The People Fight Government Power Over Internet Freedom
I hope you were paying attention the last couple of weeks as the powerful government lobbyists worked hard to have their representatives in D.C. pass SOPA and PIPA. You were lucky, dear friends, that entities like Wikipedia, Reddit, Google and some 7,000 other websites took a stand FOR freedom. Left, right, conservatives, Socialists, it didn’t matter. People may not care about a free reality but do not take away their virtual freedom.
The Internet stands against tyranny.
I laughed out loud as reports indicated that Anonymous took down DoJ, RIAA,MPAA and Universal Music. Anonymous reported on Twitter: ““Tango Down! JUSTICE.gov – U.S. Government Website DOWN!”.
Awesome stuff. The battle lines are drawn.
Don’t misunderstand me dear reader: piracy is not honorable. Stealing is immoral.
Isn’t it just a little coincidental that the FBI swooped down in helicopters, seizing millions in property and shuttering numerous websites soon after SOPA and PIPA were tabled? Like the government was saying, “you know, we have the authority, the POWER, to shut these sites down whether it is signed law or not.”
Don’t think for a minute that it was all about stopping a rogue outfit distributing Hollywood content with abandon. No, as The Daily Reckoning reported:
…the trendline with Megaupload was clearly toward using the space to launch new artists with new content: not piracy but creativity. As Wired.uk wrote, this crackdown came shortly after Megaupload announced music producer Swizz Beatz — married to Alicia Keys — as their CEO. They had rallied a whole host of musicians including Will.i.am, P Diddy, Kanye West and Jamie Foxx to endorse the cloud locker service. Megaupload was building a legitimate system for artists to make money and fans to get content.
What’s this all about? It is some powerful corporate lobbyists trying to prevent the emergence of an alternative system of art and music delivery, one powered by people rather than merely the well- connected.
The U.S. government is corrupt and sick with the lobbyist cancer. More from The Daily Reckoning:
This is the battle for whether the digital age is permitted to exist in an atmosphere of free speech, free association, free enterprise, and real property rights, or whether it will be controlled by government in conjunction with aging media moguls from monopolistic corporate oligarchies. The lines are clearly drawn, and it is taking place in real time.
I cannot imagine a life not being free. I refuse to believe that even the wanna-be Marxists running around this country really hope to achieve a collectivism that would infringe on their rights. But this is where we are. I can only imagine how many hypocritical Socialists who have supported ever expansive government the last 10 years were actually on the front lines of stopping SOPA and PIPA.
The government is at war against its citizens. Power and control. Piracy controls are just a tip of the their spear. You’ll eventually have to decide if you prefer to be among the collectivists collecting scraps from their government master’s table or if you want to be free and choose liberty.
Al Broadman on January 21st, 2012
You sounds bitter against socialists whom you seem to blame for the condition this nation is in.
I’m sorry, but it not them.
In my opinion the Grand Old Party or the GOP is currently planning to destroy this nation or at the very least take us back 100 years culturally and socially.
Democrats are not much better as they have taken the stances that used to be traditionally Republican in belief.
Progressive has become a bad word in the minds of Americans when the majority of them do not even know what the word means.
Granted, I am not defending the actions of many of the socialists in this nation, but they have had plenty of help in what has happened and there is plenty of blame to spread around too all the turds that have during the past thirty years and presently inhabit Washington.
Two things this nation must do to become the economic powerhouse we used to be:
1. Double the minimum wage at least and push toward a $20 an hour minimum wage for everyone.
2. Adopt a “if you sell it here, you make it here if at all possible” economic policy.
These two polices, along with the redrafting of free trade to reflect fair trade practices will restore our economy to a point before it was destroyed by slave labor wages in authoritarian countries that do not share our values, beliefs, or vision.
I see a 2-tier trade structure where first world countries trade among one another and second / third world countries trade with one another with an exchange of technologies as necessary to maintain a technological level playing field around the world.
With this type of semi-open trade isolationism, countries with unfair labor and business trade practices will be forced to develop locally rather than depend on well developed inflated economies to support their export growth at the cost of both the exporters and importers quality of life for anyone other than the elite.