[OT] Re: Python training time (was)

[Martijn Faassen]

Steve Holden <sholden at holdenweb.com> wrote:
[snip]
> Amazing how many times non-socialist forms of government have been labelled
> "socialist" as a slur, simply to engender fear in the minds of an
> ill-informed populace.

This is mostly a US thing. Even 'liberal' seems to be a slur in significant
groups in the US. In Europe 'socialist' is certainly not 
a slur or is used to engender fear. Not that every group in society agrees
with all or most socialist ideas of course (and tensions were higher half a 
century ago too). 

At EuroPython we had Eric Raymond give a talk (that was interesting and
amusing and had some useful ideas) which displayed rather too much
American bias for the audience. He seemed to be addressing a group of
hackers hidden away in some deep corporate hierarchy behind layers
of middle managers -- instead I think we were more of a group of hackers
in smaller companies or hacker/enterpreneurs instead (along with some
academics and of course some in larger organizations as well). And he
said saying "free software" gives bad connotations as managers somehow
associate it with "communism". While communism is likely considered a
distinctly bad idea to most managers in Europe it doesn't mean 
people are instantly repelled and fearful either. 

US perceptions of the world are interesting in their peculiarity sometimes.
Perhaps that's just because really *my* views are peculiar. :) But
perhaps it's also due to a lack of input of other perspectives into
your memepool. It's easier for smaller countries to get such input.
Oh, and of course ESR also holds peculiar views not shared by lots of
others in the US -- then again, his set of peculiar views could've only
arisen in the US. :)

Regards,

Martijn
-- 
History of the 20th Century: WW1, WW2, WW3?
No, WWW -- Could we be going in the right direction?