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Exercise the bare minimum of what is required for us to have a democracy, if you’re an Albertan make your way down to the polls and participate in the political process.
Watch, gentle readers, what happens when elite interests are not given priority. The outcry, the wailing and gnashing of teeth, the injustice of it all. The MPAA CEO Chris Dodd called out the irresponsible websites – Wikipedia, Reddit etc on their egregious behaviour:
“A so-called “blackout” is yet another gimmick, albeit a dangerous one, designed to punish elected and administration officials who are working diligently to protect American jobs from foreign criminals.”
Ah, so the authors and money men who sponsored and rammed through the DMCA legislation are back for more, and of course it is all just to protect American Jobs, Apple Pie and All that is What is Right in the World (aka profit). The MPAA and friends screwed up this time because they over estimated their purchase of the American Congress and grossly underestimated the will of the American people. I’m not a huge fan of the American body politic, but this time, for once, the good guys won. The corporate lobby and its billions just got rolled by a ground swell of people calling/emailing/tweeting etc their elected representatives and telling them in no uncertain terms that if this passed, so too would their comfy digs in congress. Huzzah!
It would be me remiss of me not to point out that similar elite interests have been much more successful in herding the American populace in other areas. Perhaps the MPAA and related corporate lobby should have declared a “War on Piracy”, as that seems (going to war on common nouns to be specific) to have a much better track record in press-ganging convincing the people of America to support their government when it does horrible things in their name.
The smiling face of your corporate sponsored disenfranchisement.
One of the instruments of douche that has been doing his very best to whip American into a blind frenzy just happens to be a representative of the Global Intellectual Property Center affiliated with, of course, the US Chamber of Commerce. Enter Steve Tepp. Steve Tepp, along with the US Chamber of Commerce is only interested in saving US jobs and making the world a better, safer place for Business Americans.
Steve was recently interviewed on CBC’s The Current by Mike Finnerty. It is a 20 minute interview, but I highly recommend you listen to the whole thing as Steve gets his ass handed to him by Rob Beschizza the managing editor from Boing Boing.net. I’ve transcribed and will reproduce some of the highlights from the interview. Watch closely how our boy Steve attempts to frame this issue:
“This issue is fundamentally about American Jobs and protecting consumers.”
Wow, the MPAA CEO and Steve are all about JOBS. Like holy-frack they are right there beside the rest of the 99% fighting just to make ends meet. They just want to protect the little guy! They certainly would not want to scaremonger or obfuscate what SOPA is really about.
“Criminals are abusing the internet to steal the most creative and innovative products that are out in the marketplace.”
I’m wondering if Steve said this with a straight face considering the creative output from Hollywood that enhances and enriches our cultural life.
” […] New twists, children’s toys, automobile parts, medicine its all fake, its all made in unsupervised facilities, it can be shoddy, people have died. This stuff can be extremely dangerous.”
This from the same people who regularly decry the EPA, food safety and consumer protection and worker health/safety legislation in general as ‘dirty socialism’ suddenly finds is voice and moral outrage at the very notion of Americans buying shoddy unsafe products. Profits Lives are on the line!
Steve tries very hard to be the good corporate PR flack but ultimately fails when confronted with the facts of the situation. SOPA like the DMCA act before it, exists only for business entities to consolidate and defend their ‘intellectual property’ in perpetuity. In essence they want a bigger stick to punish people who dare to mess with their profits.
Not this time Steve. The democratic spirit of America awoke for a little while and slapped you down. Hard. A small victory for internet freedom and expression, but the repressive forces of the corporatocracy have already fired back, taking down MegaUploads and charging people with copyright infringement and piracy. Anonymous fired back, taking down several government web sites as well as the MPAA’s own website.
This issue is not going away. The siren call of avarice is much to strong to let little things like freedom of speech and freedom from censorship to get in the way. Stay tuned for round 2.
*update* – Need Background on the issue? Check out the TED Talk.
Haven’t heard much about the protests going on in the financial districts in the US? Are you surprised? When the interests of the elite are challenged getting the mainstream media to notice is like trying iceskate uphill (go see what al jazeera has to say on OWS). I repost this nugget about the OWS demonstration, find the full post on Whatever Works.
“POSTED BY ORHAN
The MSM continues to ridicule #OWS for not having a specific list of demands. The absence of demands, and consequent absence of a divide-and-conquer target, that’s driving the media into such a tizzy is not specifically a “tactic”, but, as far as I can tell, is a byproduct of the radical democratic process being practiced by the General Assemblies (nicely described by Matt Stoller).
Here is the closest thing I’ve found to an “official” statement on demands from The Occupied Wall Street Journal, a paper published and distributed by #OWS:
What are the demands of the protesters?
Ugh—the zillion-dollar question. Again, the original Adbusters call asked, “What is our one demand?” Technically, there isn’t one yet. In the weeks leading up to September 17, the NYC General Assembly seemed to be veering away from the language of “demands” in the first place, largely because government institutions are already so shot through with corporate money that making specific demands would be pointless until the movement grew stronger politically. Instead, to begin with, they opted to make their demand the occupation itself—and the direct democracy taking place there—which in turn may or may not come up with some specific demand. When you think about it, this act is actually a pretty powerful statement against the corruption that Wall Street has come to represent. But since thinking is often too much to ask of the American mass media, the question of demands has turned into a massive PR challenge.
The General Assembly is currently in the midst of determining how it will come to consensus about unifying demands. It’s a really messy and interesting discussion. But don’t hold your breath.
So it appears #OWS is specifically addressing the anger of the majority of Americans at the power, arrogance, and lack of accountability enjoyed by the coterie of the richest 1%, and the marginalization, disempowerment, and impoverishment of the remaining 99%–and doing it in a way that is “horizontal, autonomous, leaderless, modified-consensus-based”, which most people–let alone members of the political class–find it almost impossible to wrap their heads around.”
The message needs to be disseminated far and wide, and people need to see who is responsible for much of the financial ruin in their lives.
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
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