when i describe a pathetic attitude, it helps not to respond by exactly fitting the pathetic description

or perhaps canada is actually doing a much better job of controlling corruption

i don't think canada is a utopia

i specifically said "canada and the nordic countries that, while not perfect, do a much better job"

every country has problems. and there is corruption in canada. but canada is doing a much better job of keeping corruption in check than the usa. we can demand better, we do not have to accept the lame status quo in the usa og basically legalized corruption such as with 2010 citizens united when the supremes basically betrayed the american people to corporations and plutocrats

doesn't mean i think we can defeat corruption forever. doesn't mean i think it will be easy. but we can, and should, get money out of politics to the best of our ability. and certainly not roll over and accept it and say "well, that's just the way it is." no, it's not just the way it is

will be a bunch of cynical comments about this being just the way it is

but there are countries like canada and the nordic countries that, while not perfect, do a much better job of keeping money out of politics than the usa

cynicism is common, but i don't like it because people use it to think they have to lie down and accept this sort of legalized corruption

in many ways, i think the cynicism is worse than the malicious corporations. because there's always people who are robbing you in this world. you have defend yourself and fight them. but what can you say about people who roll over and take the abuse?

we don't have to accept it

and we start by changing the lame cynical attitudes out there

that might be you

that might mean speaking up when you hear cynicism and people snickering or nodding in agreement with it

for speaking up and say wallowing in mindless cynicism is a form of accepting the abuse and is part of the problem, you may get ridiculed and flak for that. but think about what kind of mindset is mocking you, and take it as a point of pride

we have to be the solution here. all of us. i didn't say it was easy. but i and many others are not going to continue to accept this, and i would hope more people would join us

start by losing the cynicism

north korea is the westboro baptist church of countries

they want to offend

like an internet troll, every negative reaction is positive reinforcement

came here to say this

that pipeline is going to be shut off once a year in march or april, until running capitalist dogs pay attention to the psychotic state and pay a ransom

Just to be clear, I think the Eich thing was a witch-hunt. As is the counter-witch-hunt.

Funny, as a Mozilla employee I feel much more bullied --- by both sides of the culture war --- than bullying.

It feels like someone smacked us in the side of the head, we fell over, and then someone else came along shouting "weaklings!" and kicked us on the ground.

Certainly, in hindsight, it was a mistake to promote Brendan to CEO. But without hindsight, very few people can honestly say they saw this coming. Before this blew up, no-one was openly saying "OK, no-one on the pro-Prop-8 donation list can be a CEO in California now unless they publicly repent or the company is willing to take major damage". In fact AFAICT a large majority of people, even in California, were surprised and somewhat horrified to find out that's the case.

As CTO, co-founder, and linchpin of Mozilla for all 16 years of its existence, not to mention creator of Javascript, Brendan was already as "public face" and "guiding force" as he was going to be as CEO. That's what bugs me about the whole "public face" argument.

I said he was not coerced or pushed out *by Mozilla*. No way does that imply a free pass to the lobby groups that hounded him out of the job.

It's absolutely true. There were a bunch of blog posts by Mozilla employees supporting Brendan as CEO (even though many disagreed with his position on Prop 8), all completely ignored by the media. Looking at the relevant date range on http://planet.mozilla.org/ should find them...

Uh.... Christie Koehler explicitly said she thought Brendan would do a good job as CEO. So I'm a bit confused about why you're lumping her into your list.

Jessica Klein and Jess Klein are the same person.

Christie Koehler doesn't belong on your list. She early and publicly supported Brendan as CEO --- a stand that made her quite unpopular with a segment of her LGBT community. She deserves great praise.

We did not "stand by and watch". Many Mozilla staff made public statements supporting Brendan as CEO, including (courageously) many LGBT Mozilla staff. Many more publicly supported Brendan than publicly opposed him. The media of course focused on his opponents because "Mozilla employees call for CEO to step down" gets more clicks than "Mozilla employees support CEO".

Maybe we could have done more. At the time the firestorm was hot enough that it was unclear whether speaking out (and what sort of speaking out) would help. Brendan's resignation came as a great surprise to almost everyone at Mozilla, including me, and up to then I honestly thought simply saying nothing and letting the controversy blow itself out was going to work and was the best course of action.

To all the people who are shouting about "free speech" now: did you speak up to support Mozilla while we were defending Brendan as CEO? If not, why are you more enthusiastic about bashing us now than you were about supporting us back then?