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Read this.
They want to take away your freedom so that the powers-that-be can stuff their boodle bags with more swag. Both political parties are in on this, but the main force behind internet censorship (for that’s what it is) is the Republican Party. After all, they brought you the pleasures of the TSA, the “permanent warfare” state, supply-side economics, and “welfare reform”… this is of a piece with all that. However, the “Democrats” and “progressives” are almost as bad. They believe that we’re ignorant and in need of “direction”… the GOP believes that we’re immoral and in need of “conversion”… not much to choose between the two, wot?
SOPA and PIPA are unashamedly Luddite in their intent. Information transfer no longer hinges on presses, TV studios, or radio towers… it’s in the people’s hands. Today, individuals have access to informational transfer technology that one could only find in the most sophisticated media studios as short as ten years ago. To try to stop this is like mandating people to wear periwigs or to compel them to buy buggy whips (both of which were tried, and failed, by the way).
Truly, the internet does give “power to the people”, and it scares the bejezus out of many in the political, media, and economic apparats. “Information IS power”… the apparats know it, and the shift in “informational access” threatens to destroy their present arrangement. They will NOT go quietly into that dark night. They’ll DENY, DENY, DENY. We’ll have to protect our rights until the corporate media machine chokes to death on its own irrelevance. There’ll always be a “media”… but it’ll be more diffuse and free. That’s the main challenge of our modern time… how to responsibly use this new means of expression… but shall we? Only time will tell us…
Barbara-Marie Drezhlo
Thursday 19 January 2012
Albany NY
