Joyce L. Arnold, Liberally Independent, Queer Talk, equality activist, writer.
If you were online today, you almost certainly saw a message via BlackOutSOPA, regarding the very real dangers of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA). Other sites provided a “censored” message, or a story with links about SOPA and PIPA, and then you could click to access the page as usual. I don’t know the estimate of how many sites participated in some way, but I do know it included everything from TaylorMarsh.com, Alternet and Bilerico, to multiple Occupy sites, to BoingBoing, Reddit, Wikipedia, IMGUR, WordPress for Business Websites, and many more.
You can go to Propublica to see a list of where members of Congress stand on SOPA and PIPA. There are 80 “supporters” and 31 “opponents.”
And for some fun, you can go here to watch videos of “the iconic singer songwriters of the Digital Rights movement.” Tongue-in-cheek is one way to describe these less than subtle songs. The “top five,” via YouTube:
Stop the SOPA, by Stonebreakers10.
INTERNET FIGHT SONG, by Funk Vigilante.
Firewall, by Leah Kauffman.
The Day the LOLcats Died, by Laugh Pong.’
SOPA Cabana, by Dan Bull.
You can also check out Occupy Wall Street Is on strike to protest SOPA. The photo above is described in the accompanying tweet: “Fused w/#ows demonstrators anti-SOPA protesters chant, ‘Hey-hey-ho-ho, #sopa and #PIPA have got to go!’ http://pic.twitter.com/LGodI8GD.”
Yesterday and last night, Occupy Congress was the big focus, though of course, if you relied on the MSM, you probably don’t know much about it. There was some reporting, but often what you hear is “if nothing we think exciting is happening, we’ll mostly ignore it, while maybe also commenting on how OWS is over.” Again.
Here’s another selection of chants, posters, comments and tweets, because letting the people involved speak for themselves sounds all “we the people” and democracy-like, and I like encouraging such things:
#MLK on direct action… ‘It seeks to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored.’ pic.twitter.com/ZaJDCwr4
Occupy Oakland … : Nothing from news what so ever on THOUSANDS of occupiers at the White House right now.
@OccupyMainSt: Our #Congress, courts and President would be ill-advised to ignore #Occupy or hope that it simply ‘blows over.’
Thousands take the stairs of the Supreme Court ‘Money is not free speech!’
#OcccupyCongress … occupying the Rayburn house office building!!! http://pic.twitter.com/MAlYLEYO
Vet: ‘We’re united in a common goal. Getting money out of the political process. Returning power to the people.’
In 2009 the Anti-War movement went Silent when Obama did the same things Bush did/ Will #Occupy go Silent to help Obama
‘Obama beware! Occupy is everywhere!’ #OccupyCongress Now directly outside the White House.
‘Obama! Come out! We’ve got some things to talk about!’
‘Hope and change? That’s a lie. What’s the answer? Occupy!’
‘We are the hope and change!’
And finally, this from J.A. Myerson at TruthOut:
Occupy the Congress: Do You Smell a Rat?
I found myself in a Potomac, Maryland, mansion, smack in the middle of an actual 1 percent get-together over drinks and nosherai, talking to a guy whose ‘small operation’ yields around $15,000,000 a year. …
When I told him I would be covering Occupy DC for the next few days, he warned me of the rat infestation there. In fact, everyone at this soiree shivered at the prospect of rats. Everyone had heard this criticism of Occupy DC … . The bus into Washington had idled at an extra-long stoplight on H Street NE, giving me a moment to take in the surroundings, which, at that intersection, included a hair salon, a soul food restaurant and a check-cashing place, all of them boarded up. There were probably rats inside, but no one at the Potomac affair would ever care about those. They might not ever pass that intersection. …
Occupy DC is sort of messy, of course, because it’s an ad hoc socialist commune in a public park, made up of tents and folding tables. A sign there says ‘Remodeling democracy. Please excuse our mess.’ The mess, though, was the one thing no one in the Potomac mansion could excuse. They could excuse the mess made by a media executive firing hard-working reporters. They could excuse the mess made by an international commodities market, whose speculation had driven up food prices in the Middle East to such outrageous levels that revolution became inevitable. They could excuse the mess made by a president, whose office/residence sits mere blocks from the rats in McPherson Square …, the one who just hired his third Wall Street-bred chief of staff in a row to conspire with the second Wall Street-bred director of the National Economic Council in a row to ‘fix the economy.’
I smell a rat, too.
No doubt the elite rat population has nothing to worry about. Actually, it reminds me of the quote sometimes attributed to FDR, sometimes to his secretary of state, Cordell Hull, and sometimes to someone else; said to be about Dominican dictator Trujillo, or maybe it was Somoza Garcia of Nicaragua. Whatever, you’ll recognize the quote: “He’s an S.O.B., but he’s our S.O.B.” Substitute “rat,” and it fits with Myerson’s piece quite nicely.
It was great to see Firefox join in all the way.
Chris Dodd could have been less petulant, but it didn’t surprise me.
Welcome back! Missed you.
By the way, Mark Zuckerberg has joined the protest:
http://www.firstpost.com/tech/zuckerberg-joins-protests-against-anti-piracy-bills-187173.html
You know if find it interesting that Obama at least for now has spoken out against SOPA/PIPA (here is an interesting perspective from Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/01/18/no-president-obama-did-not-kill-sopa/)
and the State Department is reported to have nixed the Keystone Pipeline: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/18/keystone-pipeline-obama-administration_n_1213136.html
Of course the President reversed himself on his promise to veto indefinite detention, so we have nothing to guarantee he will hold the line on these issues. Makes me wonder even more exactly what bomb he is planning to drop on the budget, as he warned liberals they wouldn’t like it. Just wondering.
Hey there. That’s nice.
Tweeted the Zuckerberg quote earlier, as well as the Keystone decision, but otherwise stayed off the Internet because of the strike. We all moved the needle on it. Google is reporting 4.5 million signed the petition!
The statement on Keystone was interesting, after State’s decision, and revolved around the short deadline, which Pres. Obama blamed on Republicans. Canada can resubmit their application & try to get around the Nebraska Sandhills, which is part of what’s at issue. Redford has a post up on Huffington on it, applauding Pres. Obama. As I said before, it’s a lot better than giving the nod & the go ahead.
I remain unconvinced that this is final, but it remains a win due to a lot of public pressure.
The carrot and stick approach to Pres. Obama’s governing is anything but impressive, unless you hold up to what’s being offered on the right.
About SOPA and PIPA, boy did I miss my favorite internet sites! Meanwhile I would not miss movies at all. Nor TV. Change is the nature of the universe and all of these reactionaries (unfortunately including the POTUS) can’t cope with real change. But as they say, you can’t unring that bell. The internet is spurring worldwide change despite everything and it will continue.