As someone who used some of the early versions of Javascript as implemented by Brendan Eich and his team at Netscape, I think the ideal job for Eich is warden of a prison for software developers in a country where torture is legal. Still, it’s nice to see that Eich’s $1,000 donation to California’s Prop 8 is causing a shitstorm after he was named CEO of the Mozilla Foundation, which maintains the Firefox Browser:
App developer Rarebit ignited the conversation by announcing that it pulled its apps from the Firefox Marketplace. In a statement, Rarebit CEO Hampton Catlin recalled the story of his own gay marriage experience in California, which allowed him to marry Rarebit co-founder Michael Catlin. Catlin called Eich out for both his Prop 8 donation and his choice not to apologize.
“We morally cannot support a foundation that would not only leave someone with hateful views in power but will give them a promotion and put them in charge of the entire organization,” he wrote.
That was Tuesday. On Thursday, a half-dozen or so Mozilla employees, including some leads, tweeted that Eich should resign. Yesterday, the WSJ reported that three Mozilla board members quit over the hire, though it’s not clear that Eich’s Prop 8 donation was the reason.
This is kind of an interesting contrast to the #CancelColbert fauxrage. In the case of the Colbert incident, people are trying to take away his livelihood because of an out-of-context tweet about a misunderstood joke. In Eich’s case, they’re trying to take away his job because of his material support for a campaign to deny a group of Americans their civil rights. These aren’t the same thing, even though Malkin and dozens like her make a good living convincing the 27 percenters that they are.
Betty Cracker
I used Firefox for a few years but ditched it in favor of Chrome because it had gotten so rickety. Now that they’ve put a bigot in charge, I’d use EXPLORER before I’d consider installing Firefox again. Screw them!
Poopyman
Willfully misunderstood, you should add.
MattF
@Betty Cracker: Yeah, I used to be a Firefox user until the application’s instability crossed the line. I use Safari now– not ideal, but at least the UI is stable.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
I am disappointed. I like Firefox. I’m going to have to switch now also.
Villago Delenda Est
@Poopyman: Precisely.
The Malkin harpy is beyond vile.
NotMax
Uh-huh. Guess the purity patrol will be giving up visiting sites which use javascript as well (he’s one of the creators and active developers of that). There goes BJ and most of the ‘net.
Baud
@NotMax:
Why? Why does a surgical strike inevitably require a full scale war?
Cassidy
@NotMax: They didn’t stop using computers to complain about a police state and the NSA.
Kropadope
Hmm, I’m conflicted. His views are awful, clearly, but that should have nothing to do with his career unless his using his position in such a way as to negatively impact employees.
greennotGreen
I fail to understand anyone but RWNJs “misunderstanding” Colbert’s joke. Part of his whole schtick is that he’s a RW bigot who thinks he isn’t. Of course it was offensive, ridiculously so, because it was supposed to be. Humor, people. It’s a thing.
Baud
@Cassidy:
I did cut down on my sexting, however. ;-)
Cassidy
@Baud: Hell no, not I. If they want to read it, they can have it in it’s full frontal glory.
Cassidy
@Baud: I think it’s just burn out. They’re all assholes and you can’t boycott them all. At times, I feel like we’re reaching 27% thinking of “boycott everything because reasons and queers”.
Villago Delenda Est
@Cassidy: Or the ‘tubes themselves, which are a product of the evil Department of Defense, created by their lackeys in academia.
Villago Delenda Est
@Kropadope: It’s one thing to support political candidates. It’s another thing to support a ballot measure with a $1,000 donation that has the sole purpose of denying a class of people rights that others have.
Villago Delenda Est
@greennotGreen: Well, I think that deep down, twits like Malkin get that. Which is why they’re so offended by Colbert’s schtick. He’s mocking them. They don’t like to be mocked.
Kropadope
@Villago Delenda Est: Yeah, and I also suppose it would be one thing if he were a middle-manager, but he’s highly-ranked enough that his position suddenly becomes a cause for lost contracts.
Bob
Can’t wait for the revelatory defense of Eich by Sullivan.
JerryN
This was an internal hire. Eich was already the CTO. In fact, I think he was the CTO when he made the donation. Where was the outrage then?
ruemara
To be fair, this whole Colbert thing was started by Twitter “activist” Suey Park. & my feed was blowing up with retweets from Skippy of very righteous Twitter activists circle jerking the very idea that satire being offensive is not bigotry anyway. So it’s not just the right having the pure flames of outrage fly out their butt. That being said, did they not VET him first, before the hire?
Kropadope
@JerryN:
Here?
Baud
@Cassidy:
I agree. I’m not a huge fan of boycotts generally. But it’s really easy to use another browser. And I’m tired of seeing people on our side of being denied positions of authority for specious reasons.
JerryN
@Kropadope: From that report:
So, maybe not so much.
Kropadope
@JerryN: Does it matter which particular bit of assholery they quit over?
RSA
@Baud:
I think of boycotts and comparable actions as serving a few different purposes. They might be to force a company to change its positions on some issue or maybe to draw public attention to some situation. There are other motivations, such as denying a company revenue, but Mozilla is a non-profit. There’s a place to apply pressure, though:
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
A pointer to a Mozilla press release is in an update to the Ars piece.
I use Chrome and Firefox. Chrome is a memory hog if I have more than 20 tabs open. It also has some weird bug at the moment where the “show URL when hovering over a link” box disappears for me. Firefox also has TabMixPlus which I find essential. But Firefox can be more fragile for me. And, of course, Google and her management is no saint in all areas, either – http://www.cbsnews.com/news/google-political-donations-where-company-execs-put-their-cash/ (giving to Cantor?!?).
I’m not going to give up using Firefox because of this. I do hope that it causes Mozilla’s board to look more carefully at their public face. Good people can have weird or abhorrent views on some topics – that doesn’t mean they should automatically be shunned in other areas.
Let’s look at Mozilla’s corporate actions before boycotting them.
JMHO.
Cheers,
Scott.
Villago Delenda Est
@ruemara:
Hey, they’re being mavericky in the tradition of Gramps Walnuts!
WereBear
I can’t do anything since I dropped Firefox a while back… I’ve also used Thunderbird back in the day.
As always, this is a personal issue. It’s easy for me to never set foot in a Wal-Mart; the nearest one is an hour away. If I’m going that far, there are better choices. For people for whom the Wal-Mart is the only choice, what can they do?
Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Baud
@RSA:
Boycotts have their place. In practice, however, I think many boycotts tend to be poorly planned and executed.
Violet
@ruemara: It’s been kind of funny to watch, hasn’t it? Suey Park’s Twitter feed was essentially “You are such a smart person who gets it because you agree with me.” One of her recent tweets was a picture of herself with some caption like “you don’t have a chance” and a comment how she’s not upset that white guys are unfollowing her. The “twitter activists” are definitely circling the wagons.
I was intrigued that she says she doesn’t work with the usual activist organizations because it’s so much better to use Twitter and work outside the establishment. Or something like that. It’s such a very young way of looking at the world.
WereBear
Letting Rush Limbaugh’s advertisers know their products are now being associated with his Three Hour Hate is working. I don’t see anything wrong with that.
In fact, a recent Kos diary detailed that over 3700 advertisers have dropped Limbaugh’s show, and it is also dragging down the whole talk/news radio genre. Since that’s about 90% right wing hate radio, I can’t cry about that, either.
Tommy
I have a framed poster in my house. Gave to me by the Mozilla Foundation. That poster was sent to me, with my name on it. That I supported things. I sent them a lot of money once. Heck I actually wrore a shirt the other day that said “Get Firefox.” It is at this time I should note I use Chrome.
WereBear
Also, since my cats have taken over my Chromebook to watch videos, they are now solid Chrome users, and I can’t get them to switch.
Though it should be noted they vote a straight Democratic ticket.
Carolinus
@Villago Delenda Est:
It occurs to me that this same controversy should be applying to Romney too:
Three Ads Mitt Romney Helped Fund To Stop Gay Marriage
Baud
@Carolinus:
I’m on board with boycotting Mitt Romney.
Ronnie P
As always, the easiest thing to do is complain about crap Firefox is and never use it anyway. This essentially defers the decision as to whether it is a boycott over gay marriage. You don’t have to be consistent in the future if you don’t want to.
WereBear
@Baud: I wish I could boycott Mitt Romney.
I’ll have to settle for not being a Mormon.
Oh, and supporting human rights. I understand he hates that!
Kropadope
@Baud: Yeah, but I can think of way better reasons than his gay marriage stance (wide, FYI).
kc
The Colbert poutrage is a rare case of both sides actually doing it.
So much butthurt.
RSA
@Baud:
I agree. While we all know of important historical successes, I wonder if most boycotts have been failures?
kc
@Violet:
I guess starting stupid hashtags is her idea of work. She’s Malkin’s mirror image on the left. Humorless, smug, self-promoting, ginning up dumb controversies.
WaterGirl
It’s kind of hard to get behind: “This might not work, so what’s the point”.
That’s no way to win anything.
Baud
@RSA:
I think most attempts at most things fail. Trial and error, learning from experience, and all that. That’s fine in itself, as long as the failures don’t get you down. But they often seem to on our side of the aisle.
WereBear
@Baud: It might be ‘cuz our Purity Ponies don’t have billionaire sugar daddies, too.
Cassidy
@Baud: They’re great in theory, but in this age of hyper-partisanship there are too many places to boycott and not enough alternatives to shop. I never liked Chik-Fil-A, so that was easy, but what happens when every delivery pizza joint is an asshole? I know, I know, some knucklehead always has the response of “just go to whole foods and buy some organic, overpriced shit”, but really, it’s getting way too much.
aimai
@Kropadope: Well, what are the odds that he’s not going to use his position to materially harm his employees and/or his customers? The problem isn’t that he once advocated for a political cause that would have been extremely destructive to the lives and fortunes of fellow citizens–its that he did that from a position of relative anonymity. Now he has more power over the company and its business and customer relations. The question is: do his views still obtain? Is he still willing to use government to punish his enemies? Will he use the company to do so? If not–why not? What’s stopping him?
After all, with the Hobby Lobby case before us we are one very short step from his “private” donations being proof that if he could, he would, insist that his corporation follow his personal religious beliefs in practice.
There is simply no way of getting around the fact that for the right wing and social conservatives there is no difference between a modern business function and a private religious enterprise. The spokesbot’s assertion to the contrary nonetheless a guy with a strong view against the rights of customers and workers is not a good bet for the corporation as a leader.
Joel
Who the hell is Suey Park? People get paid money to twit, now?
YellowJournalism
@Cassidy: And then you’re told not to shop at Whole Foods because the guy behind that is an Ayn Rand whack job.
WereBear
Fred at the Slacktivist is writing about the World Vision scandal.
After they voiced some gay acceptance, far right evangelicals blew up the Internet, and Xantians are pulling their support of starving children.
So then World Vision bailed, and is back to gay bashing.
This was a boycott that worked. So it can cut both ways. But then, when Mr WereBear and I went for a child to sponsor, we deliberately chose a secular organization. Because we felt confident that meant our donations would feed a child, not just buy them a Bible.
JoyfulA
@Cassidy: You aren’t boycotting Whole Foods, with its misanthropic, libertarian CEO?
I’m boycotting Whole Foods!
(If there’s one around these parts, I haven’t heard of it, and I’m not looking for it.)
BBA
Eich is indefensible, no question. But I fail to see how switching to Chrome is an improvement when the CEO of Google has publicly stated that charity is pointless and you ought to be able to donate to businesses. That’s beyond Silicon Valley glibertarianism, that’s just bizarre.
Kropadope
@aimai:
Customers? Absolutely not. They bring the money.
As far as his employees, they’re more at risk, but I don’t think policing employee sexuality is high on his priorities list. However, many other attitudes associated with being a right-wing asshole will have much greater potential to impact his employees. Though these views were probably considered a feature, not a bug, when the hiring decision came.
Baud
@Cassidy:
Yeah, you just have to exercise judgment. It’s easy enough to avoid Koch products, so I do. But there’s no rulebook on these things.
Mike with a Mic
So people will look over the horrible things google/apple/microsoft engage in not to use Firefox.
Let’s be honest, nobody gave a shit. People will just use it as a justification to keep using the browser they were using from another company. And if this causes you not to use firefox and you’re going to use safari off an apple product, your priorities who’s doing wrong are so fucked up you can be laughed into oblivion as the sort of hypocritical limo liberal Rush is always ranting about.
Apple gets more people killed than firefox and is by far the most vicious tech giant out there. Using them at all means you don’t get to talk about morals in product usage or support. Google has turned outright evil.
So as always, destroying the American middle class is OK… as long as you’re culturally liberal.
Cassidy
@JoyfulA: I wish I made enough money to have the option to boycott Whole Foods. lol
Baud
@Mike with a Mic:
I didn’t know my choice of browser might be destroying the American middle class. You’ve given me something to think about. Thanks.
liberal
@aimai: agreed. IMHO, it boils down to(for “us”) all’s fair in love and war.
Only plausible argument against us a tactical one: these things have coordination costs and might not be cost-effective.
Cassidy
@Baud: I could have sworn it was the low pay, stagnant wages, and the increasing inability of people who make a steady income to move out of the renting class.
Percysowner
I love and use FireFox. I am going to give the corporations a month to change its mind. Then, if they don’t, well, I’ve already loaded Chrome on my Mac and I’m migrating bookmarks. I don’t like Chrome because they don’t have the addons I like (TabMix Plus, LiveClick mostly) but I can deal and hope this moves the developer of TMP to write an addon for Chrome.
Baud
@Cassidy:
Nah. It’s because browsers are free and therefore disincentivize people from working hard and finding better jobs for themselves.
CaseyL
@BBA: This. There are few “good” actors in the IT world; and even if you agree with what they do in one area, odds are 100% they do something else you disagree with in another.
Most boycotts don’t work, if the goal is to get rid of whatever you’re boycotting. The only major one I know of offhand that did, in a momentous way, was the international boycott of apartheid-era South Africa. And even that took decades to put together, and decades to achieve its goal.
The boycott of Rush Limbaugh is “working” insofar as it has reduced his advertisers and audience – but what’s left is still enough to keep him on the air.
Boycotting is a good way to ensure you’re not personally, directly supporting a certain person or company, so I wouldn’t tell people not to do it. But don’t expect any results other than personal satisfaction.
Betty Cracker
@aimai: Good point.
Peter
I’m not actually paying Mozilla anything for the pleasure of using Firefox so I don’t feel any particularly compelling need to boycott it.
D58826
@Kropadope: I was going to make the same basic comment. It cuts to close to blacklisting over political opinions. It wasn’t that long ago that conservatives wanted Obama banned from speaking at Notre Dame because they disagreed with his position on abortion and contraception. I have the same problem with boycotting products and TV shows. or Hobby Lobby. In a pluralistic society of 310 million people there are going to be lots of folks I disagree with. I can’t boycott them all. Now if he is using his position to fire gay employees that is a different proposition.
Betty Cracker
@D58826: He is using the money he earns at that enterprise to try to deny an entire group of people equality. It’s not a matter of disagreeing about tax policy.
Kropadope
@Betty Cracker: Let him throw his money at a stupid, losing endeavor.
Tokyokie
I don’t patronize Hobby Lobby and try to stay out of Wal-Mart because I find their policies to be despicable. I am under no illusions that my doing so materially affects them, but at least I can feel as though I’m not helping them further their goals. (I feel the same way about Chick-Fil-A and the Coors family, but I don’t like the former’s food and I don’t drink, so by not patronizing them, I am not changing my behavior. And I already don’t use Firefox.)
Joel
@Mike with a Mic: What the fuck are you talking about?
Joel
@Cassidy: Actually, ’round these parts, the pitchforks were out for Whole Foods on many occasions. If people want to boycott the bad guys, they can stop by not buying oil or metals. Good luck with that.
Kropadope
@Joel:
Don’t forget meat, vegetables, sodas, convenience technologies, automobiles, stencils, and, of course, AM Radio (what I know I’ll miss the most).
BBA
Eich’s comments
Talk is cheap, but it looks like he won’t go Hobby Lobby, if only because he’d face an employee revolt if he tried.
Cervantes
@JoyfulA:
Without comment:
Barry Estabrook, writing in 2011; more here.
Betty Cracker
@Kropadope: I’m all for his having the right to do so! I won’t be fattening his coffers though. I guess we all draw the line in a different place, and I sure as hell don’t claim I’m 100% consistent.
Roger Moore
@Cassidy:
That doesn’t work so well either, since Whole Paycheck is run by an anti-Obamacare wingnut. You’re supposed to go to the local farmers market.
Fred Fnord
@Cassidy: You mean when every nationwide giant delivery chain is owned by an asshole? So I guess local pizza places are just too HIPSTER for you?
Fred Fnord
@Kropadope: A losing endeavor that hurt a lot of people, and has even killed a documented few (due to lack of health insurance). Or are you okay with hurting people as long as *eventually* things come out okay? And as long as you aren’t one of the people being hurt, of course.
cckids
@WereBear:
This. I’m, personally, boycotting Hobby Lobby, and telling people why. I’ve run into LOTS of women who do crafts both for fun or for sale who were unaware of HL’s suit & position on contraception, and they were horrified, and are also staying away.
Letting your wallet speak is perfectly valid, and, if enough people do it, will work better than any number of shouting, sign-waving protests, though both have their places.
JerryN
@Kropadope: Yes, in fact, it does matter why the directors quit. If they quit because the organization hired from within, they were probably concerned that the organization needed changes that were unlikely to come from an insider that was comfortable with the current direction.
Eich was CTO, so I’ve got to assume that he was already in a position to affect corporate policy and direction in an outfit that is tech-driven. as well as (to @aimai's point) personnel decisions.
ruemara
@Cassidy: Or, you can go to your local food co-op where it’s modestly overpriced and if you’re a shareholder, you get a discount. Plus they have a fair wage practice, participate in corporate composting programs, have a fantastic food benefit charity and a kickass tofu cashew spread-crack on a cracker. Or your local farmer’s market, where you can get to know everyone and catch up on everyone’s gossip.
Kropadope
@Fred Fnord: Sorry, I just happen to think that people’s rights to express opinions and support their favorite causes, however misguided, are a higher-order priority than my right to marry whomever I want.
Furthermore, I’m pretty confident that everyone believes something that I would find to be just awful. I damn sure can’t boycott everyone.
aimai
@Kropadope: Much greater? You don’t know that. At any rate the point is that its important for people to register their displeasure at people with such views being given important jobs that intersect with both customers and employees. If he was proud of his actions/beliefs and thought they were truly a benefit to the company he should have declared them publicly and stood behind them. If he thought they were a detriment to the company, he should have recused himself.
And, no, this is not like other decisions a person might make or opinions they might have. He choose to try to enforce his dogma on everyone else–that makes it completely different from the kinds of differences that a plural society needs to tolerate or to celebrate. His right to try to control other people is not on a par with other people’s right to autonomy. Its just not.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kropadope: And people have right to express their disagreement with his choices. The right to free speech does not mean that speech is free of consequences. If a plumber shows up at my place and starts spouting racist garbage, I have every right to decline to use his services. Same thing here.
ruemara
@Omnes Omnibus: Xactly.
JGabriel
I’m surprised I haven’t seen anyone here mention this yet: Firefox, and all or most or the Mozilla projects, are open source.
Sure, continue with the boycott, but if the Mozilla Foundation is going to put someone in charge who supports and gives funding to organizations that advocate hate and suppression of people’s rights, then:
It sounds to me like it’s time to fork it.
Mnemosyne
@Kropadope:
See, I know you’re trolling, because your argument is basically that Loving v. Virginia should not have been decided in the Lovings’ favor because their state government had a right to privilege the opinions of racists over the Lovings’ decision to get married.
And before you try to argue that we’re not talking about the same thing, Prop 8 was an amendment to the California state constitution, which takes it past mere offensive speech and into the realm of “using the government to enforce your personal beliefs on others.” There’s a difference between giving your money to anti-gay rights organizations and giving your money to support a constitutional amendment to change the law and take people’s rights away.
am
Hi… kind of late to the discussion, but I’d urge everyone to avoid a rush to judgement. For full disclosure, I am strong in favor of the viewpoint that discriminating against same-sex marriage is not up for debate, but plainly unconstitutional under the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment.
Anyway, here are some of my reasons:
* There is no open source organization outside of Apache with their level of infrastructure. An open source, non-commercial web browser is fundamental to having a functioning free market for browsers. Both in improving their performance (see IE 6->7 and forward) and in keeping a leash on the inclination of corporations towards information tracking & collection.
* There are a huge, huge variety of viewpoints in OSS (open source software). Honestly, most would not be popular here. Randian libertarianism is rampant. But the end result is a huge societal benefit, regardless of the individual political views of contributors/leaders.
* Mozilla is an extremely LGBT friendly organization: http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/governance/policies/participation/, and the reason Eich was promoted was because he is a _legendary_, _iconic_ open source software developer with experience directly relevant to the technical direction of Mozilla. If you are just hearing his name, that might not be obvious, but hes on a level with guys like Linus Torvalds, Alan Cox, Tim Berners-Lee, Larry Wall, Yukihiro Matsumoto, Guido van Rossum, etc. (to cogniscenti: yes, glossing over many things with that list). If that list of Mozilla governance policies changes for the worse, then I’ll join the calls for his resignation, but not until his personal life interferes with his work
* Mozilla is about freedom and privacy: http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/manifesto/, it is somewhat orthogonal to marriage equality. Let’s create coalitions where practical and possible. I don’t hunt, but I’ll work with hunters on land conservation. I don’t like proselytizing, but will work with evangelicals on disaster/poverty relief. And so on.
I don’t want to write a book here, but I will say that his extremely regrettable donation makes me question his judgement. His leadership is under scrutiny and deservedly so. I also used and will continue to use Chrome as my primary browser for purely technical reasons, and don’t use Thunderbird or Persona. But I see the value in a healthy and strong Mozilla foundation.
MazeDancer
May Equality and Love rule the world.
And may Mozilla fire this hater and make a big, fat apology. So I can go back to FireFox. Have been miserably switching between Safari, Chrome, and Opera since they announced the hiring insanity earlier this week. (Prop 8 contributor?? What were they thinking??)
Prop 8 was not “diversity of opinion”. Prop 8 was a full-fledged, smear campaign of hate.
Not loving the other browsers. Especially Chrome wanting to unify all Google things, get as much personal info as possible from you, and not wanting to let you past their “Sign Up for Google +” stuff.
Realize that many, many people dislike FireFox. But, being able to use it again will bring a bit of serenity for me. A selfish bonus to the greater good of making it not okay to give money to hate causes.
Ruckus
@Baud:
It’s somewhat easy to avoid some kochsucker products, Georgia-Pacific, etc. But what do you do about the behind the scenes stuff? They are heavy into petroleum products but you’ve never seen a kochsucker gas station.
Boycotts don’t work very well and these days probably even less so. A very pointed one maybe, like fat fuck’s advertisers, but he’s still on the air. Sure don’t buy the known kochsucker stuff, don’t shop at shitworld, but the big companies are somewhat intertwined. Need plywood? Most likely going to only find GP. Live in an area that shitworld has run everyone else off? What choice do you have?
JoyfulA
@Fred Fnord: I have learned that many places in this country have the pizza choice of Domino’s or Pizza Hut.
Which is why I’m glad I live where there are lots of Italians and I can choose among many real pizzerias.
am
I’m embarrassed by the number of omissions I made stating, “There is no open source organization outside of Apache with their level of infrastructure”. Linux Foundation, Eclipse, *BSDs, Kernel.org, Python, et al.
Kropadope
@aimai:
My priorities are my own and are entirely subjective.
@Omnes Omnibus:
True, and I have the right to explain why I don’t think the individual politics of the consumer or employee or executive are a good reason to make purchase decisions. I didn’t disparage the recent Rolling Stones boycott out of a love for the marathon bombers.
The racist plumber thing isn’t exactly equivalent. When one opens a firefox browser, this individual is not subjected to a barrage of homophobic commentary. A more equivalent analogy would be if you suddenly found out your plumber supported what you felt was an unjust law.
Kropadope
@Mnemosyne:
I don’t see where you get that. The state has no legitimate grounds for discrimination, neither do businesses. My argument is that an executive at the time Loving v. Virginia was decided has every right to disagree with that decision and even to bankroll a legal fund against it, just as long as it doesn’t become a basis for management decisions at his company.
Also, these prop 8 people may have unwittingly done us a favor. All the jurisprudence resulting in same-sex marriage bans being overturned across the country stemmed from challenges to prop 8. The unique awfulness of that law made it impossible for courts to ignore the fact that there is no real legal justification to tell people which legally consenting adults they may or may not marry.
JGabriel
@Kropadope:
I think you’re overrating a bigot’s ability to be objective.
.
Kropadope
@JGabriel: Some can and, if they can’t, then give them the boot.
Another Holocene Human
@Kropadope: Did you even read the OP?
Kropadope
@Another Holocene Human: Yes and there’s no indication in that OP that he’s using his position to hurt gay employees or any other employees that may disagree with him on his personal politics.
Another Holocene Human
Richard Stallman libel!
hahahaha, my misspent youth on /. I just couldn’t resist that one.
Honestly, I’ve never heard of Eich. I guess he thought nobody would ever find out that he spent money to deny people including his coworkers civil rights. Now it’s affecting his relationship with his job because they all know, now. That’s why the Mormons and Catholic Church fought so hard to keep their donations secret, attempting to flout campaign laws. It was a snivelly, sneaky, underhanded thing to do.
Maybe he just needs to apologize for the harm he caused, like those “ex-gay” activists did.
Another Holocene Human
@Kropadope: Not being able to marry doesn’t hurt them? Please unpack that for me.
am
@Another Holocene Human:
Linked from the OP, this Mozilla employee offers some nuance: http://subfictional.com/2014/03/24/on-brendan-eich-as-ceo-of-mozilla
Christie in turn links to Brendan’s post on the controversy, too: https://brendaneich.com/2014/03/inclusiveness-at-mozilla/
Both are relevant and worth reading if one is actually interested in leadership at Mozilla and the project, and not just point scoring on the broader conflict.
Another Holocene Human
@ruemara:
Welcome to the Tumblr generation.
The most exhausting corner of the internet.
It also has provided a growth medium for vile sociopaths like Cathy Brennan. As you go further left, more “pure” and more authoritarian, you circle back towards the right, which is the only way to explain Cathy Brennan and her violent, bigoted obsession with the content of trans* women’s undergarments.
Kropadope
@Another Holocene Human: He didn’t personally ban them from getting married. I see no indication that he punished any employees for getting legally married to another person of the same gender. What he did was wrong, stupid, ugly, whatever. It was not, however, a breach of professional ethics.
am
@Another Holocene Human:
Hah! It was a conscious omission, as was the FSF. I wanted to avoid sticking my head neck deep in another hornets’ nest :)
Mispent years on /., too. Glad reddit wasn’t around or I’d have never gotten out.
But seriously, the motley collection of misanthropes that have made the modern internet possible is probably not something that should be exposed to the same political scrutiny as some other areas of life. Like knowing how hot dogs are made, or something.
Another Holocene Human
@Violet:
Sometimes, though, it takes a young person without our old peoples’ preconceived notions of how the world should work to stand up and say something is wrong, unfair and needs to change NOW. Someone who doesn’t owe favors to anyone yet, someone who’s just a little tad narcissistic because 15-25 year olds just are a tad bit narcissistic. It’s built into the hardware.
I’m actually kind of amused that she trolled Malkin into agreeing with her and denouncing racist depictions of Asians. I mean, consider the source. This is someone who disparages other Asian-Americans on the regular and has her virtual nose up the butt of the vilest white male racists imaginable on a daily basis. Yeah, I’m amused.
Another Holocene Human
@Cassidy: Domino’s is vile, not just the corporate head but the franchisers engage in rampant wage theft. And their pizza is bad. Papa John’s isn’t real pizza and the owner is a shithaid.
But doesn’t that leave Little Caesar’s? And your local joints? Where I live there is shitty greasy pizza available 24/7 from a locally owned place. AFAIK they don’t go on crusades against people’s healthcare and they aren’t stealing their delivery drivers’ wages.
Domino’s ain’t exactly all that cheap these days, anyway. Just sayin’.
(The trick is to buy frozen crusts. Then put cheapo mozz shred or cheese blend on it and whatever sauce you like, the Hunt’s cans are fine if you want it to taste like actual pizza, that sweet tomato soup “Ragu” shit in the “ethnic” aisle if you actually LIKE Domino’s and its sugared sauce. Then you can put anything you fuckin’ like on it… pepperoni, genoa salami, proscuitto, an egg, arugula, pickled artichoke hearts, sardines, tuna, bufalo mozzarella, padano, asiago, capers, balsamic reduction, pesto, basil leaves, sweet tomatoes, shaved onions, shallots, garlic, oyster mushrooms, clams, etc, etc.)
If you buy whole frozen pizza the cheese will be ruined and you’ll wonder why it tastes like shit.
ETA: @JoyfulA: Hear, hear!
Another Holocene Human
@Joel: I was totally boycotting aluminum for a while there but then I decided I loved midnight fries too much and scrubbing my pans too little. Dammit!!
Some of these issues are too big for households to tackle. Like emissions and fuel for transportation. You’ve got to provide an alternative to those planes. And only really government has the bankroll and rights to do that. To put in high speed rail. (To put in better internet bandwidth for virtual meetings and rescind the tax breaks for business travel… oh yeah, that’s a mouthful right there.)
Meh.
Another Holocene Human
@Kropadope: There were a lot of hard feelings on my jobsite about the Trayvon case; still are hard feelings. Now, imagine if one of the bosses had publicly made a big deal about donating to Zimmerman.
That would have been fucking toxic.
(Thankfully, the bosses kept well out of the entire thing.)
Another Holocene Human
@Fred Fnord:
Paying employees all the wages they’re owed, paying all the payroll taxes, and having managers who are managers and not overseers and treating employees decent and like they matter is soooooooo hipster, duh.
Oh, and having food that didn’t come out of a freezer and actually tastes like, ya know, food.
/graduate of the school of local pizza and sub shop
Kropadope
@Another Holocene Human: And if the employees found out on their own that he quietly donated to Zimmerman’s defense fund w/o the big deal?
I wasn’t aware that corporate executives were under any obligation to stay uninvolved in the great controversies of the day.
Another Holocene Human
@Kropadope:
Bookmark this comment, libs! We’ve found a live one!
Tell, me, Kropadope, all about your views on uteri and who gets to poke wands in them. Now, consider Edward Snowden. Great humanitarian or greatest humanitarian. *chin on hands*
Another Holocene Human
@Ruckus: Actually, the good news is that Limbaugh is making negative money for his corporate lords and masters right now who happen to be a bunch of GOP charmers we know as Bain Capital.
Here, have some popcorn.
Another Holocene Human
@Kropadope: Go on licking Job Cremators’ balls, ‘Dope; I’m sure that’ll work out great for you.
You sound like someone who’s never managed a fucking thing in your life, but always think the manager is exactly right.
You don’t get headaches from that narrow little pin head?
Kropadope
@Another Holocene Human: Irrelevant, but if you must know, decisions about uteri must first be deferred to the uterus owner. Upon acquiescence of the uterus owner, decisions should be mutually agreed upon between said owner and the prospective poker. Edward Snowden is an idiot.
That said, I’ll issue a full-throated defense of anyone’s right to disagree with me on these matters and to try to effect policy change that I don’t agree with.
Kropadope
@Another Holocene Human:
You sound like someone who doesn’t know me at all.
Betty Cracker
@Kropadope:
They aren’t. But neither do they have the right to be insulated from the consequences.
Cain
A little late to the debate. But if you’re all about equality, then you should be switching to a free and open source based operating system. Have you tried GNOME http://www.gnome.org/? In fact, GNOME has been doing a lot in terms of usability, function and beauty. Plus, we’re big in trying to get women into tech and not just women, but anyone who identifies as women, transgender, queer are all welcome.
http://www.gnome.org/opw/
Stop supporting corporations, and get on the free software bandwagon!
Mnemosyne
@Kropadope:
And other people have every right to disagree with his decision and take whatever legitimate action is necessary to register their disapproval.
This is where the arguments of “First Amendment Above All” proponents fall apart — they’re all in favor of a person getting to say something stupid or offensive, but they fall on their fainting couches and whine about oppression when other people respond to that offensiveness. The First Amendment is a two-way street: you can say anything you want, but other people have the exact same right to respond to you any way they want and you don’t get to whine that you’re being oppressed by their response.
Ruckus
@Another Holocene Human:
Yes, negative return. But he is still on the air. Those monied people must either think like him or at least see that he gets others to think like him, which makes them money.
It’s always the money. Always follow the money. The trail might meander a bit but there is always a trail and it always leads to someone who wants way more than any fair share.
slag
The distinction between the two campaigns is pretty clear: Capturing the important difference between two opposing camps is probably easily done in 140 characters. The differences between allies are more complicated, so 140 characters likely won’t allow for sufficient nuance.
Not to mention…when you’re hitting someone on your side (especially someone who’s cleverer, funnier, and has more name recognition), you really need to know what the hell you’re talking about so you don’t look like a whiny attention-monger who would rather put yourself at the center of an issue you claim to care about.