[TAG] Ya know, I've changed my mind.

[Benjamin A. Okopnik]

On Fri, Nov 04, 2005 at 03:36:55PM -0800, Rick Moen wrote:
> I wrote:
> 
> > Psst:  Define Mike's position as "menshevik" on a procedural matter.  
> > That's been known to work.
> 
> Just so the joke isn't a private one, the above is a jest about playing
> silly games with word-distortion for polemical reasons.  It's a
> reference to Russion reformist/socialist history circa 1903.  
> 
> At the time, Lenin and Julius Martov were co-leaders of a socialist
> labour party that had an ideological split.  Martov's larger faction of 
> moderates happened to be in the minority on an ultimately unimportant
> procedural vote.  Lenin, head of the smaller radical faction cleverly
> used the occasion to label the moderates "mensheviks" (minority faction),
> and his own group "bolsheviks" (majority faction) -- and somehow made 
> that label stick, giving the illusion of greater momentum on the side of
> his own (then-tiny) group.
> 
> So, distortive, polemical wording can be tactically useful, if you can
> find enough people dumb enough to fall for it.
> 
> Consider, for example:  "Digital Rights Management" and "Copy
> Protection".  (Whose rights?  Rights granted by what law?  Protection of
> one's copies against what threat?)
> 
> Anyhow, I was reminded of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin's "menshevik" ploy
> when I recently heard a friend say that _he_ regards LG as based in the
> readership (though he wants to make participation more exclusive), and
> labels a _different_ friend as treating LG as based in the editorship
> (while that second friend opposes making participation more exclusive).
> But I could be hallucinating.

Of course you're hallucinating, Rick. It's nothing nearly that
complicated: Mike has suggested that we make TAG private and Lgang
public; I've completely agreed with him and actually done it - except I
swapped also their names after doing so. [dusting hands] Now,
_everybody_ should be satisfied.


* Ben Okopnik * Editor-in-Chief, Linux Gazette * http://linuxgazette.net *