I can't explain the anger I feel when I see stories like this. I'm 20 years old and I didn't even start taking an interest in news and politics until I was 18. Before that, I had basically believed I was living in the heart of freedom, the greatest country in the world. I cheered when we protected Kuwait, and I joined in during the pledge of allegiance every morning at school. I know this isn't eniterly on topic, but I have an urge to express this feeling of utter betrayal I've had ever since virtues I saw in this country seemed to crumble and be replaced by lies. I heralded 'freedom' until I learned the term 'soft money'. Soon afterwards, what I believed to be our democracy began to look more like plutocracy. I remember how proud I was in highschool when I read about the statue of liberty -- "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breath free." I thought, how lucky I am to be a part of this. In my worst nightmares I never would've thought that the 'poor huddled masses' would be funding a $140 billion dollar a year program nicknamed 'corporate welfare' that subsidizes some of the richest companies in the world.
And when I see this sort of organized crime not only existing, but thriving, I wanna wake up and have it all been a dream. When I see people accept it and go about their lives, with only their comment that 'someone will make a workaround' or 'things will work out for the best' I wanna scream until I find out why no one is as angry as they should be. I wanna take a baseball bat and smash hard drives for a living until every advertisers fucking demographics database is gone, until every lobbyist and greedy CEO is buried in sharp, pointy computer parts and begging for the medical care they refused to provide for their employees. Ugh.
Fie on you, character limit.
"Everytime that we try to lift a problem from our own shoulders, and shift that problem to the hands of the government, to the same extent we are sacrificing the liberties of our people." John F. Kennedy
I agree that people take their rights for granted here in America, but taking them away (to make people appreciate them) would be sorta like dangling a T-bone steak a few inches out of the reach of a starving dog on a chain. The problem is uninformed citizens who really don't care, or don't think they need to care, about politics. Mandatory censorship enters schools and libraries, Carnivore hunts down people who don't like kittens, and most of America basically assumes it'll all turn out for the best. I've talked to tons of people about the impending threat of copyright protection on most hard drives, and least half of them gave responses along the lines of 'oh someone will make a workaround' or 'big deal, they gotta protect their profits'. That's our problem in America, and if you ask me, having out rights 'etched in stone' is the only thing between us and mandatory censorship of the internet.
I think the bottom line is going to be that it's just a game. I have to wonder if these people have considered the bigger picture. There are other online games to play if you dislike the way Sony runs theirs. Everquest isn't a right, or even a realm where your rights apply and can be defended. I'm not a fan of Sony, and I don't like the way EQ is run. But I still have to say that no (even moderately sane) judge is going to rule against Sony on this.
Unions have their problems, but alternately it's inevitable that without them, employers will start crossing the line. Problems with Unions can be addressed, but how do you oppose an abusive company without some similar sort of organization?
"Everybody's organized but the people."
I tried to be fair and hear the guy out, but I read the article and it's still as annoying and foolish as I thought it would be. He's either ignorant of, or oblivious to, the facts of corporate influence over our very own government. Soft money, PAC's, lobbyists, corporations sign big checks on a daily basis to buy legislation that favors their cause: profit. Someone please explain to me how corporate regulation is such an inevitability that we need to call in the government to regulate it. Especially when the government has a corporate hand up it's ass. Where we are now in terms of freedom online, is where we need to be, and where we should pledge to be no matter how fiercely we have to defend it. The internet went mainstream so quickly that no corporate or government regulators could put a leash around it in time. Online businesses are dropping like flies because, contrary to this writer's statements, we ignore their presence. People don't click banners, and the image he gives of the internet becoming one big commercial is a theory that would only come to pass if we wanted it to. Salon's corporate profile section will show that their funds come from Microsoft, among others, and they were criticized during the elections for hitting Nader hard as a result of his attack on corporate crime and corruption of our government. So I find parts of his article in that aspect, ironic. At this point in time, anyone who's done their research knows that corporations are doing their best to chip away at your rights online. Every person that's done that, is one more reason why they will fail. The article claims that the corporations who operate and own the infrastructure of the internet itself, can't be trusted to maintain our rights to absolute freedom of the information it holds. For that, I turn to the AOL/TW merger where the FTC once again maintained your 1st amendment rights. Both 'governing' bodies, whether profit driven or voter driven, are problematic. Putting either in control of this medium is a mistake. From the beginning both have been used to give the people of the world more freedom and knowledge through the internet, and that's the way it should continue -- with business profiting from your access fee, and government making sure your access is absolute and free of censorship as per your 1st amendment rights.
Slashdot Mirror
I can't explain the anger I feel when I see stories like this. I'm 20 years old and I didn't even start taking an interest in news and politics until I was 18. Before that, I had basically believed I was living in the heart of freedom, the greatest country in the world. I cheered when we protected Kuwait, and I joined in during the pledge of allegiance every morning at school. I know this isn't eniterly on topic, but I have an urge to express this feeling of utter betrayal I've had ever since virtues I saw in this country seemed to crumble and be replaced by lies. I heralded 'freedom' until I learned the term 'soft money'. Soon afterwards, what I believed to be our democracy began to look more like plutocracy. I remember how proud I was in highschool when I read about the statue of liberty -- "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breath free." I thought, how lucky I am to be a part of this. In my worst nightmares I never would've thought that the 'poor huddled masses' would be funding a $140 billion dollar a year program nicknamed 'corporate welfare' that subsidizes some of the richest companies in the world. And when I see this sort of organized crime not only existing, but thriving, I wanna wake up and have it all been a dream. When I see people accept it and go about their lives, with only their comment that 'someone will make a workaround' or 'things will work out for the best' I wanna scream until I find out why no one is as angry as they should be. I wanna take a baseball bat and smash hard drives for a living until every advertisers fucking demographics database is gone, until every lobbyist and greedy CEO is buried in sharp, pointy computer parts and begging for the medical care they refused to provide for their employees. Ugh.
Fie on you, character limit. "Everytime that we try to lift a problem from our own shoulders, and shift that problem to the hands of the government, to the same extent we are sacrificing the liberties of our people." John F. Kennedy
I agree that people take their rights for granted here in America, but taking them away (to make people appreciate them) would be sorta like dangling a T-bone steak a few inches out of the reach of a starving dog on a chain. The problem is uninformed citizens who really don't care, or don't think they need to care, about politics. Mandatory censorship enters schools and libraries, Carnivore hunts down people who don't like kittens, and most of America basically assumes it'll all turn out for the best. I've talked to tons of people about the impending threat of copyright protection on most hard drives, and least half of them gave responses along the lines of 'oh someone will make a workaround' or 'big deal, they gotta protect their profits'. That's our problem in America, and if you ask me, having out rights 'etched in stone' is the only thing between us and mandatory censorship of the internet.
I think the bottom line is going to be that it's just a game. I have to wonder if these people have considered the bigger picture. There are other online games to play if you dislike the way Sony runs theirs. Everquest isn't a right, or even a realm where your rights apply and can be defended. I'm not a fan of Sony, and I don't like the way EQ is run. But I still have to say that no (even moderately sane) judge is going to rule against Sony on this.
Unions have their problems, but alternately it's inevitable that without them, employers will start crossing the line. Problems with Unions can be addressed, but how do you oppose an abusive company without some similar sort of organization? "Everybody's organized but the people."
I tried to be fair and hear the guy out, but I read the article and it's still as annoying and foolish as I thought it would be. He's either ignorant of, or oblivious to, the facts of corporate influence over our very own government. Soft money, PAC's, lobbyists, corporations sign big checks on a daily basis to buy legislation that favors their cause: profit. Someone please explain to me how corporate regulation is such an inevitability that we need to call in the government to regulate it. Especially when the government has a corporate hand up it's ass. Where we are now in terms of freedom online, is where we need to be, and where we should pledge to be no matter how fiercely we have to defend it. The internet went mainstream so quickly that no corporate or government regulators could put a leash around it in time. Online businesses are dropping like flies because, contrary to this writer's statements, we ignore their presence. People don't click banners, and the image he gives of the internet becoming one big commercial is a theory that would only come to pass if we wanted it to. Salon's corporate profile section will show that their funds come from Microsoft, among others, and they were criticized during the elections for hitting Nader hard as a result of his attack on corporate crime and corruption of our government. So I find parts of his article in that aspect, ironic. At this point in time, anyone who's done their research knows that corporations are doing their best to chip away at your rights online. Every person that's done that, is one more reason why they will fail. The article claims that the corporations who operate and own the infrastructure of the internet itself, can't be trusted to maintain our rights to absolute freedom of the information it holds. For that, I turn to the AOL/TW merger where the FTC once again maintained your 1st amendment rights. Both 'governing' bodies, whether profit driven or voter driven, are problematic. Putting either in control of this medium is a mistake. From the beginning both have been used to give the people of the world more freedom and knowledge through the internet, and that's the way it should continue -- with business profiting from your access fee, and government making sure your access is absolute and free of censorship as per your 1st amendment rights.