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House Kills SOPA
An anonymous reader writes "In a surprise move, Representative Eric Cantor (R-VA) announced that he will stop all action on SOPA, effectively killing the bill. This move was most likely due to the huge online protest and the White House threatening to veto the bill if it had passed. But don't celebrate yet. PIPA (the Senate's version of SOPA) is still up for consideration."
Good work!
Do you mean to tell me to tell me that in 2012 the government is actually listening to the will of the people? Man, the world really IS going to end!
As a non-US citizen that's been watching the developments of this closely, I am extremely glad that this has happened. Hell, I'm sure everyone is. Now just need to do something about PIPA, and we can breathe a nice sigh of relief (for a while)
We did it!
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
I hope that the senate will get a clue and cancel it's deliberations also. We just need to keep the pressure up.
Non bene pro toto libertas venditur auro
I for one have been in contact with my Rep. and have written letters to both of my Senators. I will also being calling them both today. We're making progress. Let's keep it up.
CALL YOUR SENATORS!!
was*
The people who brought the bill in the first place, are still active; and still receiving funding. More fundamental provisions are called for, to ensure such bills are not tabled in the first place.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
All these posts on Slashdot about how bad the bill is really made a difference!
something like 95% of all proposed laws never see the light of day and are killed in committee. there are all kinds of crazy laws proposed every day and this is what congress is for
examiner.com is essentially a blog, was this the best source for this information? There's no links to a reliable news source, no links to a .gov site or the congressman's announcement, just "hey he blocked it hurray!"
Is anyone else reporting that SOPA is dead?
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
If you keep in defense, this will keep coming with pipa, popa, schupa, schmugga, and eventually they will succeed. The only way to fix this issue, is to go on the offensive, and passing legislation that will prevent such crap, and neutralizing the content industry and its assaults.
google, amazon, ebay et al - its their task. they need to start buying congressmen/senators, and start buying laws, now. Because thats how the capitalist democracies work.
Read radical news here
At the end of the movie when you think the monster is dead it is often revealled that something survived...
The sponsers of this still have deep pockets and a desire to maintain an income from a now flawed business model. Whose to say that what comes next isn't worse?
Try: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2012_01/putting_sopa_on_a_shelf034765.php
-- (this is a sig) My Computer Programming Forumhttp://www.programers.co.nr/
The bill has been SHELVED, not killed. A lot of bills in the past came back after being shelved and got pushed into law when the opposition to it quieted down (e.g. the Patriot Act). Keep up the opposition. Do not let them pass this bill again!
I'm curious whats actually going on? So, distract the populace with a ridiculous bill, meanwhile push thru and organize... what, the war on Iran, or prepare for the collapse and dissolution of Euroland, or maybe its time for the Argentine economy to collapse again, or ... My point is you ram thru an over the top #1 story to overshadow the #2 story, so what is currently the #2 story?
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
This work for you? http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/204167-sopa-shelved-until-consensus-is-found
-- (this is a sig) My Computer Programming Forumhttp://www.programers.co.nr/
go to www.house.gov and see for yourself. almost everything congress does is public record and recorded
They just got caught. They'll try again when people are distracted by something else.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Sopa is a piece of shit!
Ha, I see what you did there:
SOPA reversed is APOS, which stands for A Piece Of Shit.
Clever, even if you didn't intend it to be.
Summation 2
The blogger is a bit overenthusiastic at the bill behing shelved. It's far from dead.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
I wonder if the entertainment industry will announce a pro-SOPA blackout in response.
Imagine the howls of anguish if The Hobbit was delayed for a few months :-)
But not in the way many slashdotters might think.
Little appreciated here on Slashdot is the fact that SOPA was as unpopular on the right side of the spectrum as it was on the left. Many conservatives and libertarians rightly see SOPA has a HUGE power grab, and massive step towards an even more centralized government.
Eric Cantor is very tied in with the Conservative Blogosphere and with conservative internet "consciousness". As such he promised early on to do his best to kill SOPA.
It appears that he has kept his promise. Well Done Mr. Cantor. Well Done.
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
I recommend an article that has actual quotes from Darrell Issa (the person who is talking to the press about this). The bill is on hold until the wording is changed in the bill so more people agree with it.
Opening 2 paragraphs from the cnet article:
The latest string of setbacks for supporters of the bills came Saturday when Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the Oversight committee in the U.S. House of Representatives, said that he was promised by Majority leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) that a vote on the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) will not occur "unless there is consensus on the bill."
"While I remain concerned about Senate action on the Protect IP Act [a similar bill to SOPA introduced into the Senate last year], I am confident that flawed legislation will not be taken up by this House," Issa said in a statement, according to the blog The Hill. "Majority Leader Cantor has assured me that we will continue to work to address outstanding concerns and work to build consensus prior to any antipiracy legislation coming before the House for a vote."
Its not what it is, its something else.
With the House in majority Republican control and Cantor killing the bill, it doesn't really matter what the Senate does. This happens all the time when the Senate and the House are controlled by different parties. One will pass legislation that the other will never even take up just to be able to tell their voters "we passed a bill on X but those evil guys in the other party in the other side of Congress thwarted us". The only reason the White House was against it is that Obama listened to several of his top IT advisors who strongly came out against it. But in general Congress isn't really smart enough to understand what the legislation is about. It just became so toxic for a variety of reasons (a lot of big contributors on the IT side probably threatened to cut donations if it passed) that it wasn't worth the fight. Democrats have traditionally been more pro-entertainment industry and pro-lawyers than Republicans so I have to admit to being surprised that the White House didn't back it anyway. Plenty of Republicans back the entertainment industry too, they're just slightly less inclined to do so.
By the way, one of my former co-workers said that he did contact his representative in Congress. He did not say who his representative was (most likely it's a Republican) but he said that it was clear that his representative really did not understand the bill at all and was framing it in the simplistic "Let's stop evil job stealing piracy!" terms that the entertainment industry has used to sell it to Congress.
I may disagree with you 95% of the time (or more; who knows!), but if what you say is remotely true (and I have no reason to doubt that), then today I think we are all thankful for what has happened.
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It's January 18 right? So they can still do the campaign, just replace the letters to read PIPA ... unless the Senate version gets pulled tomorrow, also in time to be ahead of the protests.
(Do we still do the protests? Or will people whine "well we already won, so why bother protesting?")
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
PIPA in greek means blow job.
Not really. The blog post on thehill.com is equally deficient in citations. I'm sorry, I'm not buying this one until I hear it from original sources There's nothing in the House proceedings about it, nor has Cantor gone on record with it.
FTA: "...is a good demonstration of how the Internet enables Democracy." Thus ensuring that politicians everywhere hate it and want to kill it,
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
Wondering if someone is punking the internets.
Most people have no idea what SOPA is, and the blackout day protest -- especially the Wikipedia blackout -- would have helped raise awareness, perhaps even reaching a critical mass (if Facebook and Google joined the protest, almost every Internet user in America would know about SOPA). What will happen to blackout day now that SOPA is shelved?
At the end of the day, people are going to be just as unaware of SOPA as they were prior to the bill being shelved. It may still come back, quietly, over and over until websites grow weary of planning blackouts.
Palm trees and 8
SOPA reversed is APOS, which stands for A Piece Of Shit.
Even more clever, "Sopa" in Swedish means trash.
That's not an anagram. But these are!
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Don't forget you'll still have to pay your $699....oh wait, wrong evil historical slashdot theme...
This is good. The next step is to keep Lamar Smith from getting re-elected. Right now he's running unopposed for the republican nomination in a district that includes parts of Austin, a very techie town. With the right amount of national support for "Anybody but Lamar Smith" he can and should lose his seat over this.
The requested URL
Wait, they killed it.
Crap, now it is going to be a Vampire Zombie P.O.S. *runs after holy water*.
by Anonymous Coward: I, for one, welcome the shift from car analogies to pizza analogies. um.. overlords?
SOPA was as unpopular on the right side of the spectrum as it was on the left
Really? It sure looks like the right wing politicians in our government -- which includes almost all the politicians in Washington (don't kid yourself; we live in a very right-wing age) -- were highly supportive of SOPA. Why would they not be? They give hand-outs to corporations all the time, and they rarely pause to think about the effect on our civil liberties. It was only because of the libertarian element of the Republican party that this bill was shelved; there are just enough libertarians to create a potential problem.
SOPA Is very much a right-wing bill. What could be more right-wing than attacking a system where anyone can communicate equally, regardless of where they fit into the hierarchy of society? The point of SOPA is to curb the free and open nature of the Internet and to reinvigorate the power of established corporations and government agencies -- sounds very right-wing to me.
Or are we only operating under the Fox News definition of "right wing?"
Palm trees and 8
Magic powers stored in his horns? Kabbalistic chanting? FOR GOD'S SAKE don't look behind you, they're coming for you noooooowwwwwwwwww!
Antisemitic nobber.
In saner years you'd be right that it would be stopped. But there's something wrong this time - the push for the bill vs the content was so strong, the strongest I've seen in years. It's beyond "they got caught" - of course they knew they'd be hated for it. But they'd already stated "we want to pass this anyway despite your opposition". So if you'll allow me to go all Monty Python, "it's not dead, it's resting!" Let's assume the senate version rests too.
This situation reeks of a Meta-Campaign. So they'll either rename it, or worse, split the components among other bills so that there's nothing to rally against.
Try this - they're introducing it this time before this election round. Then once the people are re-elected "now they have nothing to lose" so they'll resurrect it next year. Or some such variations on a theme. The point is, just because it's sleeping, it's definitely going to wake up. Except for some surprise fallout, thousands of companies were drooling at how much fun power they stood to gain from this.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
i am no longer hungry for a sopapilla, thanks =(
How can a single representative kill the bill?
Because he's the House Majority Leader.
Why is a Jew in such a powerful position?
Because it's America, where even an Anonymous race-baiting Cracker such as your own fine self can get elected to Federal office.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
The House and Senate each propose and vote for their own bills. The bills that pass one side, go to the other side. The other side can either vote on that bill as is, or change it and pass that. If other side changes it, then the changes have to be voted on by the first side. If things get stuck, they can appoint a 'conference committee' to attempt to hash out a bill that both the House and Senate can pass.
It is common for the House and Senate to each propose and vote on their own 'versions' of a particular bill - mostly for political grandstanding purposes. (saying 'we're waiting for the other guys to act on that' just doesn't have the same ring to it!) If both bills pass, they 'reconcile' them into one bill, and that's what gets sent to the president to sign or veto.
It's supposed to be the case that all 'spending bills' originate in the House. This is a holdover from when the Senate was a body intended to represent the State Legislatures of the Several States, with the House representing The People. In those days, the federal government had limited taxing abilities, and instead the State governments were responsible for generating the bulk of government revenue, and the feds essentially sent a bill to the States for the State's share of the federal budget (proportional to their total congressional representation). That system broke down when States weren't paying their bills, and when State Legislatures got too tied up in politics to vote on seating a Senator - leaving the Senate short. That's when Senators started getting elected by citizens, rather than by legislators, and that's when they created the federal income tax, allowing the feds to tax folk directly, without the States being able to interfere. So now, now we get city taxes, school taxes, state taxes AND federal taxes. Whoopie!
PIPA is the greek word for "blowjob"
What is IcanHasCheezburger think of the bill?
http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/funny-pictures-neighborhood-watch-committee-of-one.jpg
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Why is a Jew in such a powerful position?
Because the global zionist cryptarchy decided that he'd make a good frontman, obviously.
Well, either that or he managed to persuade more of the electorate to vote for him than anyone else in his constituency.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
SOPA is not about government control of the media or the economy; it is about the government helping corporations maintain their control over such things. SOPA is about ensuring that the big brands get to remain in control over our lives, and it is a step toward a long-term goal of converting the Internet into a fancy cable TV system, where consumers can only consume. That is a right-wing goal, at least under the standard definition of "right wing."
Yes I know that it is fashionable to describe everything that falls short of libertarianism "socialist," but there is nothing socialist about SOPA, and socialism is not the be-all and end-all of left wing politics.
Palm trees and 8
They'll dust this thing off and pass it during the lame duck session after the election.
PIPA in greek means blow job.
And in Polish it means "vagina".
I know this will blow your mind, but maybe left vs. right isn't the appropriate fight here. Most of us Americans are hung up on it, but maybe it doesn't always apply as much as you would think it would.
The second axis of the political world is corpratism, and corporatism is heavily represnted in both parties. Look at the names of the people pushing this bill. It has nothing to do with party. It had to do with the hugest corporate consitutencies pushing dollars into politician's pockets.
The corporation patches on their suits may be slightly different, but BOTH parties are corporatist. Stop thinking everything is left vs. right or pretty soon there won't be any debate because there will be ONE group in charge and you'll be against the wall if you say you don't like it.
Then why did it have the support of MOST of the republicans?
Hell even many of the current republican presidential candidates have voiced their support for SOPA.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
SOPA is the Sons Of the Patriots Act. It's designed so that information damaging to the interests of the Patriots can be
expunged from the web. Soon only SOP-compliant computer equipment will be available.
Don't make me admit that greaseball did something actually useful! Argh!
Maybe you have more in common with constitutional conservatives and the TEA Party than you think.
By the "TEA Party" I mean the individual local groups...not that group that attempts to paint itself as the "official national" TEA Party...it's not and never was either "official" or "national" and does not represent the views of the majority of the thousands of local TEA Party groups and their members. The TEA Party consists of thousands of relatively small local groups and intentionally has no national leaders.
The national group and certain individuals attempting to portray itself/themselves as the "official national" TEA Party leadership is nothing but a creation of the Republican Party "establishment" (with collusion from "establishment" Democrats) as an attempt to either co-opt or destroy the TEA Party, as the TEA Party is an existential threat to the political "establishment" of *both* major parties that has brought us Democrats and Republicans that are little different in their actions and policies once elected.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
This is the story on the House Oversight Committee website that announces that work on SOPA has been postponed (not canceled or killed yet) and the first link in the story is an Outlook Web Access redirect link. So you have to sign into the house.gov OWA server to get to it. Yep, these guys should be figuring it all out for us.
1 (short ton / firkin) = 89.1432354 slugs / keg
Obama never threatened a veto of the Defense bill because he thought it was wrong to engage in due process free detention in violation of the 4th and 5th amendments -- he threatened a veto because he was worried that the bill would spawn a case that would cause the Supreme Court to have to review whether the president can usurp the power to be sole judge and arbiter of the people's freedom (in violation of the 4th and 5th amendments).
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Rejoice, denizens of the interweb. We won this battle. But the war is far from over.
Defender of Microsoft and Communism!!!
What is it with you Americans and your fear of anything that could be remotely connected in to 'left' or 'socialism'. Who cares? If something is good, it's good. And if something is bad, it is bad and anybody who knowingly supports something bad like this deserves his place in hell. Whether he is a right wing socialist or a left wing republican.
House kills the bill... was it lupus?
Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.
No. Just because you know a swearword, it does not fit in every situation.
According to your definition, Spain at the time of Charles V was socialist.
Since they came at it with 2 bills all SOPA (which received the most publicity) ever was is a sacrificial lamb, meant to destroyed to appease the public and let PIPA through, and PIPA (arguably the worse of the 2 bills) has to be taken down as well so no time to rest on laurels continue the good fight.
http://fightforthefuture.org/pipa/
http://www.craigslist.org/about/SOPA
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
You can blame both sides for this one - sure it was introduced by House Judiciary leader Lamar Smith, a Republican, but co-sponsors include Democrats Howard Berman, John Conyers, and Ted Deutch, amongst others. You would think someone on a Judiciary committee could write a bill that wouldn't trample all over first amendment rights, but Lamar Smith has that one down to an art. This is at least the third piece of legislation I know of that he has sponsored that has been tossed out over first amendment concerns.
Many businesses strongly supported SOPA, including Ford, Pfizer, the BSA, the ESA, NBC, Go Daddy, the MPAA, the RIAA... the list goes on. The problem is, it was business friendly to a fault, giving copyright holders unprecedented power to shut down sites, whether they were violating copyright or not and without requiring proof. There was no way this would ever pass a legal battle in court - it was killed as it needed to be. At least this one was killed before it got to court - congress has done a good job of passing these things and then having them immediately killed.
Now maybe we can wait for the China to bully us by threatening sanctions in the same way we bullied Spain...
Corporatism is just a facet of the right wing. Right wing politics are about the maintenance and strengthening of the hierarchy of society, and corporations fit squarely into that hierarchy. Consumers are supposed to consume, and corporations are supposed to produce -- that is the hierarchy that bills that SOPA are meant to strengthen. The entertainment you want, the brand name shoes you wear, all of this comes from corporations. You are a consumer; you are not supposed to be sending copies of movies to your friends, you are not supposed to buy handbags or cosmetics from unauthorized foreign sources, you are not supposed to be able to route your away around the hierarchy -- that is SOPA's philosophy.
It is the difference between the Internet with its peer-to-peer nature, and the cable TV system with its hierarchy.
Palm trees and 8
Dr House saves the day again!
This is the story of two brand names for politicians. Republicans, and Democrats. These are the Republicans, and these are the Democrats.
In last week's episode, the Democratic President said he didn't want to sign it, but didn't want to veto it either, so he said he'd sign it with reservations, or with a sticky note saying he didn't like it but he'd sign it anyway. And the Republican guy who doesn't look like a turtle said he was going to stop all activity on the bill, effectively killing SOPA. Now it's the Senate's turn, with a Democrat from MPAA, and a Republican who looks like a turtle. Will they pass PIPA? Will it pass with a veto-proof majority? Does it have to get a veto-proof majority because the President never said anything about having problems with PIPA instead of SOPA? And aren't we all kinda surprised and relieved to find our elected representatives listening to us, even if only because it's an election year?
Confused yet? You won't be, after this week's episode of... Soap!
it was introduced by House Judiciary leader Lamar Smith, a Republican, but co-sponsors include Democrats Howard Berman, John Conyers, and Ted Deutch, amongst others
You are apparently operating under the assumption that the Democrats are not on the same side of the political spectrum as the Republicans. The Democrats have shifted so far to the right that by now the best you can get is a centrist. The few democrats that linger on the left side of the spectrum are on the fringe.
Palm trees and 8
I'm a hardcore liberal hippie and even I know that a lot of the hardcore liberal hippies are on precisely the wrong side when it comes to piracy measures. The reason? The entertainment industry is a massive donor to left-wing causes.
I usually look at the political spectrum as left vs right (extremes being "true communism" and "true capitalism" respectively) and up vs. down (authoritarian vs libertarian). I would agree that SOPA is not left vs right, but rather Up vs Down. SOPA is strictly an authoritarian measure, giving more power to the state to control its citizens.
Many republicans are also in favour of an authoritarian government. It does not mean that SOPA = right wing, at least not directly.
The same bill has to pass through both house and senate. So even if the senate passes the bill (PIPA), the house would have to vote on the same version. If they can't agree, then they can either make a session together to vote on a version (not sure what the requirement is for a bill to pass in a conference session) or the bill dies. http://www.usconstitution.net/consttop_law.html Check conference section.
any Former Imperial British Territory will most likely use the British terms/meanings/protocols UNLESS they were so violent in chucking the brits out that they decided to do "anything but the british way"
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..."we live in a very right-wing country" ...
There corrected that for you ...
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
It's corporate welfare, possibly on the scale of the "too big to fail" banking and auto industries bailouts. The supporters of this bill wanted the government to be thier own copyright police at taxpayer expense.
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
NONE of the major news services or newspapers are reporting that the SOPA bill has been killed.
Wonderful; now that they failed to pass this draconian legislation openly, the Congress Critters and their deep-pocketed media puppet-masters will attempt to secretly stuff it into a different, "must-pass" bill, as was done with the indefinite detention clause of the NDAA.
Keeping the Republic these days requires never-ending vigilance.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
There's big money behind this bill. The politicians are funded (heavily influenced) by that big money. Rest assured that SOPA is not dead, but will in fact come back surreptitiously in some other form.
You never really "win" in politics. You only win for a while. Like many things in life.
Ha! Zontar lives! Good one old friend.
This signature has Super Cow Powers
In Portuguese, sopa means soup and pipa means kite.
Circumcision is child abuse.
SOPA Is very much a right-wing bill. What could be more right-wing than attacking a system where anyone can communicate equally, regardless of where they fit into the hierarchy of society? The point of SOPA is to curb the free and open nature of the Internet and to reinvigorate the power of established corporations and government agencies -- sounds very right-wing to me."
For some definition of "right-wing" that is so broad as to be mostly useless. (Unless your point is, "what's considered 'left' in the US would be viewed as center-right anywhere else".) It's a "corporatist" bill, and most American Senators and Representatives are in the pocket of corporations, including many of those who pass for "left-wing". The entertainment industry is the primary proponent of this bill. Among the sponsors of the (PIPA) bill in the Senate you'll find such "liberals" and proponents of 'net neutrality as Al Franken (who last year was keynote speaker at Netroots Nation, but I'll bet he has "schedule conflicts" that prevent going to it this year).
Virtually everybody in Washington ("right" or "left", Obama or Bush) wants to keep extending the power of the government, witness the recent vote to extend the "Patriot" act.
In Korean, "Salsa" means diarrhea.
Currently hooked on AMP
The lack of replies and tepid moderation for your comment is indicative of why the political system is broken: people barely care enough to complain, and when told the crisis is over they don't punish the politicians who are working against them.
tomorrow who's gonna fuss
most likely just used to make pipa look better by comparison. that way sopa gets killed due to all the attention on it, but pipa gets passed because it looks saner but still as bad.
In America, eating too many enchiladas will give you diarrhea.
Think whatever you want about the left-or-right nature of the bill, but your description of socialism is dead wrong. What you're describing is statism or communism (depending on your particular definition and example implementation). Socialism is merely government redistribution of tax money for various public programs. National parks, roads, Social Security, Medicare, your unemployment insurance, fire departments, police, public school, all draw from taxes at some level, and all of these are arguably necessary in some manner for a strong nation and a healthy populace.
The last thing this country needs is cutbacks in our social programs.
or pretty soon there won't be any debate
What do you mean "pretty soon"?
There is currently no meaningful debate in American politics, only posturing on superficial or social issues and very strong bi-partisan agreement on:
- Less civil liberties, more state surveillance (NDAA, warrantless wiretapping etc.)
- Interventionist foreign policy, supported by an over-sized military-industrial complex
- Unconditional support for Wall Street (no meaningful regulation)
- Corporate interests always take precedence/outweigh individual citizens' rights and well being
- A political system with a high barrier of entry (unchecked campaign spending, no representation for small parties)
Generally, the House of Representatives and the Senate each approves its own version of the bill, then, if necessary, work out a compromise between the two versions and pass that in both houses of Congress.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
And yet SOPA/PIPA were/are supported by both of California's Democrat senators and many of its Democrat representatives as well. Right wing bill, my ass.
No, this was very much an interdenominational bill. It was supported by most career politicians, regardless of whether they preferred fifties or hundreds.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
In Argentina there's a comic, Mafalda (still running from the early nineties), where the characters treat the word "SOPA" as a profanity. Sopa actually means soup in spanish.
Remember this day! 20121216
Notice this pattern - in almost mysterious way, forces that can adversely effect this new organism are deterred.
Vassili Leonov
OMG, you can't reduce politics to one dimension? Who knew?
thegodmovie.com - watch it
So... the same as Spanish.
FWIW, I found this post useful as a layman's summary of the differences between PIPA and SOPA.
Of course, now that they're 'massaging' both of them to make them more digestible, this may no longer apply...
"I love animals! Some are cute, others are tasty, what's not to like?" - Betsy Schroeder, Jeopardy contestant
He's publicly said he'd veto it, so sneaking it into a bill is a death sentence for that bill. Romney opposes it too, but I'm a little worried. As has been pointed out in another thread the basic principles of the bill are in line with the right wing's general principle that strong hierarchy is a good thing. Moreover, Obama's actually in a position right now where he can veto the bill and has shown he will. Romney's still just campaigning and could easily flip flop. Obama's words carry more weight because he can actually do it, so he's in a put up or shut up position...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
That doesn't mean they should be given carte blanche to do whatever ridiculous things they want to do.
If we can also kill PIPA, we should then try to fix the copyright term. Drug companies are somehow able to make a profit with a 20 year patent. Getting a successful drug to market can take 10 years and up to a billion dollars. Why should a song be copyrighted for 120 years from date of creation?
No, this was very much an interdenominational bill.
No, I'm pretty sure the bills involved were very denominational. Probably $100s.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
SOPA is statist, not socialist but the two almost always go hand in hand.
Its not about giving a few large companies or a few big brands an advantage, its more about how certain members of the upper social class have given over their sovereignty to the political class in exchange for the right to keep their position.
Actually it looks very much like the Leninist system if you read your history but with much nicer trim this time around.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
it might be parts of austin, but it's the conservative parts (why doing massive power shifts means "conservative" nowadays, I still don't know...). He'll be re-elected - the fact that he's unopposed in the primary is because he's such a sure bet. Sorry. (used to live in that district. Far from it now)
Despite the media blackout on this issue the Internet publicity mobilized massive reactions to this awful bill.It of course didn't hurt to have some powerful corporate allies like Google and Microsoft.
Just as the later know how to cooperate when their shared interests are threatened, SOPA was fought as much by Progressives as Ron Paul style Libertarians.
If this was a sign to come, and these two grass root powers were to learn to join ranks on other issues that they agree on (i.e. civil liberties, military interventionism, legalizing pot) I'd feel much more optimistic about America's future.
No, I didn't mean "4Chan" in my subject line but "Change"
(Slashdot: Why do you let me enter the last characters in the subject line if they are then truncated!)
And in Dutch it's street slang for 'gun'.
Well, here's the checks and balances that we, the people, have:
Voting the politicians that are doing it out of power - requires a majority of people who actually care, so it's rather unlikely
"Second amendment remedies" - immoral, incredibly dangerous, potentially way overkill (don't need to kill the politicians, just need to stop them from passing laws like this), and illegal, although potentially highly effective
Boycotting the businesses sponsoring the bill - ineffective except against smaller businesses
Interfering with the businesses sponsoring the bill - potentially highly effective if done right, but illegal, and can be difficult, and potentially falls under the "second amendment remedies" category but with innocents getting caught up in the fire, too
So why don't We The People start labelling our "representatives" in government as either "Corporatists" or alternative stances? If enough people could start labelling groups of politicians I suspect it could redraw party lines and ditch what we call Democrat/Republican. Let's label them appropriately and make it stick.
-
While I understand the point, your link doesn't exactly tell why he was allowed to kill the legislation. It talks a lot about the position of House Majority Leader, without actually saying what they do.
Uhhh, no. That is not a left wing bill. It's an authoritarian bill.
And I think it can be argued equally as strongly that the end game to capitalism is fascism. Especially when you have large corporations that more or less have reached critical mass, and are no longer accountable to the people.
Come on now, Slashdot opinions barely percolate out to the rest of the technology-aware parts of the Internet. If anything it was Reddit and their "Operation Pull Ryan" that shook up the discussion. We're Protoss with no carriers. Reddit is Zerg.
Won't like 90% of the websites that have messages that are anti-SOPA just reword them to mention PIPA instead?
At the library of Congress:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:h.r.03261:
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." -- Albert Einstein
But not in the way many slashdotters might think.
Little appreciated here on Slashdot is the fact that SOPA was as unpopular on the right side of the spectrum as it was on the left.
It's more accurate to model political affiliation in 2 dimensions [1], authoritarian/liberal vs. conservative/progressive. If you look at Congress, the problem is that most elected representatives on both sides of the spectrum are authoritarian despite whether they're conservative or progressive... meaning there are almost no true liberals (free love AND free trade, ie, left-libertarians) representing us (one could say they don't represent the people anymore).
By this measure, SOPA was a full-on authoritarian bill. It was popular in DC, because it catered to big business which loves authoritarian legislation (removes uncertainty and easy to game) and it was fully business friendly.
It also highlights the fact that the Internet as it currently stands is a true bastion of liberalism. For all it's warts and dangers, it is a bulwark against the 1984-style authoritarian singularity. We must defend it.
[1] http://www.politicalcompass.org/analysis2
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Don't confuse "conservative" with "Republican." The 2 are not even tangentially related, no matter what Republicans would have you believe. (And if you have any doubt, take a look at the size and scope of the Federal government (and the deficit) under Republican administrations since 1980.)
And yet SOPA/PIPA were/are supported by both of California's Democrat senators
Probably because Hollywood supported it, and they are huge in California?
Granted, Silicon Valley is huge too. And at least the House members (both R and D) from around Silicon Valley fought against it.
The fire isn't out until the ashes are cold and dead.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
SOPA was the House Version, PIPA was the Senate Version
And yet SOPA/PIPA were/are supported by both of California's Democrat senators and many of its Democrat representatives as well. Right wing bill, my ass.
It depends on your definition of "right wing". If your definition means following the silly idea that there really is a difference between Democrats and Republicans (besides which groups they pander to), and that "Democrat" == "left wing", then you're right. If your definition takes a more global view, then almost all politicians in Washington are "right wing", so the parent is correct.
Depends whose spectrum. What the US calls the left, we would call the center in Europe. What we call the left, the US would call communist, and what the US calls the right we would call extremist puritan nutcases.
Oh, believe it; all of us that complained, wrote, and signed petitions are most definitely on The List (of people to be watched).
I seriously doubt that. Why bother with cash when they can just make a direct deposit into a numbered Swiss bank account?
Blackout day is still on. I am pleased to share the report that Wikipedia will definitely participate.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Maybe you have more in common with constitutional conservatives and the TEA Party than you think.
Nope. Most of them are still "Fuck the poor!" and don't believe gay marriage is a civil right. By that, I mean they are perfectly fine with states banning gay marriage, despite the fact that such bans explicitly violate the "Equal Protection Clause".
If you would take your head out of the sand, you would see that.
For example: Obama is in bed with Goldman Sachs, and Microsoft, just as much as any republican. Don't kid yourself.
Regardless, I don't think there's a large contingent of people who think the Democrats are not really liberals and who also think that Stalin and Pol Pot were good guys.
It doesn't matter if it passes with 100 votes in the Senate, if it's DOA in the House.
It won't see the President's desk.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
You are dedicated to your generalizations and anecdotal based arguments but what would you actually DO to replace the existing system? If you are going to complain you should at least be able to explain in detail how you would change things. All of the Occupy and Arab Spring cheerleaders never thought about what would happen if they succeeded on crashing a system. It would also have been prudent for the Occupy movement to be a little more detailed about what they were protesting against. They may have needed bigger signs to explain their goals but all they have done is protest for the right to protest. History is full of examples of people clamoring for change and then being unable to come up with viable courses of actions after they win the street battle. I'm pretty sure the Liberal/Progressive student groups who participated in the Iranian 1979 revolution did not envision ending up with a theocracy based government whose first act was to kill anyone who disagreed with them. They were so focused on taking hostages and complaining about the US that they allowed the Islamist groups time to organize and implement their plans. Theocratic based governments may be detestable in the extreme but that doesn't mean the people running the scam are stupid. The Islamist were a minority before the revolution started but the ineptitude of others gave them the time to take control of the system. The US removed the Iraqi and Afghanistan leadership to give them a chance to implement change and both of those countries wasted their chance. Iraq started a civil war the day the US left and the same thing will happen when the US leaves Afghanistan.
Those in Egypt and other middle eastern countries are also starting to realize that they should have been a little more prepared just in case they won their glorious revolutions. As it stands now most of those countries are in the process of destroying themselves from the inside. Maybe they will be able to re-build but I don't really give a shit what they do. Thankfully the majority of the US public and both major political parties are against US involvement outside of making press statements and attending UN meetings.
Obama was happy to sign the 2011 NDAA. And he has certainly done nothing about the patriot act, and anything like that.
If you would look at the actual evidence, instead of sticking your head in the sand, you would see there is no difference between dems and repubs. Everything you think you know about the two parties is a myth.
Also, don't confuse "liberals" with "Democrats." The Democrat party of today is not the party of 1950s. Dems are on the side of the corporations, not the working people.
Also, they didn't want it took look like a Democrat saved the Internet.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
I think, the way it used to work is: the repubs were supported by the corporations, and the dems were supported by the unions.
But unions have diminished in the past few decades. Today practically all manufacturing has moved offshore. So now we have the both dems, and repubs, supported by corporations.
I know the war isn't over, but why shouldn't we celebrate every victory?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Obama also said he close gitmo, end the fighting in Afghanistan, and so many other things.
Obama says a lot of things. I see no reason to believe to word of it.
No.
We'd call it the Moderate Right. :-/
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
Sooner or later there will come a time when lobbying and sending letters will do nothing, when protests and rallies are worthless. At that time, the only way to change a politicians mind will be to scramble it with a bullet. We aren't there yet, but its going to happen sooner or later.
I've heard it said that Freedom can only be bought with blood. Really, it isn't a purchase but a rental. How long will it be until the rent is due again?
who prays for Satan? Who in 18 centuries has had the humanity to pray for the 1 sinner that needed it most? ~Mark Twain
Most of them are still "Fuck the poor!"
Pure demagoguery. Just because someone else has a different idea on how best to help the poor that you either disagree with or are incapable of understanding doesn't mean they don't genuinely care for those less fortunate. Please stop blindly following talking points and try a little mental effort on your part while applying intellectual honesty.
...and don't believe gay marriage is a civil right. By that, I mean they are perfectly fine with states banning gay marriage,...
Actually, they don't believe government should have anything to do with marriage, period. Marriage is a religious ceremony. Government should not be in the business of regulating religious ceremonies, whether they be straight, gay, or otherwise, any more than they believe that the government should regulate what days one may worship, the length of ceremonies, which texts may be read and distributed, or the type of candles to be burned.
They oppose gay marriage as an expansion of government power that shouldn't exist in the first place. Why is everyone on the left so opposed to government being involved in anything remotely religious *except* when it comes to the religious institution of marriage?
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
This was as expected, since it was obvious from the start that the intention was never to pass the bill in it's current form. The motive was to get the big Internet companies to donate (bribe) more to the politicians.
Obligatory Monty Python.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
If we didn't give the government the power to hand over our freedoms to those corporations on a silver platter, the corporations would never have become as big and scary as they are.
In Spain, pipa is either a smoking pipe or a sunflower seed (pips). I don't think that has any relevance to the bill, though. Even in a funny way.
SOPA reversed is APOS, which stands for A Piece Of Shit.
Even more clever, "Sopa" in Swedish means trash.
That's not clever; that's coincidence.
But still apropos.
The method by which this works is that both houses of the congress must pass the same language in a bill. Often there are two separate bills to begin with (PIPA and SOPA in this case) and if both pass, the two houses form a committee to work out the differences. If they change both bills, both houses must pass the revised language, or if they adopt one or the other bill intact, then only the house that has not passed that one must pass it.
After getting through all of this, the bill must be signed into law by the President, or allowed to pass into law without a signature after a given period of time, or the president may veto the bill, in which case Congress may override the veto if they have sufficient votes to do so.
So, the situation now appears to be that one house has ceased work on this matter. The other, the Senate, is still working on it. If they pass PIPA, it may be taken up by the House of Representatives and sent to the President. It's a tall order, but it could happen.
It ain't over, in other words.
WALSTIB!
What to do? What to do?
Constitutional amendments:
Laws:
Nationalize the following industries (or re-regulate heavily):
That's my plan. Once these things are in place, other issues will probably fall into line fairly quickly.
That is all.
Sounds good to me, but as a resident of Texas I can assure you that the Republicans have the congressional districts quite thoroughly gerrymandered to prevent any opposition to the Will of the The Party from succeeding.
WALSTIB!
Ceci n'est pas un pipe |
MSIE: The world's most standards-complaint web browser.
SOPA IS DELAYED not cancelled they didn't kill it they are posturing and trying to figure out what to change about the bill before they have hearings on the bill
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120113/23560217407/sopa-delayed-cantor-promises-it-wont-be-brought-to-floor-until-issues-are-addressed.shtml
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
To pay artists with public funds and give their works away for free would be socialist. To give the companies power over the law is associated with facism.
When asked why, the answer is almost always: "It's 2014".
PIPA in greek means blow job.
And in Polish it means "vagina".
And in English, it means "The prince's sister-in-law", which is pretty close to its Polish meaning.
"Pipa" is word in dialectal Finnish meaning 'toque/beanie'. Doesn't seem very relevant...
Beause marraige isn't just a religious institution. It's a civil institution as well. Plenty of people who aren't religious get married.
There are lots of things assoiated with marriage - from paying taxes to receiving benefits to being able to jointly enter bankruptcy to being able to direct medical decisions involving your comatose/unconscious spouse, etc.
I'm sure "the left" would be just fine with leaving marraige to the church if all references to it were also removed from the non-church parts of society. However, being married has a lot of non-religious consequences in our current legal system.
He never implied that he has a problem with Jews, but I have to wonder the same thing.
You are not fooling anyone other than yourself. The original question was:
Why is a Jew in such a powerful position?
The very asking of this question implies that it is somehow remarkable or out of place for a Jew to hold elected office. It is not.
How about Cantor's counterpart on the Democratic side of the aisle, Rep. Nancy Pelosi?
Why is a woman in such a powerful position?
Let's go higher up... to the Oval office:
Why is a Black in such a powerful position?
Same-same but different. (Yawn.)
Jews have entirely too much power and influence in the entire world, and people would do well to stop giving them more power.
No-one has power over you that you don't give them.
Now, armed with this knowledge, you may proceed to grow up and start accepting some responsibility for your condition. The Jews didn't put you in it, and they ain't gonna get you out of it.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Because that power would just sit back and stay empty, right? It's not like power abhors a vacuum or anything. And it's not like the tiny government you desire would actually be able to do anything to stop it.
Pure demagoguery.
No, it's pretty correct. The demonizing of the poor by the right wing shows that they truly have that "fuck the poor" attitude.
Just because someone else has a different idea on how best to help the poor
It's not that they have a "different idea". It's that they are actively trying to parrot shit that absolutely does not work, and are trying to bring about outcomes that have no basis in reality. They want to remove funding for scholarships used by poor people, yet still expect those people to be able to go to college. Then, when they can't afford to go, and have mostly shit jobs to choose from as a result, people like you look down on them and say, "Well, you should have worked harder. Then you could have made something of yourself." All the while conveniently forgetting that YOU were the result of the same aid you would seek to deny others.
Actually, they don't believe government should have anything to do with marriage, period.
I'll believe that when they actually campaign to remove straight marriage from the books. Until then, that's just a convenient cover story for them to be against gay marriage without having to appear like bigots.
Government should not be in the business of regulating religious ceremonies, whether they be straight, gay, or otherwise, any more than they believe that the government should regulate what days one may worship, the length of ceremonies, which texts may be read and distributed, or the type of candles to be burned.
They oppose gay marriage as an expansion of government power that shouldn't exist in the first place. Why is everyone on the left so opposed to government being involved in anything remotely religious *except* when it comes to the religious institution of marriage?
Why do people like you refuse to see that marriage is NOT a religious institution, it is a civil one? I can go down to the courthouse and get married, with absolutely no context of religion. How does that fit into your worldview that it's a religious institution.
Please stop blindly following talking points and try a little mental effort on your part while applying intellectual honesty.
Nothing you have said has been intellectually honest, especially bringing up that shitty argument that they "only want government out of all marriage!" That argument is tired, debunked, and is only a thin veil for showing that someone is a bigot.
Free at last! Free at last! Thank god almighty we're free at last!
not.
Sounds if you thank one person for doing all the work. If that is what has actually happend (one person stopping the bill) then there is a LOT wrong with politics. More then we have already thought is wrong.
If one person could stop this bill, then one person could stop any bill, regardless if it is good or bad.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Although I do agree that the Democrats are remarkably conservative by world standards, the traditional meaning of the terms refers to seating position, which is determined (in most legislative bodies) by political party affiliation. Therefore, the Democrats are, by definition, left, regardless of how conservative their position on a given issue might be.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
It won't see the president's desk yet.
Criminalization of copyright has been expanding since 1982. (Well, earlier, but at a slower pace before that.)
1890s - Congress criminalizes copyright violations of dramatic works by travelling street performers.
There were also changes in 1908, 1982, 1992 (software companies push for broader criminalization), 1997 (NET act), 1998 (DMCA), etc...
This is on the back-burner because of mobilized opposition. They'll carve out a compromise between the ISPs and Search providers on the one hand and big media on the other, and we'll get more complex legislation that has a similar effect inside of two years.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
In Portuguese, pipa also means barrel, as in wine barrel.
Little appreciated here on Slashdot is the fact that SOPA was as unpopular on the right side of the spectrum as it was on the left.
I actually think slashdot and reddit (often accused of having a left-leaning bias) demonstrated restraint and were clear that this was not a partisan issue. That this was congressmen and women bought by the MPAA/RIAA against everyone else.
I know we disagree on many things, and it's tempting to believe that the other side is deluded. But it would have taken remarkable self-delusion for any liberal informed in the slightest to think this was a conservative movement. PIPA was sponsored by democrat Sen. Patrick Leahy. It was known from the beginning that Obama would probably sign it. The AFL-CIO was in favor of SOPA for some fucking reason. I don't recall reading any serious posts about "Aw, these fucking republicans trying to censor the internet."
Right and left both united to overcome censorship and special interests run amok. I don't think either side was really accusing the other side of being in favor of it. Please, lets not degenerate into declaring this a partisan victory now, and lets not start saying "See! Our side told your side so!"
Because it's America, where even an Anonymous race-baiting Cracker such as your own fine self can get elected to Federal office.
When I voted for Senator Anonymous, I did not realize that he or she was anti-semitic. I really liked his or her actions against scientology and corporate corruption, there wasn't a lot of information out there about their personal beliefs.
No, it's pretty correct. The demonizing of the poor by the right wing shows that they truly have that "fuck the poor" attitude.
Wow. "Demonizing of the poor"? You liked the kool-aid so much you bought the whole factory, eh?
It's not that they have a "different idea". It's that they are actively trying to parrot shit that absolutely does not work, and are trying to bring about outcomes that have no basis in reality.
And of course your opinion, as that's what it is, is the only valid one. That's a lot of hubris, and typical elitist-think. Sorry to disappoint you but a whole lot of people, a whole lot smarter & better-informed and educated than you, disagree with you.
They want to remove funding for scholarships used by poor people, yet still expect those people to be able to go to college.
Wanting college loans to be done the way they've been done for decades, and not taken over by a bloated government bureaucracy, is NOT "removing funding" or preventing people from going to school. Or do you prefer to have the IRS perform armed SWAT team raids on those behind on their government student loans as has already happened, rather than a collections letter from the local bank?
"Well, you should have worked harder. Then you could have made something of yourself." All the while conveniently forgetting that YOU were the result of the same aid you would seek to deny others.
What aid? My family and I were poor. I worked my way through school. I paid my own tuition, bought my own books, materials, etc. I sacrificed and ate a lot of ramen. I didn't own a car. I didn't have cable. Or internet. As a result I valued my educational opportunity and worked and studied very hard, as I earned it myself. And before you complain that today's tuitions have grown too expensive to do that, the schools have raised their tuitions because they know the government will pay.
Why do people like you refuse to see that marriage is NOT a religious institution, it is a civil one? I can go down to the courthouse and get married, with absolutely no context of religion. How does that fit into your worldview that it's a religious institution.
Slavery was also a civil institution at one time. Slave owners registered their slaves down at the local courthouse. Just because something is or has been a "civil institution" is not a valid reason why it shouldn't be changed or abolished.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Nice plan but how do you propose to implement any of it? Are you counting on universal acceptance without protests? Are you willing to use violence to achieve these changes? Are you willing to risk anarchy to accomplish changes?
And as far as foreign military bases are concerned all the host countries can ask the US to leave anytime they want. It's their decision. The US has always complied with a host countries request to leave. I wish all the bases were closed. The US is more than capable of projecting it's power globally if necessary. Of course all host countries will have to actually defend themselves without any assistance from the US. The host countries will have to deal with the loss of jobs in the base locations but that is their problem. And quite frankly I am not sure there is a single country the US should provide hands on military support to. They can buy all the weapons they need from the US but they will be responsible for actually using them. If some country makes an appeal for US military assistance it should expect a bill with at least half due upfront before they get the help they are requesting.
Really? I thought Occupy had a pretty solid set of grievances to be redressed: http://coupmedia.org/occupywallstreet/occupy-wall-street-official-demands-2009
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
QA: The art of telling someone that their baby is ugly without getting punched.
Wow. "Demonizing of the poor"? You liked the kool-aid so much you bought the whole factory, eh?
That's the only phrase that can be used when you hear most of these people talk. You can try to ridicule me all you want, but what I'm saying is true.
And of course your opinion, as that's what it is, is the only valid one. That's a lot of hubris, and typical elitist-think. Sorry to disappoint you but a whole lot of people, a whole lot smarter & better-informed and educated than you, disagree with you.
Never said mine was the only valid one. However, I'm not the one who's trying to justify a bunch of opinions that have already been disproven. And no, any economist who follows the Austrian school actually counts for this.
And the rest of your "I was poor, but I did it all by myself!" is absolute bullshit. You honestly have no idea to what extent you were helped by others, that you refuse to see it plainly in front of your face.
Slavery was also a civil institution at one time. Slave owners registered their slaves down at the local courthouse. Just because something is or has been a "civil institution" is not a valid reason why it shouldn't be changed or abolished.
That is quite frankly the most asinine opinion regarding the topic I have ever read. Bravo. You have reinforced the idea that I should not feed the trolls.
There doesn't strike me as anything in the capitalist system that inexorably leads to specifically facism.
And there's nothing in a socialist system that inexorably leads to fascism either. That didn't stop the post I replied to from making that connection.
No, it doesn't. There's nothing in Capitalism that would actually stop the monopolies from forming.
"I'm sure we all agree that we ought to love one another and I know there are people in the world that do not love their fellow human beings... and I hate people like that!"
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
The way to make sure this kind of law does not rise from the dead like a zombie in a bad horror movie is to punish the lawmakers who co-sponsored it. If you live in a state or district where your congressman/senator put his name on the respective bills (SOPA or PIPA), write them and tell them you will support/campaign for/contribute to their opponent, even if the bills are dead, just because they were stupid enough to ever think it was a good idea and put their name to it.
If there is one thing they fear more than their desire for campaign funds, it's getting voted out of office. So make this a "vote you out of office" issue, so the next time the entertainment industry comes knocking (and they will), the legislator will tell them to go away.
On the other hand, if you happen to live where your representative was opposed to the bill, thank them for doing it, and tell them you will to everything you can to support them in the next election.
To some degree, it does not matter if you actually do work for their opponent or them or the other stuff, cause likely some staffer will just tally your opinion in a spreadsheet, but you want to show up in the column of "very strongly against" the next time this shows up. They do pay attention to the aggregate opinions.
Numbered Swiss accounts are so last century for dodging taxes. The #1 rated tax haven is the "City of London", what the rest of the world thinks of as their financial district, not the much larger metropolis. According to Wikipedia:
"The City of London Corporation has been criticized for being undemocratic and a privileged haven for banks, financial institutions and big businesses....The City has come under criticism for the determining role of business votes over the residential vote: businesses in the City have around 24,000 votes, dwarfing the residents' 8,000 votes.[8] Tax justice campaigner Nicholas Shaxson said: "Voting would reflect the wishes not of the City's 300,000 workers, but of corporate managements. So Goldman Sachs and the People's Bank of China ('sic') would get to vote".[18] Journalist George Monbiot complained: "It's not the workers who decide how the votes are cast, but the bosses, who "appoint" the voters. Plutocracy, pure and simple."
There is only one "rich and powerful" class, the members are interchangeable between government and business. The average net worth of all top federal officials (executive, judicial, and legislative) is $6.5 million. Mayor Bloomberg is an example of a crossover, being both a multibillionaire, and politician, Romney, whose father was Governor of Michigan, got his start in Wall Street due to political connections, and then returned to politics with a net worth in the hundreds of millions.
So time to get over the idea of corporations vs government, and Democrat vs Republican, it's really "rich and powerful" vs "everyone else".
Britain needs London to stay a haven for banks and financial institutions for their economy to survive. After all, they don't make anything in Britain any more, so what else are they going to base their economy on? At least we Americans still make a lot of airplanes, military hardware, and industrial equipment as well as tons of coal and corn. The British don't have any manufacturing left, except for a few ultra-low-volume cars, nor any natural resources.
If there is one thing they fear more than their desire for campaign funds, it's getting voted out of office.
Unfortunately, they aren't as afraid of that as you would like to believe.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Everyone helping elect someone else from his district (I mean everyone, all around the world), would send a message that this topic (messing with the Internet), is a toxic death sentence for a politician who supports it. Kicking him out would be a great object lesson for the rest of the politicians.
Wait, where did you find a web browser that doesn't have spellcheck?
It's some new shit called 'Mosaic'.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Also, they didn't want it took look like a Democrat saved the Internet.
They should know how to save it. After all, it was a Democratic senator who invented it!
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Left wing is not anti-authoritarian any more than right wing is authoritarian.
Counter-points: Barack Obama & the nationalization of the automotive industry; Ron Paul as an anti-authoritarian on the far right.
Learn about Photography Basics.
Well said. Definitely in agreement with this. While we are afraid of socialism as being the death of individialism, freedom and creativity, we forget that our capitalism has gotten out of hand towards corporatism where we lose freedom, and get treated like expendable consuming machines. There must be possibility landing somewhere in the middle, or completely somewhere else out of that mess.
That is quite frankly the most asinine opinion regarding the topic I have ever read.
----- /. liberal/Progressive translation routine, please standby...
Performing
Parsing...
OK, done.
-----
Yes, it DID destroy your argument quite thoroughly, didn't it? :D
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
So it would stop me from posting Bill Belichick's playbook?
was...until they just change its name and quietly slip it through as a rider on some completely unrelated bill
FTFY
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Sons Of the Patriots Act
And, as such, people who don't support it are clearly on the side of the T E R R O R I S T S !!!
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
In French, a pipa is a toad.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pipa_(amphibien)
No, it didn't. It just showed that you have no idea what the fuck you're talking about. "Slavery was once a civic institution, so because of that, gay marriage should not be allowed." Honestly? You have no argument for why gay marriage should not be allowed and you know it. You simply do not want gay people to get married. As long as straight marriage is recognized by the government, you cannot give any reason whatsoever for why gay marriage should not be, can you?
1). I simply said it was an authoritarian bill. I didn't say it was left wing or right wing.
2). "Nationalization of the auto industry" (even though that's not what happened) is not an authoritarian move.
3). Ron Paul is completely fine with authoritarianism. He just has a stick up his ass as to which level of government it occurs on. He was in favor of Texas banning sodomy; how is that not authoritarian?
We're just substituting SOPA for PIPA and are still on for the 18th.
Windows assumes you are an idiot...Linux demands proof.
I'm from Austin and the few friends I do have that are politically aware are in step with you. Unfortunately, the stereotypical Austin Slacker and Austin Hipster only became stereotypes because of their abundance. About 11-18 percent of this city votes on local issues and that's only if the word "bike lanes" is included in the legislation. You can almost double those numbets for national elections. Apathy is rampant here and the only political discussions you hear is on Jeff Ward's talk show or in the coffee houses. Most everyone else is too enthralled with being weird.
Now bring medicinal pot up for a vote and they'll damn near knock the polling doors off. Other than that, most are still dream-shopping for their BMW or squatting on open wireless connections at Starbucks.
Windows assumes you are an idiot...Linux demands proof.
social libertarianism makes it easier and less risky to move their product. Giving the disadvantaged a fish is not a "left-wing" cause. It's noblesse oblige.
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
The Democratic Party is a center-right party. Try again.
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
That's more skulduggery than it's worth. Just "not-promise" them a $600k/yr lobbying gig. It worked for Dodd, and it's going to work for that treasonous fuck Lieberman.
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
Sopa is a piece of shit!
Excuse me, mods, but this is not Offtopic - it's highly topical, Informative to the uninitiated and damn near Insightful.
This post was in no fecking way endorsed by Rupert "I've heard you have voice mail" Murdoch.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
My favorite Jello Biafra quote: "It's not left vs. right, it's top vs. bottom."
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
No, there is left-wing corporatism. Have you ever asked yourself what the hell kind of logical connection there is between employment and social benefits like health care or pensions? A friend's father, who is firmly in the top 10%, drank deep of the Murdoch Kool-Aid and actually thinks that the ridiculous inequalities of wealth and living conditions in Brazil are all right by him, didn't want any sort of socialized health care because he wants to be able to do nice things for his employees.
The end game of capitalism is feudalism.
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
Americans are so pathological that their fucking identities seem to depend on subjugating themselves to someone richer.
What's up with that? Civilized countries have fine social safety nets. Being "jobless" isn't a catastrophe there because their people generally haven't had every last bit of humanity in their lives commodified and sold back to them.
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
Hey Guys, I know its kinda like it never should have been brought up in the first place, but now its time to let Cantor know that he did the right thing by shelving it, and encourage him to NEVER bring it up again.
Only on slashdot would posting a nobel-prize winning economists view on socialism be labeled as a troll and flamebait. All I can say is: read the book and see if its not persuasive.
In any case, I do think it would be pretty hard to argue that true laissez faire (and its implied individualism) capitalism leads to tyranny. I think if you read Isaiah Berlin's two concepts of liberty he also makes a very good philosophical argument for why "positive liberties" embodied by socialism will in fact lead to tyranny.
That was true 10 years ago. The left in Europe either went to the center right as well or just went on full corruption mode (aside from the smaller parties). There is still no-one on the left presenting a solution to maintain the Euro as we're nearing the point were it no longer matters.