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AFL-CIO and Big Content Advocate For SOPA
Weezul writes "Today's House Judiciary Committee meeting on the Stop Online Piracy Act excluded any witnesses who advocate for civil rights. Google's Katherine Oyama was the only witness to object to the bill in a meaningful way. In particular, the AFL-CIO's Paul Almeida advocated for the internet blacklist, saying 'the First Amendment does not protect stealing goods off trucks.'"
The root of the recording industry came from distribution.
That was trucking.
It's why the same gangsters ran these concessions: recording, publishing, pressing and distribution. This is a "legitimate business" that grew out of racketeering - and has never dispensed with the original ethos - they just went "legit" and lawyered-up.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
the First Amendment does not protect stealing goods off trucks
Yeah, true. But there are several points to consider that I feel make the quoted statement utterly fallacious. First, an accusation of theft isn't immediately punished; guilt has to be proven first. Second, theft of a physical object means that the original owner loses the object. In the case of a piece of digital property, the original holder hasn't lost possession of anything. The content-creation industry's obsession with immediate punishment before investigation doesn't make sense. It violates the due process rights of the accused for no legally-sound reason. It allows for corporate actions to replace proper review by the judicial system....and it's a short-sidedly, seemingly-logical extension of a content-holder's desire to maximize revenue.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
It's known as the Spoiler Effect and it got both Clinton, via Perot and Bush, via Nader elected. Somehow, it got stirred up into anger at the "third party" candidate, when the real problem is that the US uses a simple plurality voting system that is extremely biased towards a two party system since voting any other way risks throwing your vote away on a spoiler. The fundamental problem is that simple plurality is the best functional system for choosing between exactly two options. For all numbers other than two, it's the worst functional system (there are other, worse, systems, but I wouldn't consider them functional). All of the known single pass systems have paradoxes, but the one that the US actually uses has the worst paradox in the Spoiler Effect.
Then, of course, the Democrats and Republicans, realizing they have a duopoly, work together to ensure it stays that way. For example, the so-called "presidential debates" are a purely Democrat/Republican media affair. There's no invitations for other parties to participate and no established mechanism for other parties or independents to join. Real presidential debates would last about a month and be either arranged tournament style like an actual debate competition, or in some format that allowed every candidate to debate every other candidate. Instead, there's just a polished media event between members of the traditional duopoly arranged by power brokers. I'm not going to say that voting in the US is a sham per se, but I would like people to think about how many US elections have been decided based on a difference in votes that was actually smaller than the margin of error in the voting system (which the debacle in Florida a while back that was sorted out in part by the brother of one of the candidates makes abundantly clear).
So he was 85% correct.
They can continue to deduct 85% of the union dues as long as you work in that union job. By quitting the union you forfeit your right to vote in any union elections, and your dues are reduced by 15%. That 85% covers the supposed cost to the union to provide negotiation and worker protection benefits (what a joke). But sorry you cannot negotiate on your own, or try and provide a cheaper alternative to the union in non-right to work states. And you are still bound by that union contract, i.e., senority limits on your raises, offers for promotions and so on.
Solution: Try and find a job in a right to work state like Nevada or South Carolina, etc.
At one time Unions had a necessary reason for forming and existing. But with the advent of OSHA their main reason for existing (worker safety and working conditions) is redundant. Now they are pretty much just another cash cow of the Democratic Party and senior Union bosses and also a PAC/lobby. Incidentally that 15% that you can reduce your union dues by is supposedly what unions spend on political activities. Yeah right.