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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.'"
It appears the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE) is an AFL-CIO union. Any members should apply some pressure against their support for this madness.
I'd hope the AFL-CIO would shape up if enough members threatened to quit.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
The right to download a car.
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..."
I'm tired of trying to follow the law within reason. They don't want to play nice, neither will I. I'm off to the store to buy a couple of boxes of DVDs and blurays and I'm going to start giving them away to people I know and ask them to pass more forward. I'm going to pirate like there's no tomorrow because even when I try to play nice they want to screw up the internet. We gave them all the tools to do away with what they deemed inappropriate use of their works and now they want more. No more Mr nice guy. You asked for it. I hope you guys do the same. Pirate for people you know. Money is the only language these idiots understand(the *AAs, not your family).
Why should **AA be allowed to steal stuff from the public domain by means of so-called "copyright term extensions" ?
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Mussolini
Here's a site to quickly push a complaint to those who need your votes:
American Censorship.org
Think we can Slashdot it?
"By the time they had diminished from 50 to 8, the other dwarves began to suspect 'Hungry.'" -Gary Larson
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.
Remember the proposed legislation mandating DRM TCPA chips on all computers years ago? Someone on slashdot linked the senate's website and contact info. It died. :-)
So instead of whinning let your senators know how you feel?
Their website is here for the American Slashdot readers. Don't know who your senators are? There is a list here including an email link.
Calling your senator is effective as well.
When contacting your senator do not mention you want to dowload illegal material or that you are just angry and think it is unfair. Mention you work in the I.T. field and are worried about negative implications and liabilitiy risks for non copyrighted or infringement uses that this bill could be abused. Mention it would harm Google's youtube service costing American jobs as they would move overseas. This bill would be costly and could cost American innovation and jobs. Mention we already have existing copyright laws in force and sites like youtube already remove copyrighted or infrindged material in a timely manner and this is nothing but a power grab.
If your senator is a democrats mention your worried about the power grab by the media companies will harm competition. If your senator is a republican mention this would increase government intervention and regulation as it would cost well into the billions of dollars of tax payer money to fund this etc. You all can be creative.
Someone mod this up for the links. I just made it easier for everyone to spend 5 minutes telling your representative how you feel. Remember if you do not pick your voice the RIAA/MPAA will. If all they hear is the RIAA/MPAA then they will vote for the bill as it shows we don't care and like being fucked over. Do your duty.
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).
The AFL-CIO has never represented the workers. It has always represented the union bosses. When one of the AFL-CIO unions negotiate with a company there are two ways it can go. Management slips a "little something" to the union bosses and the workers get screwed. Or Management stands its ground and both the company and the workers get screwed.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
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.