h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

(oops, "born without a funny bone" is probably offensive to people with birth defects. I guess we had best shut up and allow those with good taste to write things for us.)

As someone once told Charlie, we don't want tunas with good taste, we want tunas that taste good.( old US TV commercial)

Erm. Duh, it's supposed to be funny. It wouldn't be offensive if the people using the name /seriously/ took themselves to be in a similar situation to the Zapatistas. It's the fact that you think a humourous allusion to a seriously oppressed group is amusing that's worrying.

As to being a useful ploy: I very much doubt it. A polite, thought provoking discussion might well have made an impression on the BBC. A group calling themselves the Zaphodista Army of Cybernetic Whining or whatever isn't going to, especially when it shows just how little they know about the amount that the BBC has done for freedom and human rights the world over.

I seriously think you don't know anything about the group on whose behalf you claim this great offense. Please do a simple search on any search engine for keywords "zapatista subcomandante marcos durito" and read the ten or twelve humorous fantasy stories which the main spokesperson of the Zapatista movement (Subcomandante Marcos) has written about a Zapatista beetle. He recognizes the value of humor. Perhaps you should write to him about how offensive it is that he should joke about the plight of the Zapatistas, as if you know better than he does.

I hope some day you will join us in valuing humor, not taking offense on behalf of others who you clearly do not know very well.

Starkist. Or rather, they're the ones who always sent the note down on the hook which read, "Sorry, Charlie." It was the obligatory admiring side-kick which said, "But Charlie, Starkist doesn't want tuna with good taste..."

Just so you know.

To quote from memory (or paraphrase, if you prefer) Mark (in other threads) "On h2g2 you can pretend to be whomever or whatever you wish."

Bite the bullet. Don't read the article if you're so offended by the name. If this is an indication of the 'fights for freedoms' the beeb has done the world over, then do me a favour. Keep them on -your- side of the pond.. there's already enough censoring lunatics over here.

What really is offensive is the fact that you've put : "It's not a war, and we won't do any denial-of-service attacks like the real Zapatistas did."

Did. Like the EZLN has been wiped away. COnsigning the peoples movement to the out tray of history like the revisionist lickspitle running dog of the borgoisie that you so obviously are.

Either that was a REALLY dumb thing to say, or you're being ironic.... I hope the latter....

If you read the sentence you are quoting - all it refers to is the DNS attacks - it doesn't imply that the EZLN (I assume that they are the Zapatistas) are no more..... It does imply that the Zapatistas aren't doing DNS attacks any more though....

Bloody splitter.

I didn't mean it to sound like the Zapatistas were a thing of the past. I just wasn't aware that they were still trying DNS attacks. If they are, then good! More power to them! Virtual civil disobedience is great, especially since it cannot physically harm anyone.

You may also notice that the only entry on Zapatistas on h2g2, last time I checked, was the one I wrote. I don't think the tone of the entry makes it sound like I'm opposed to the Zapatistas. At least, I hope it didn't come out sounding that way.

So I've been trying to educate people about who the Zapatistas are. What have you done for them lately?

My friends tell me I go too far in giving people the benefit of the doubt, but I'll assume that "revisionist lickspittle running dog of the borgoisie" is some kind of joke, lacking any hints of sarcasm or anything to show the reader it's meant as a joke. Until that's clarified, I'll be straining to hold my tongue.

Sorry, never mind. The "hint" I should have taken is your long past talking about this stuff and writing on Zaphodista boards.

Anyhow, no one could possibly use a phrase like "revisionist lickspittle running dog of the borgoisie" and expect readers not to laugh. Could they?

That's right, laugh, that's just what i expect from the reformist lapdog lackys of the ruling classes.

I love all that old school name calling, it's bloody great. Mao was particularly adept.

Yes. A joke, nothing more. Another tool the Zapatistas have continued using.

[what, sorry, ]

Of course the sad thing is that the left are so much better at calling each other names that they are at calling left.

That didn't make sence at all. It should have read:

Of course the sad thing is that the left are so much better at calling each other names that they are at calling right.

Nor, indeed, did it make sense...

Any non-splitters <> might like to pop over to the more public conversation Zapatistas (FZLN / FARC) at Ask H2G2. http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/F19585?thread=160598

I just chanced across that conversation last night while lurking in AskH2G2. If the Zapatistas (the modern incarnation of them, at least) actually formed in 1983, then I need to add some major revision to my silly entry about the Zapatistas. Maybe some links to other entries within the guide would help too.

An entry on FARC would be interesting too. I've heard a lot of bad things about them, but that's mostly junk I've seen in mainstream press over the years, whereas my sympathy for Zapatistas has been nursed along by the fact that everything I know about them comes from leftist writings.

What is the epithet "splitter" supposed to mean? I apparently haven't read enough Mao.