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Hardball Tactics For The Geek Lobby
sfjoe writes: "The San Francisco Chronicle has this story on how to effectively make the point about online freedom of speech. In a nutshell, until a legislator gets slapped around (electorally-speaking) for kowtowing to the narrow corporate interests, nobody in Congress will take online civil liberties seriously. On the other hand if, for example, Senator Disney gets his balls whacked (electorally-speaking), monstrosities like the DMCA will start getting bottled up in congressional committees. The NRA has been doing this for years and it works."
Still, I think this guy underestimates how easy/cheap it would be. I'd donate a few bucks to such a PAC, but I'm not rich. And if we all banded together somehow, and wanted to votefuck Hollings when he's up for re-election, could we win? Imagine that we somehow come up with enough cash to mount a decent tv ad campaign. We'd still be the new guys, and they would retaliate. Does anyone believe they are somehow above lying and namecalling?
"These hippy anarchists, aren't even from your district. Yet they want to dictate to the good people of N. Carolina who you should vote for. They want to allow dirty thieves to steal movies and games from struggling artists, bankrupting them, and stealing from you in the long run. We can't tell you to do anything illegal, but by god, if we ever see them on the street alone at night..."
Remember folks, if you pick on one of Hollywood's bought and paid for politicians, you are **picking on Hollywood**. There is no way that we could ever do political ads that are as slick, as decietful, and unfortunately, as effective as they could. They'd have Cher saying how she supports Senator Asswad, and we'd have some finnish geek saying something that Joe Sixpack doesn't understand, in an accent that annoys him.
The system is broken, and can't fix itself. No matter how much we help it from the inside.
God forbid we should have another knee-jerk single-issue litmus test for our legislators. The very reason we have sound-bite spewing, poll-driven politicians who manage to say very little of substance in the space of many pretty-sounding words is BECAUSE of single-issue voters.
So we end up with people who are great on privacy and free speech. So what! What if they're also xenophobic anti-environmental nut cases who wanna use taxpayer money to teach kids about Jesus?
If you only ever focus on one issue, you're going to lose out on all of the others. You also get locked into a bipolar polital spectrum on that issue, where there are only two acceptable positions on the given issue, both of which are probably wrong. Reasonable positions are unacceptable to both parties involved.
Case in point: abortion (-1; Flamebait).
It takes a fundamental shift in ideology by the masses, not a "whistlestop tour" of geeks going from one gathering to another where maybe 50 people at most will show up, for anything to take effect. People have to change their minds about capitalism and how it does not necessarily equate democracy, not just about the evils of the DMCA or [insert hated law here]. Otherwise, the RIAA and MPAA will simply invoke the "they're stealing our stuff" BS rhetoric because most Americans are convinced that intellectual property equates physical property in terms of stealing.
Until the bigger issues are addressed, these concerns are always going to crop up in a public that has been taught to buy into the unexamined idea of corporate priviledge since birth.
"Anonymous Coward" is for whistleblowers, not unpopular opinions.
Everyone and their brother has free speech as an issue.
What "geeks" need right now is to know how to make a point about the fact that:
Seastead this.
Warning: this post is seeping with my political views, many of which are controversial. I'm using them as an example, not to try to convert folks or pick a fight.
I'm from Senator Disney's home state. Hollings is a Democrat, so voting against him means voting for a Republican. In other states, this might not be a problem -- there are a lot of moderate Republicans in the Senate that I respect, even if I disagree with some of their opinions. Unfortunately, they aren't on the ballot in South Carolina. Republican politicians in the South are fucking scary. If anyone doubts this, think about Strom Thurmond (segregationist), Jesse Helms (well-known racist), and Trent Lott (pork-barelling thug). I don't know if I can vote for a Southern-style Republican after seeing what damage out-of-control conservativism has done to the South.
In effect, saying "no" to Hollings is saying "yes" to the religious right, "yes" to corporate welfare, "yes" to the war on drugs, "yes" to irresponsible military expenditures (that, unlike much government spending, do nothing to grow the economy), "yes" to wiretapping the Internet, "yes" to mandatory censorware in libraries and schools, and the list goes on. It means saying "no" a woman's right to an abortion, "no" to affirmative action, "no" to spending money on public education, "no" to space research, "no" to any and all liberal social programs. You may not have a problem with all of these issues, but if any one of them is dear to your heart, you've got a real dilemma.
I'm a CS student, and I hope to work in software development one day, but frankly, if I never saw another computer again, or never bought another CD, I could live a happy and rewarding life doing something else. However, I don't think I could, in good conscience, advance a destructive conservative agenda just so I can use Linux instead of Windows, or use a traditional, uncrippled PC. I'm not saying you shouldn't, I'm just saying that I can't, and that many people won't. Technology issues are important, but is it worth abandoning everything else that I believe in just to vote a few (OK, a lot of) crooked Democrats out of office? Sadly, I don't think so.
We have a couple of choices, in my view. We can lobby in the traditional manner -- attempting to purchase influence via campaign donations. This is very expensive, and we'll get spanked by Microsoft and Disney, but maybe it will work if we generate enough public awareness. Barring that, we could just leave. I question whether other countries are still scrambling for computer programmers, but frankly, I'd go to Scandinavia or the Netherlands in a heartbeat if I could.
I hate that this sounds so negative, but I'm pretty demoralized about the whole thing -- it would be interesting to see if someone comes up with a solution.
Steve
Does anyone keep just lists of the Bills, voting records, etc. on these issues? Opensecrets.org does this for their issues, and Common Cause publicizes voting record for their issues, but I haven't seen anything like this for Geek issues.
Perhaps the EFF would do something like this, but I didn't find it on their Web site. Well, they are probably open to suggestions, especially with a contribution in the envelope!
Funny, I was just watching TV when I came accross that post. The AIPAC is dining and wining Washington's political elite at the Hilton tonight and various pols are brownnosing their generous sponsor so hard they are growing warts on their nose.
(Note for non-US readers: AIPAC is the pro-Israel lobby dropping millions of soft-money every year onto grateful Congresscritters to influence the US foreign policy.)
The AIPAC is one of the most efficient lobbies in the world. I think we geeks should find inspiration in its mode of operation:
And you know what? It WORKS. Nobody in their right mind ever speaks against AIPAC in Washington.
Carrots and big sticks. That's the way to deal with Congress. Collateral damages include democracy and ethics, but nobody said politics was pretty.
If we want to nip the SSSCA insanity in the bud, we geeks have to forget about the artificial political divisions and make sure Mickey Hollings gets his testicles shoved up his big mouth at the next election. Whether his adversary is Ralph Nader or Rush Limbaugh is irrelevant, Hollings has to get his fat ass kicked and painted with "who's next?" in day-glow paint.
If we don't do that, we developers might as well try to find a job as a data entry clerk at the MPAA's headquaters, because life as a software creator is going to suck.
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Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
Dianne Feinstein was up for re-election in 2000. Despite being from San Francisco, she's probably one of the least friendly congresspeople towards technology and the internet. Her opponent was Tom Campbell, an imminently sensible pro-technology Republican. He got his clock cleaned.
Since Feinstein's up in 2006, I'd volunteer Boxer in 2004. There's plenty of time, she's in favor of the Hollings bill, and she's a perrenially weak candidate. If the California Republicans would re-run Campbell, or someone else similar from Silicon Valley, it's be a great way of getting our voices heard.
Is there a similarly weak Republican?
"I see where you are coming from, but I don't think anyone with real feelings about freedom (net or meatspace) will have reprehensible views on abortion."
REALLY REALLY bad example there - do you mean - "The freedom of the mother to choose" or "The freedom of the unborn child"?
One of those two is reprehensible to EVERYONE - because everyone's definition of freedom is different.
Alex
Exactly -- the original phrasing was well- chosen, because it staked out a controversial issue while deliberately omitting just what the "reprehensible" views were. You could take it either way, depending on your own bias.
However, despite the amount of vitriol poured out by both sides, I must disagree that "one of those two is reprehensible to everyone"; it is possible, albeit rare, to recognize that there is merit in both arguments. Even if one ultimately decides that the two positions are irreconcilable, that no compromise is possible, and commits to one side or the other, it's not necessary to demonize those who take the opposite position.
Indeed, Alex, you seem to recognize this yourself.