Welcome to the Lobbying Effort, Comrade

Quote:  "We’ve staked out an agenda that really is about promoting the open Internet as a revolutionary platform for communication." Alan Davidson, Google’s “policy counsel," in the New York Times.

Figure of Speech:  periergia (per-ee-ER-gia), the figure of over-figuring.

When you hear what something is "really about," prepare to be spun.  Congress is slamming Google, whose motto is "Don’t be evil," for helping the Chinese government censor websites.  There’s only one thing a company can do in such a crisis of democracy:  hire lobbyists.

Mr. Davidson describes Google’s effort — most notably a boatload of cash for members of Congress — as nothing less than the next phase in human evolution.  He drips figures like a Gucci-shod Jackson Pollack: an agenda staked out like a mining claim, an "open" Internet with welcoming arms, a revolution, a platform (see mining claim).  The result is a periergia ("overworked"), the grandiose overuse of figures.

Snappy Answer:  "Do the parties accept PayPal?"

Comments

[aRBie]

Uncharacteristically weak analysis. Terms like "open" and "platform" have meaning within the tech community that cannot be reduced to other images. In addtion "staking out an agenda" has become an idiomatic expression all on its own, without specific appeal to a mining analogy.

[aRBie]

Uncharacteristically weak analysis. Terms like "open" and "platform" have meaning within the tech community that cannot be reduced to other images. In addition, "staking out an agenda" has become an idiomatic expression all on its own, without specific appeal to a mining analogy.