9 days after writing in defence of a Free Palestine, Paul Biggar is dropped from his director role at CircleCI
hachyderm.io
His original post , titled I can't sleep, is some brilliant writing. When we talk about the chilling effect that criticism of Israel creates in industries everywhere (including ours) this is what that looks like.
Fuck, such an accurate picture
Yeah that'd do it
Damn, the balls on this guy. Very inspiring
Nothing short of heroic - too many people in a similar situation find themselves saying that it's awful what's happening, but there's nothing they can do about it.
Well, it turns out there is. Inspiring as hell.
Paul, you are clearly a man who would have refused to take part, even when those you held dear cast aside their humanity. Keep the fight up, your people are out there making the same sacrifices in their life.
I'm not him, just someone sharing his story.
I know.
I am also not Paul
Not supporting the Nazis had financial impact on people. Some American compagnies in fact gladly did business with the Nazis and made bank from it . But after a while they still managed to scrape some morals from the bottom of the barrel and say "hey this Genocide thing is maybe not okay".
Paul can stand proud for standing up for his morals. Sadly seems like many western companies and even the entirety US congress loves to sell their souls for genocidal Nazi stuff these days. Modern day America would have been a dream come true for Hitler.
Paul is a chad. He also got kicked out of ycombinator for outing the founders skipping vaccine lines and encouraging others to do the same.
Does someone know if anyone maintains a list of companies or organizations where this kind of bullshit has gone down, with link to sources? Could be useful to keep track.
I can't believe how quickly we went from pretending we thought murdering civilians was a bad thing to concluding it's merely a matter of killing the right civilians.
There's a conversation going on in that Mastodon thread where one dude is proposing a static site fueled by a fact-checked list, but that's the only thing I've seen other than BDS.
Thanks - here's a direct link to the conversation, for anyone interested.
Shit, I'm on the phone over the holidays, will keep an eye on this. Thanks!
I will preface this by saying that there are risks to being openly involved.
There are people work to avoid taking actions that may benefit Israel:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boycott,_Divestment_and_Sanctions
https://bdsmovement.net/get-involved/what-to-boycott
Definitely doesn't help that most of the damn US has some form of Anti-BDS laws. Because everybody knows Anti-Zionism is Anti-Semitism right guys?
The US ""free market"" - Where if you choose not to do business with somebody they make it illegal not to.
Anti-Zionism and antisemitism are not the same thing, but neither are they mutually exclusive.
Anti-fascism and anti-semitims are also not mutually exclusive. Anti-communism and anti-consumerism are not mutually exclusive. Anti-war and anti-liberalism are not mutually exclusive. Anti-abortion and anti-gay rights are not mutually exclusive.
Hell, few things are mutually exclusive. You had a handful of god-damn Jewish Nazis and one fucking honorary aryan during the war. So not even Semitism and anti-Semitism are mutually fucking exclusive.
Things not being mutually exclusive is a pretty fucking moot argument.
It's not an argument.
So what is it?
It was a statement. Why do you find it so upsetting that something antisemitic might also be called anti-Zionist?
Anti-Semitism is used for people who dislike Jews, anti-Zionism is opposition to a political ideology. One of these is deplorable, the other is vital to any non-totalitarian society, whether you agree with it or not.
By blurring the line between the two you are at best either legitimizing anti-Semitism or pushing towards a totalitarian mindset where political ideologies cannot be challenged. In reality you're doing both. And even worse, I think you know what you're doing.
How am I blurring the line?
What did I say that made it more difficult for you or anyone else to determine what is anti-Zionism and what is antisemitism?
Did I suggest some change to the definition of what constitutes something being labeled one or the other?
Did I suggest a method for determining what is antisemitic or anti-Zionist?
Did I make a false statement?
Grear idea! I'm curious if theres an equivalent for BLM that can be forked
You are gonna want to clarify that.
If you want a precise list you need to precisely define the bullshit you’re referring to. You want a list of companies that have done what exactly?
Did we used to conduct war in a way that was safe for civilians? I’m not aware of that history. The war in Gaza looks like war to me. The same way we have been practicing it since we picked up our first sticks in anger. Murdering civilians is a consequence of war. The “good guys” fire bombed Dresden and nuked Japan.
I would give more examples but being honest I am straining to think of other wars in human history that were worth fighting. I am drawing a blank. All of it is pointless slaughter. At least in Gaza you can understand that the Israelis were provoked to war. Can’t say the same for the US in most of our wars.
The circumstances of Gaza seem to warrant them attacking their captors. I don't support any attacks on civillians, but Israel being attacked seems to be a result of a failure on their part to make peaceful change possible.
When we start making excuses for violence we abandon any hope of a peaceful world. There is always some slight that requires reprisal which will begat further reprisal. No party in this conflict has the strength to resist. No part has the moral high ground.
Might as well hunt down Churchill and Truman’s descendants and murder them to avenge their grandfathers casting the first stones in this conflict.
No.
The Israelis say they are prosecuting a war against Hamas.
How many members of Hamas have been killed? How many remain?
It's extremely rare to see someone like Paul Bigger whose morals are not for sale
somebody had to be the bigger man about the situation
When there is a war, there are war crimes - it's not surprising, it's not new and it's not special. Every single time, regardless of nationality, race, creed, invader or defender. Every single time. You give a lot of people guns, teach them to de-humanise the enemy and then put them through unimaginable stresses, it's inevitable that some will do bad things. Those who orchestrate such actions and trigger events like this know, accept and want these atrocoties to achieve their own ends.
I respect Paul Biggar for having an opinion and writing a well researched and unimpeachable personal blog about it. Why should any of us who hold feelings have to suppress them?
It's sad that he's become yet another victim of this unwinnable war, it's even sadder that he won't be the last.
This is today's reality on the Internet. We used to think it would free us from capitalist control of public discourse. Hahahaha no, anyone saying anything contentious without good anonymity can be fired from their job or face other consequences.
That is, sincerely, such a hugely refreshing statement in any current affair. I don't mean to distract from his more specific points, but that key insight really shows integrity in a way that I wish didn't seem so rare.
What is the insight from your perspective?
Most people who find themselves fired for their viewpoints decry "cancel culture". To be clear, booting him of the board was an act of censorship. This acceptance of (the existence of) consequences helps to indicate how strongly one holds to their values.
He addresses related notions in his essay. Why he chose to accept the consequences in advance and why some others may not be able to. It makes it real.
Honestly have no idea why Circle CI would feel the need to do this. Is there really that much external pressure from ???somewhere??? to suppress anti-Israel commentary?
He attacked their investors by name and said they support a genocide. Either they back him and everyone looses their job or they fire him
It isn't a shock. Right or wrong, if you call out your boss/board/investors, you should expect to be fired. Corporations are required to protect their shareholders, not make a moral stand. I hope the gentleman here understood that -- when you choose to take a moral stand, it isn't going to be without consequences. It's one of the reasons we generally admire people who took a stand (and ended up judged "correct" by history).
Corporations definitely are not required to protect their shareholders, especially when those shareholders are championing genocide.
Anyway, this is yet another reason why for-profit companies should be illegal. The goal of an organization should be to help the world, not make as much money as possible.
First, this is just a US thing. But in the US it also used to be illegal to help slaves run away. Just because some judge says you have to do something doesn't mean you should do it.
You're conflating my statement of "this is how you should expect companies to act" with "this is morally right" -- which was literally the point of my original post. You're either deliberately trolling or unable to engage in a respectful conversation. Have a day!
Edit: Oh and CircleCI is a US company, so you once again tried to change the topic to fit your point. Please learn to converse in good faith. Cheers!
Counterpoint: https://reclaimdemocracy.org/corporate-accountability-history-corporations-us/
There's no counterpoint in that article. The article says that things should change. At no point did I say I agree with the status quo.
The word you used is "required" I'm pointing out that's false. The only person who can require you to do something is you.
You don't seem to understand what is required of whom. Corporations are required to act in the best interests of their shareholders (within the bounds of the law) or the shareholders can sue the company.
People are not legally required to do anything but they will be fired if they don't. If someone says something that makes a company look bad to their customers, they kinda need to be fired. Otherwise keeping them on may be detrimental to the interests of the investors.
Basically, you can say what you want but anything but positive attention may get you fired.
Exactly. The idea of profit/power/status/class being tied to profit margins on goods and services instead of contributions to better all of our lives cumulatively does not make any sense at all & is clearly extremely unsustainable. What it does do is generate power for the few at a much higher ("inefficient") cost to all other stakeholders (humans & the rest of nature).
AH. Well then… that makes a bit more sense lol
"Loses."
No Investor, even a billionaire, is going to fire everybody.
They just pull their funding, and everyone looses their job. No firing needed.
Or, they back him and acknowledge that they supported genocide but have since realised how wrong they were?
And then they all lose their jobs when the investor(s) pulls out. Did you not read the comment you were replying to?
If it’s a choice between one person losing their job and everyone losing their jobs, you are either rationally pragmatic to just one person or you are ideologically scorched-earth to everyone else.
I mean, if you are someone in a manglement position who has to pull that particular trigger you could also resign in protest, but at least that only torpedos your own career, and not the jobs of dozens of other people who work alongside you.
Actually I agree with Daniel. That's exactly what they should do. I'm not justifying why the company chose to fire him; they made the evil choice and stand on the wrong side of history. I'm just explaining what happened.
Unless a company is an employee-owned socialist-style worker’s collective, employees generally have no say in that decision. A company can be every bit as evil as their owners want to be. Just look at Google or Facebook or Twitter.
And the problem in America is that for anyone making less than six figures (and many making below seven or even eight figures), their ability to protest any decision made by their employer is heavily constrained by a combination of the employer’s ability to fire them at a moment’s notice and the medical insurance that is tied to their job. Thanks to these two pincer-like forces, employee’s free choices in America are heavily constrained in the interests of capitalism and the Parasite Class.
And even if the “owners” want to be less evil, they themselves are often constrained by their investors, who force them to either toe the line or hurt all of their employees with unemployment and likely destitution and extreme hardship.
Because why bring needless suffering to those (the employees) who cannot do anything to avoid it, when they desperately need their jobs to survive in this capitalistic hellhole? Why punish the innocent employees who are just wanting to successfully put one financial foot in front of the other?
As any sort of CEO, your decisions should be for the financial well-being of your employees, first, which means knuckling under to the political demands of your current investor overlords. After all, if your decisions just put your entire workforce out of work because your investors pulled all of their money, your decision was a horrible one.
Granted, investors with odious ideologies should have been avoided from the start, but hindsight is always 20/20. Sometimes stuff like that isn’t just a known unknown, but even a complete unknown unknown.
And once you have an uncontrollably influential investor, your only choice might be to protect the economic welfare of your employees over an ideological stance that could easily make many of them homeless or even dead.
sometimes making a stand and doing the right thing means making sacrifices that you might never see the results of yourself. We are able to argue about this today because there have been people in the past who did that.
Ya, he's an idiot who thought he was bigger than The mission and got shown he's not. You're not coming out ahead acting like that.
Don't worry, Bari Weiss will come to his defense any time now.
Between the recent breach and the clear sentiment behind their staff, I really don't know why anyone chooses CircleCI over GitHub / GitLab Actions.
sr.ht
Not free but definitely wonderful
My friend used to drive me nuts because he kept getting ads about them so he parrot the ads bullshit at me just to grind my gears.
Like CI/CD is a space full of eatabled and power opensource options, why am I paying for a proprietary app.
It is sickening the double standards we have. And all because of money and powerful lobbies.
This is why I hate startup culture. When you give off your equity to capitalist fat cats, you make yourself a bootlickers of mainstream discourse, even if that discourse is calling for genocide.
Fuck CircleCI
Such a powerful article! Standing up for what's right, I would always invest in such a person if I had any say in it.
He should probably leave the US and go to Europe (where his Irish passport entitles him to work). He’s certainly not going to work at a Fortune 500 company any time soon, and any firm that hires him is likely to find itself reciprocally blacklisted.
Ireland is generally supportive of Palestinian freedom, given their history. This extends back well before the recent horrific Hamas terrorist attacks. Israel and Ireland have a rocky relationship, including Israel using fake irish passports for agents. Ireland is not antisemitic, but Israel obviously tries to paint them that way.
Genuine question: What's this have to do with open source?
https://lemmy.ca/comment/5867903
Makes sense. Thanks!
Don't give CircleCI my money, got it
What I don't understand is him getting sacked. While he did name a few people and cut ties, I don't see the people named couldn't stand up with him after being named. It seems as if they really support the war crimes in Gaza.
In his blog post he explicitly said two things:
That doesn’t leave much room for others to work with him
I don't mean to undermine anything when I ask this. The article was very good, thank you sharing. I wanted to ask if circleCI made any floss software, or if paul biggar was a contributor to particular open source projects.
I don't know. I posted it here because CicleCI is a popular tool for Open source projects.
It's valid and relevant. Thank you for sharing to this community.
What an article. I have no words, but that's always the case when thinking about Gaza
Is there a mastodon frontend that doesn't require JS? I can't load the toot you linked-to
I have no idea, but here's a screenshot:
There's brutaldon, but it requires you to sign in unfortunately.
That should read "when we all suddenly and in unison begin using the same phrase", rather than "when we talk about" (regarding the term "chilling effect").
Pretty common at the workplace.
I miss the days where the worst thing anybody did at work was tell too many fart jokes and maybe got a coaching from HR because Karen from accounting is a stuck up bitch and told.
Now, everybody has to be some political or social justice hero. I'm there to do my job and go home. If I worried about every single bad thing that happens in the world, I'd be a nervous unproductive wreck.
It's funny that people really think they're different than those in Germany, 1942
Yeah because standing up against genocide is such a political social justice hero thing to do.
Think before you speak next time.
This random guy "stood up" by writing a passionate blog post. I'm sure that's going to solve everything.
If he really truly believes what he believes and wants to do something meaningful, then he should go there and fight for them personally.
Because in contemporary times everything is only solved with a weapon in hands by killing others /s
It’s a hell of a lot more significant than an angsty blog post
Look I'm a coward too. But let's not try to rationalise away our inaction on top of it
I don't give a shit if Israel or Hamas wins. I'm against all killing. War is horrible. Killing is bad. Both sides are at fault here.
I remember a time when people could just talk about games and tech without involving elite warmonger war plans.
What did I just say
This is what happens when you support terrorists
You might wanna read the blog post before commenting. Unless you mean being Palestinian is the same as being a terrorist, then you might have a bigger problem.
What terrorists did he support and how? Please elaborate and be more particular.