about the Middle East, like
those Iranists and academic Arabists Pierce despises
so much. 

He made it abundantly clear that he doesnt want to
listen to his elders and betters although they might
have spent many decades studying, say, Egytpian
politics and the like. He doesn't understand that life
in other parts of the world can be just as rewarding
and democratic as that in the US. He thinks that
Americans don't understand tribal allegiances. Which
made me laugh out loud, but that's another matter.

Please, let us have a bit of a sense of humour about
this. Any of us who have been shot at or lived in
countries riven with civil wars probably recognize the
type of person he represents. So, perhaps, we should
just leave him alone. In 10 years time, he will sing a
different song. But there is no point in calling him
stupid, if his experience does not extend to the kind
of situation many of us had to live through.

-frank




        
        
                
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