On Fri, Apr 02, 2021 at 10:36:39PM +0200, Philip Hands wrote: > My assumption would be that it was an allusion to McCarthyism, and the > associated anti-communist moral panic in the 1950s that Arthur Miller > dramatised in The Crucible.
yes. It's also a tried and tested political tool used to achieve things that can not be achieved through ordinary, rational, civil means (including things like taking over or even destroying an organisation like the FSF). Stir up an angry mob and point them at your target, that makes it possible to expel and disenfranchise them. > The term's been given a recent retread as a thing that strong-man leaders > use as a weapon against investigative journalists who are doing their jobs, > but I doubt Craig meant that. Absolutely not. Fascists and others on the right have a long history of accusing others of what they, themselves, are doing. Lying is what they do. If the right accuse anyone of something, it's pretty much guaranteed that that's what they're doing themselves. AFAICT, it's not just deflection, it's that they can't imagine that anyone wouldn't do what they're doing. > Is that really what we're seeing? yes. Stallman's a witch - burn him. The FSF board re-elected him, they're witches too, burn them. Along with anyone else who supports them or points out the fact that the accusations are false or suggests that reason should prevail. > I hope that people are not being attacked in private -- indulging in such > behaviours would definitely be a Code of Conduct violation, but I think > even that would fail to qualify as a witch-hunt, because the intimidation > needs to be made obvious to the wider group for something to qualify as a > witch-hunt. The witch hunt is not within debian, debian's just being dragged into the angry mob. craig -- craig sanders <[email protected]>
