On Wed, 13 Mar 2002, Jim Wise wrote:

> On 14 Mar 2002, Iggy Drougge wrote:
> 
> >Herb Peyerl skrev:
> >
> >>This is what bugs me about this whole line of discussion.  There's
> >>no shortage of people willing to say "lots of people could be
> >>offended by this image" but in the 10-ish years I've been involved
> >>in NetBSD, I can remember only 2 instances of someone actually
> >>being offended.
> >
> >I must say that I'm not very fond of the current symbol either, since it's
> >based on a piece of war-time propaganda.
> >While I was on a walk, I came to think of a similar motif, but without the
> >same political connotations, namely the famous picture from the French
> >revolution, featuring that bare-breasted woman holding a flag, surrounded by
> >struggling citizens. It retains the same basic picture of a struggle, contains
> >a flag, but doesn't relate to war.
> 
> How very odd.  So an image of soldiers fighting to preserve liberty and
> democracy who _actually achieved_ liberation of huge stretches of the
> world, and who fought with such an interest in democracy, not conquest,
> that a generation later their children and the children of those who
> they fought are living in prosperous democracies and collaborating on
> Open Source products is `propaganda'.  But an image of a revolution
> fought in the name of leveling and forced reshaping of human nature
> which resulted in the Reign of Terror and a century of aftershocks is a
> good symbol.

Whatever they may have fought for, the Iwojima picture is a propaganda
photo.
We could use that famous picture of the Vietnamese girl running naked from
napalm bombings, that, too, is a picture of soldiers fighting to preserve
liberty and democracy, though not a fitting propaganda picture.

As for the revolution, I thought most people agreed that it was a good
thing. I associate it with the enlightenment and democracy, a people's
reign.


> I'm quite sure that I don't understand your thought process here...

War bad. Democracy good.