Re: [Leica] Country of origin

["B. D. Colen" <bdcolen@earthlink.net>]

Well excuuuuuuuuuse me, but the posts that got so many of us foaming at the mouth
were far more than ill-informed and "in many instances offensive." They were, in
fact, repetitions of the kind of racist, evil propaganda churned out by the
National Socialists during their disastrous reign over Germany. They were
inexcusable. Period.

B. D. Colen
Who would actually rather believe the best of everyone.

Krechtz@aol.com wrote:

> In a message dated 12/4/00 3:45:36 AM Eastern Standard Time,
> ray_moth@yahoo.com writes:
>
> << I personally doubt that there is an ounce of
>  genuine racial or ethnic hatred in the LUG, but some LUGers sure know
>  how to wind each other up . . . or are they just dense?
>   >>
>
>     I doubt it, too.  However, the thread in question was grossly off-topic,
> mostly ill-informed, generally unhelpful and in many instances offensive.
> Granted that it is part of the human condition to tend to be prejudiced, it
> nonetheless is part of our responsibility to resist the temptation to speak
> and act mean-spiritedly on our biases.
>     I will even grudgingly concede, for the sake of argument, that many
> stereotypes are based on  perceptions that have at least some basis in human
> experience, albeit usually greatly exaggerated.  If we feel the need to
> engage in the risky business of human stereotyping of any kind, we should at
> least do so with a sense of warm irony, as some of us did, not the kind of
> heavy-handed, jack-booted bravado exhibited by some of the participants in
> the thread.
>     I fear no imminent verbal cross-burning on the LUG.  I do, however,
> resent lack of respect shown, both for our collective intellect and
> sensibilities.  For all the sniping and bickering, I have found the LUG to be
> an extraordinary human and intellectual resource.  It is appropriate that it
> close ranks, as I perceive it has done, against a gratuitously discordant and
> potentially divisive and destructive element.  We are now at liberty to
> resume picking at one another over our beloved minutiae and wrangling over
> who is to be the One True Leica Prophet, at least for the week.
>     As one holding deep and abiding respect, even love, for language, I am no
> respecter of such adulterants as the phenomenon known as"political
> correctness".
> My objection to gratuitous inflammatory nonsense has similar roots.  As I
> recall one of our number to have said, in a different context, "Crap is Crap".
>     I believe I have just used several hundred words to express something
> similar to what B.D. recently said quite pithily.  What the hell, I'll send
> it anyway...
>
> Joe Sobel