What's Wrong With Liking Parrots or Birds as Pets?
They'd demonise people for speaking about freedom, no matter what they say or do
Remember how the media tried to demonise Julian Assange over "cats" (2010/11)? Saying he was torturing cats? Even when he had a cat as an "Embassy Cat" (pet) the hostile media kept looking for ways to twist that against him.
That's a media tactic. We covered this tactic in the past.
Dave Winer created all sorts of important things. He also knows Richard Stallman in person. 20 years ago (Friday, September 23, 2005) he wrote: "I'm having dinner this evening with Richard Stallman."
6 years later, during an earlier inquisition against Stallman, Winer wrote a detailed post with a clipart of a parrot: (due to how people were attempting to demonise Stallman)
Why I stand up for Stallman
When I was in high school, there was a guy named Sam, who totally didn't fit in. He was awkward, fat, didn't dress well. And it was kind of obvious that he came from a home that wasn't working too well. His clothes were dirty. He was dirty, sometimes didn't smell right, and he did weird things.But it was an advanced high school. You had to take a test to get in, and most people didn't. So that meant that even if Sam was weird, and he really was, he had to have something going for him.And of course because he was odd, people treated him badly. They teased him as he walked down the hall. During recess he was always by himself except when someone was bothering him. Usually when that happened a group would show up. You could see Sam trying to make friendly eye contact with someone, and always striking out.I was one of the popular kids. I stayed out of the crowds, but eventually decided to get involved. Me and my best friend Mark would walk with Sam to the subway and talk with him. Yes he was very weird, and he didn't treat us specially. He said all the weird shit he said to everyone to us. I don't think he got how weird it was. But we stuck with him. I don't know if it helped, or how it turned out for Sam.Anyway, much later in life, I was treated like Sam, in the blogging community. From my point of view, I expected the newcomers to like me, because I had blazed a trail for them, and wasn't asking for anything in return. (Actually I expected them to like me because that's how things had gone all my life. I was generally popular, one of the funny kids, not the target of childish abuse.)I couldn't believe what was happening. And then people who were probably the kind of people who taunted Sam when we were kids, showed up, and it got a lot worse. It got so bad that I withdrew from the communities I was part of. Some of which I led. The kind of ostracizing that goes on in high school yards is nothing compared to what goes on in web communities. You eventually get out of high school. But if you want to keep building on past work, which is how it goes, you can't really get away from it. Until you can't stand it anymore. And of course the bullies get what they want. It's really galling when these people work for companies like Google, Microsoft and IBM. Because it sure isn't hurting their careers to interfere with, or even shut down my work. I'm not a child, like Sam was. I understand what's going on.A few years ago I met Richard Stallman, in Berkeley. It was arranged by my friend Sylvia Paull, who was his publicist (she might still be, I'm not sure). It was amazing, because one of his associates there (whose name I don't remember) was teasing me just like people in workgroups on the net were. I looked at him, and asked him if he seriously was going to do this, in front of Stallman. Yeah, he kept at it. That's how pervasive this culture of disrespect is. To Stallman's credit, he not only stopped it, but dug in. He wanted to understand what was at the root of this. I told him I had GPL'd my life's work. And this is the kind of treatment I was getting fairly widely. It wasn't a long conversation, but I could see in his eyes the empathy that Sam had been looking for so many years ago. People think Stallman is oblivious, but my feeling is he's a lot more aware than most people.I seem to have escaped it, mostly. But I still see it going on for Stallman, and that makes me feel ill. I think a guy like Stallman should be heard and we should think about what he says. And if you disagree, have the self-respect to express it with dignity. And if people start getting personal about it, there should be moderators around to put a stop to it at least stand up to it. No one should stand alone when being subjected to personal attacks.But here's what really pisses me off. When people say I'm okay because I'm not as bad as Stallman. That is such an awful way to control someone. How am I supposed to respond. Be glad you're not going to treat me like we were in high school and I was the weird guy you can get away with abusing? Or go ahead and say what I think and let you be the asshole you just said you would be if I said something that wasn't from a cookie cutter.Sometimes, rarely, someone stands up for you -- and it's something you never forget. Once in the middle of a gang-up, Jason Kottke stepped between me and the crowd and said soemthing like this. Didn't Dave do a bunch of good stuff that we're benefitting from? Maybe we should be nicer to him? He was the only one who had the guts to do it (and he just did it once, and it didn't work). Isn't it sad that out of hundreds of people, he was the only one who got that there was a human being in the middle of the circle and didn't want to be in a position to be hurtful to that person? These were adults, not children.That's why I was so shaken to see Kottke ridicule Stallman on his blog for, of all things, liking parrots! What the fuck. Parrots are great animals. So Stallman likes them. And if you're going to offer him a place to stay, and you have a parrot, don't worry cause Stallman will love you for it. But don't go buying a parrot just to please him, because parrots are complex beings who live long lives, and if you do that, you're going to make the parrot very unhappy. Okay, you say it's weird. And I say weird is good. People who show originality openly, without fear, are people I admire. And people I stand up for.What Stallman does is what any good blogger would do. He says what he thinks. And if you really listen to what he says, you'll learn something. Probably the biggest thing you'll learn about is your own fear. Because there's something about Stallman that scares a lot of people. They wouldn't try to isolate him so much, if he didn't evoke their fear.Update: This piece is getting a lot of traffic and the comments have turned ugly, so I turned them off.
This was updated 6 months later. This aged well.
In 2019 he wrote: "I was shocked that Richard Stallman resigned from the FSF. He is the founder. I'd like to see a clear accounting that explains how and why he was forced out, assuming that's what happened."
He would revisit the matter 2 years later when the mob came back. He said: "I asked on Twitter last night for a clear statement of the case against Stallman. Not much came back, certainly not the dispassionate point by point statement with links to actual evidence that should be required minimally, to destroy someone's life. This routine destruction, without any process, that's the greater sickness imho."
At the start of April he wrote:
I feel so sad about what's happening to Stallman.He's 68. I know what that's like, I'm 65.
He has fixed his whole existence on a single idea that software should be free. Not free of charge, but free to use and to adapt. It's not that far from the kind of openness I believe in, that I believe is an ethical responsiblity for developers.
It's useful to have a person like Stallman around, consistently marking an extreme view. It's like knowing there's a North Star, you may not be going to it, exactly, but knowing where it is makes it possible to go other places. And some people agree with Stallman in total, and to them he's their leader.
Now, if you step back and look at what's being said about him, basically people don't like things he says or the questions he asks. I read these things completely factoring out the non-factual stuff, where they tell you what his questions mean in some pure sense, when what they're really saying is what these questions mean to them. To a reasonable person imho they're just questions. Some people don't argue with questions, they just ask them. For the people who attack him, it's the opposite, their questions are accusations.
I think Stallman is actually a naive innocent, almost child-like harmless person. That's based on years of observing him, being connected through communities. Maybe he did terrible things I don't know about. But maybe you have too. Is this how we're going to coexist? All of us worrying about who's going to make a credible case for destroying each others' lives? This isn't about Stallman, it's about your sense of justice and how far it extends, and how unfair that is for the rest of us who fear being judged by you.
PS: A quote from a 1994 blog post: "I try not to get offended on principle." I was quoting someone else, but I've remembered that. Just because I should be offended, doesn't mean, if I'm not actually offended, that I have to pretend I was.
PPS: If you still think Stallman should be destroyed, go see Lives of Others, a wonderful film about intellectuals in East Germany during the Cold War.
Weeks later he wrote: "I'm glad the Free Software Foundation is standing with Richard Stallman. You don't get to destroy someone's life because you don't like him, or the questions he asks, or the things he says. This really is a question of freedom."
After this he said: "I got an email from Richard Stallman thanking me for standing up for him. In turn, I thanked him for his many contributions, and for politely telling the people who wanted to destroy him to fuck off. We need more people to refuse to go away just because an internet mob demands it of them. Imagine if Donald McNeil had said that to his bosses at the NY Times. They never did tell us why he had to go. And every time something puzzling happens with Covid I think of how they betrayed our trust, not that they care what we think. Clearly they don't. Imho, the only reason to keep the NYT around is to tell us the truth about what's really going on. Well, firing McNeil was something we never did hear the truth about. And I'm not forgetting it."
2 hours ago he apparently spoke of (maybe later purged or maybe quoting someone) thanking "Richard Stallman for telling it like it is. My father for loving outlines. "Every day is father's day," he would say. My mother for being a natural-born blogger..."
Wine pretty much invented syndication and some might say blogging, too. █