'A mob, no better than white men lynching black men in the south.'
Dave you're wrong again. Incredibly amazingly wrong. What an asshole.
Here's Dave's latest post before he "live-edits" (i.e. doublethinks it out of existance):
Courage on the Web
Yesterday the weblog community found a peaceful solution to a war that was brewing.
It was the world vs Erin Clerico. There were so many people savaging him, I didn't see anyone looking for a way out of the dispute betw Erin and blogger Dave Johnson. For some reason I got a lot of email about this. I told everyone that as far as I could tell Johnson was being a gentleman, and that even though I'm not a lawyer, it seemed that Erin didn't have much of a case (he was threatening to sue). But I also asked people to stop calling Erin names, and try to see it from his point of view. He's worked hard to build a business that people respect, and he's upset that someone is doing something that may harm his business. He has a valid point, and probably would back down if people would just listen. So that's what I did, I listened, and it worked, they both backed down and peace came about.
Proves a point, sometimes someone has to be strong for there to be peace. When everyone is cowardly except the person being attacked, there's no way out. That's why the logjam over RSS broke. Mark Pilgrim had the courage to get the facts. That was a big deal. Yesterday some of Erin's detractors called him a bully. He's not a bully, he was just scared, but they were bullies. A mob, no better than white men lynching black men in the south. No thinking going on. A blood sport. I am ashamed to be associated in any way with this. Think before you join a mob. Use your mind, and when you see people being cruel, have the guts to say it's wrong.
Bullies have a way of backing down when they feel the presence of just a tiny bit of courage. It takes courage to say "Let's find a way out of this." And that's how you can tell the difference betw the abuser and the abused. One doesn't want a way out, and the other desperately does.
Dave's capacity to manipulate and distort issues to serve his own interests is more and more astounding every day. The world vs poor Erin. Uh-huh. Erin was a complete jerk yesterday - using the word "lawyer" in any context against someone as cool as Dave Johnson (just like Winer was a complete jerk the other day using the word "police" in any context). Erin was a bully in every sense of the word (just like Dave). Dave is obviously trying to protect and justify the actions of one of Userlands most visible clients. It's pitiful, really. And blatently see-through.
But whatever, that's business. What got me was his comparing those of us who came to Roller's defense quickly, loudly and verbosely to racists. Incredible! I know it's just another classic Winerism, but you've got to be kidding me. We're most likely the reason that Erin came to his senses (that and his lawyer laughing in his face...) later that day when he realized what a shit-storm he was kicking up. We weren't a Mob, we were vocal opponents to an injustice. (Sorta like those people working on RSS).
Let me make myself very, very clear: You're a complete fucking dickhead for saying that Dave Winer. Take it back. If you don't, YOU'RE the coward. Erin did a good job yesterday and redeemed himself. He backed off and apologized. Dave needs to learn A LOT about that.
-Russ