Message ID: 188602
Posted By: preadapted
Posted On: 2004-10-04 12:12:00
Subject: Comment from PJ
...at:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20041004030425829
"Of course, we actually had 1,474 comments, but I deleted all the pro-SCO ones.
: D
Joke. Joke.
Sunday's story wasn't even about SCO. I haven't
ever removed any pro-SCO comments that I am aware of. I just couldn't resist horsing
around, after reading all the lying astroturfing that goes on about Groklaw elsewhere,
which someone else was nice enough to tell me about. I wonder, whoever could be
behind such a campaign?"
Who indeed, some of us might wonder. Hmmmmmmm...
Regards
Gary
Message ID: 188649
Posted By: flimbag
Posted On: 2004-10-04 13:11:00
Subject: Re: Comment from PJ
> I just couldn't resist horsing around, after
> reading all the lying astroturfing that goes
> on about Groklaw elsewhere
Elsewhere being here, presumably...
> which someone else was nice enough
to tell
> me about.
Because I'm *far* too important to be bothered reading
that board.
> I wonder, whoever could be behind such a
> campaign?
I'd be happy to tell you for free, PJ.
YOU ARE!
You know, this
is precisely the sort of attitude that raises such rancour among those who aren't
prepared to pledge absolute fealty to PJ and the decisions that she makes.
The truth is, most of those who have been critical on this board have been long-term
Groklaw posters and contributers, who, for whatever reason, have found themselves
unhappy with the way that PJ and/or her anonymous 'advisory committee' make decisions.
Yet as soon as they voice those criticisms, they become liars, astroturfers
and paided SCO shills.
In my view, remarks like this completely undermine
PJ's and Groklaw's reputation, marking her out as paranoid and prone to abuse her
privilege by engaging in a petty abuse of power to score points in arguments against
old adversaries.
It's precisely this type of attitude, and in my view, this
kind of nasty, underhanded smear campaign, that makes me so determined to resist
any attempt to prevent discussion of these issues here on this board.
She
won't engage in public debate or discussion on these issues, arguing only 'its my
party and I'll cry if I want to', and yet she's more than happy to use her influence
to attempt to blacken the reputation of anti-SCO activists who have repeatedly proven
themselves in the struggle, and whose only 'crime' is to voice a range of criticisms
of PJ and/or Groklaw.
They also mark her out as completely unsuitable for
any kind of leadership or spokesperson role, in my view. The 'tall poppy' syndrome
means that anyone occupying a leadership role in any field will inevitably attract
some sort of criticisms and comments about how they do what they do. Real leadership
is in part about having a broad enough back to be able to take those comments in
your stride, recognize that they aren't personal, but are a function of the structural
position that you occupy, and so you ignore them and do what you can, by example,
to build consensus and try and diffuse disputes and petty squabbles.
In contrast,
look at Linus Torvalds. He gets all manner of bull
Of course not. He laughs
about it and takes it in his stride.
You know, I've seen several people
here and on Groklaw that I'd categorize as fairly strong SCO supporters, and one
or two that may well have financial relationships with SCO, either as employees
or as shareholders. But I've yet to see anything that looks remotely like convincing
evidence of paid shills and astroturfers.
Perhaps I'm missing something?
Perhaps someone could point all these astroturfers them out to me?
Message ID: 188653
Posted By: ColonelZen
Posted On: 2004-10-04 13:16:00
Subject: Re: Comment from PJ::GrokWar protest!
Peace and love, dude!
-- TWZ
Message ID: 188659
Posted By: flimbag
Posted On: 2004-10-04 13:23:00
Subject: Re: Comment from PJ::GrokWar protest!
> Peace and love, dude!
OK, I'm gonna shut up about it now. I'm as bored with the Grokwar threads as
the next person, but that comment *really* pissed me off.
So much so, I accidentally
hit the 'buy' button. :-(
Message ID: 188698
Posted By: preadapted
Posted On: 2004-10-04 14:42:00
Subject: Good Grief!!!
Gosh folks, I only posted that snippet from PJ's FUD
article because I thought posters here would be interested to know that she was
aware of the controversy regarding her and the way her blog was being run re how
certain posts were being handled.
I'm certainly a die hard advocate of free
speech but if I had known that posting it would kick up such a s**t storm I would
have just had my chuckle over it and lurked on.
Sorry...
Gary
Message ID: 188703
Posted By: karl_w_lewis
Posted On: 2004-10-04 14:50:00
Subject: Re: Good Grief!!!
>> I'm certainly
a die hard advocate of free speech but if I had known that posting it would kick
up such a s**t storm I would have just had my chuckle over it and lurked on. <<
Funny thing, I read PJ's article, eariler. I read your comment, (and wondered
if it wasn't going to stir up more of the same old meta-discussion).
And
then it made me wonder if maybe PJ isn't a paided astro turfer whose job is to disrupt
discussion on *this* board. She sure is effective at that, eh?
;^)
KWL
Message ID: 188771
Posted By: atul666
Posted On: 2004-10-04 17:33:00
Subject: Hooray For Us!!!
It's great to come back from vacation and see that
the PJ/GL/OSRM wars are continuing. Where would we be if we didn't have those? I
mean, what else could we possibly talk about?
I thought I'd make a brief
list of all the reasons it's so fantastic that we keep talking about this stuff
all the time:
* We're covering a lot of new ground all the time, and making
all sorts of progress. I'm sure that eventually we'll resolve this to everyone's
satisfaction.
* It's the most important topic around, far more important
than that silly lawsuit stuff. We're really showing off our ability to prioritize
things correctly.
* Everyone knows that fighting among ourselves this way
will only make us stronger (somehow), and it helps us hone our rhetorical skills
and our collective instinct for the jugular.
* Fighting over trivial minutiae
is great practice in case any of us here are studying to become diplomats or theologians.
* Nurturing unresolved feelings of rage is great practice in case any of us
here are studing to become performance artists or talk radio hosts.
* By
fighting among ourselves instead of going after SCO, we're helping to lull Darl
& Co. into a false sense of security.
* Every psychologist will tell you
that the way to deal with cases of hurt feelings is for everyone to stand around
and scream at the top of their lungs. It's really cathartic, or something.
* PJ is bound to see the light and do things differently, based on discussions
that occur here. In the end, a lot of good is going to come out of this argument.
It's a virtual certainty.
* It's a little-known fact that people who disagree
with one's own opinions in any way are absolute pure evil. It's of the utmost importance
to make these people aware of this fact. Repeatedly, with great emphasis, and in
the most unpleasant way possible.
* Namecalling is a really cool way of getting
in touch with one's inner child. Neener, neener, neener!
* Like all civil
wars, in a hundred years or so, our efforts will give rise to legions of enthusiastic
reenactors. They may even thaw out Ken Burns to do a multipart series for PBS, with
famous actors reading our posts and such.
Message ID: 188860
Posted By: stats_for_all
Posted On: 2004-10-04 21:10:00
Subject: flimbag, your resume ?
Mr. Flim,
Are you the Peter McDermott
of Liverpool who was active on the alt.rel.sci (Scientology) usenet as a "pox on
both houses" poster ?
Are you the Peter McD who contributes activist articles
from Liverpool on the sociology of MDMA and other drugs?
Curious, as this
McDermott seems to share an antipathy for a loyal opposition.
Message ID: 188861
Posted By: flimbag
Posted On: 2004-10-04 21:16:00
Subject: Re: flimbag, your resume ?
Heh. You've got me nailed, stats_for_all.
They are all I.
Message ID: 188868
Posted By: flimbag
Posted On: 2004-10-04 22:41:00
Subject: Re: flimbag, your resume ?
> Are you the Peter McDermott of Liverpool
who
> was active on the alt.rel.sci (Scientology)
> usenet as a "pox on both
houses" poster
FWIW, I don't think I was really a 'pox on both houses' poster.
Scientology is a pernicious cult that takes advantage of vulnerable people and uses
dishonest and illegal tactics to pursue those people it identifies as its enemies.
What I objected to there was precisely the same sort of groupthink and mass
berating of anyone who had been marked as a heretic -- using ad hominems and other
such tactics, to avoid addressing uncomfortable issues.
I remember that there
was poster who worked a s an academic librarian, who had done more work than anyone
in terms of hard, quantitative research, uncovering information about what Scientologists
did that would otherwise have remained buried. She was the Scientologist's PJ, if
you will, in that she represented the single biggest thorn in their flesh as she
was the most rational and persuasive of their debunkers, and could support her arguments
by a phenomenal command of the body of research materials that she and others had
amassed.
Unfortunately, in the process of doing her research, she discovered
something about a woman who had been one of the anti-scientologist's cause celebes.
This woman was invariably held up as a poster girl by the anti-scienos, because
the Scientologists had purportedly used the law courts to ruin her life.
It seems that the librarian discovered some information that conclusively showed
the woman's story to be a result of her involvement in an attempted scam. The poster
girl had been involved in an attempt to try and sue the cult for damages she wasn't
really entitled to -- something like sending herself bomb threats she attributed
to the cult.
What was both fascinating and repellent to me at the same time,
was the way that the whole group turned on this librarian en masse, doing everything
that they could to discredit her.
From what I could tell, she'd never done
anything other than posting the truth -- and a verifiable, well documented proof
at that. But that didn't seem to matter. She'd been branded heretic, and every time
she posted, a baying mob would be howling for her blood -- a sight that I found
genuinely repellant, and I do see a similar tendency here on this board aimed at
anyone who is critical of PJ.
Some time later, the librarian's allegations
were substantiated by a completely independent source. It didn't matter though.
Anti-scienos still lionized the woman who wrote the bomb letters, and were still
antagonistic and vindictive towards the librarian.
So it isn't so much an
antipathy for the notion of a loyal opposition as an objection to the notion that
an opposition has to be homogeneous, and that anyone expressing views at odds with
the dominant view is to be automatically regarded as 'the enemy'.
There was
another thing that we agreed upon and so marked us as heretics, and that was a rejection
of the notion of 'brainwashing'. The research literature on the subject is fairly
clear -- while brainwashing is possible, it's extremely difficult and so usually
happens where you have someone constrained and isolated physically and geographically,
over long periods of time.
The anti-scientologists tended to divide into
ex-scientologists, who saw brainwashing was a convenient way to explain their past
poor decisions, and then there were those who felt that whether they were brainwashing
people or not, it just wasn't the done thing to reveal some things in public, because
it was somehow 'letting the side down'.
I took the view then, as I do now,
that complete honesty actually strengthens your case, rather than weakening it,
and that seeking to silence your opponents rather than trying to genuinely hear
what they have to say and then dealing with it is actually a sign of weakness rather
than strength.
Message ID: 188877
Posted By: stats_for_all
Posted On: 2004-10-04 23:35:00
Subject: Re: flimbag, your irony ?
Flimsy wrote:
>> What I objected to
there was precisely the same sort of groupthink and mass berating of anyone who
had been marked as a heretic -[....] a sight that I found genuinely repellant, and
I do see a similar tendency here on this board aimed at anyone who is critical of
PJ.<<
I submit you seriously overstate your percieved analogy. I think you
have uncritically transfered your past battle into this current arena. You are hyper-sensitive
to cultist belief: and attack it with a rationalist exactitude. Please appreciate
the irony of your unbending standards because this is in itself an absolutist failing.
I object to the rancor of your assault on the blackened pots and kettles
in this self-declared Grokwar. Please dispose of some of your venom. Practically,
I suggest you will achieve more of your goal when you adopt a less poisoned tone.
The mental image your obsession evokes is of an unwashed Hindu fakir denouncing
the corrupted world. Holy and Honest certainly, but left with little more than an
empty begging bowl.
Message ID: 188898
Posted By: flimbag
Posted On: 2004-10-05 00:41:00
Subject: Re: flimbag, your irony ?
> I submit you seriously overstate your
> percieved analogy. I think you have
> uncritically transfered your past
battle into
> this current arena.
I think you need to go back and re-read
this (and other) threads then. I'm not the one who is attacking people for being
'trolls, astroturfers and paid shills.) Rather, I'm pointing out that such a tactic
is an inappropriate manner to respond to people who should be valued allies, but
with whom you have some disagreement.
> I object to the rancor of your assault
> on the blackened pots and kettles in this
> self-declared Grokwar
I call hypocracy. Re-read this (and other) threads. I think you'll find that
my response has been far from poisoned, by comparison with the intemperate and immoderate
tone of the responses.
As far as obsession goes, stats_for_all, perhaps you
should live up to your chosen name and do a little statistical analysis before you
start casting aspersions. If you bothered to count the number of posts that I've
made on this subject that are in any way critical, you'll find that it hardly counts
as an obsession. Out of over 200 posts, I think fewer than half a dozen of them
could be considered to be in any way critical of Groklaw. Of those, almost all of
them articulate what I see as the sites strengths, as well as its weaknesses.
That said, I *will* admit to a certain tendency to self-righteousness, and your
comment about tone is well taken.
Message ID: 188903
Posted By: flimbag
Posted On: 2004-10-05 00:51:00
Subject: Re: flimbag, your resume ?
> Well flimBag - looks like you really are a
> professional online
Oh, do shut your whining yaphole, you clueless
> Do you even run Linux?
Started out running MkLinux DR1
in 1996.
> For all your explanations and justifications,
> in the end
you are just fighting battles
Whereas for all your pointless yapping, you're
still a
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