January 17, 2012
keep profanity alive
1/17/12
I know many of you - myself included - look at "online protests" and immediately think "oh fuck off, I'm at work, my lumbar region is whack, I just want something to take my mind off my gruel, so shove your high-minded principles up your ass and GET BACK TO ENTERTAINING ME!!!"
Being a guttersniping old sop who was a kid in the 1970s, I totally get it, but today's blog will be purposely not written to protest the sickening legislation that is SOPA and PIPA. Wikipedia, Reddit, and many other sites are going black today for the same reason. Read this or this for more information if you don't get what the fuss is about.
Seriously, having Congress in charge of what we can and can't do on the internet is like letting a passel of opossums do your estate planning. Contact your congressperson!
Authored by DEMOCRAT Senator Patrick Leahy. And it is California REPUBLICAN Darrell Issa that says the bill won't make it to the floor of the House.
The people who helped this thing get to the floor are people whose stated goal is to protect writers, filmmakers, studios, labels, musicians, etc. (i.e. the creative content industry, which skews very liberal), so it's not surprising that liberal politicians like it. And those professions (and those professions that support them) contribute a big chunk of money to our economy, so they should be fostered and protected within reason.
But these bills are draconian. I think two things are true:
A) this bill only made it to the floor because movie studios are overreaching and politicians don't understand technology
B) even if these bills are DOA, the studios won't stop pushing to get something through.Ever vigilant!
Also, Ian, if you talk to Sen. Gillibrand anytime soon, please pass along my thoughts on the matter.
Out here in The Old North State, I called my two Senators to oppose SOPA. Democrat Kay Hagan is a co-sponsor, so I butted my head against the wall just for the fun of it. Republican Richard Burr's folks just took my message; I don't know his position on it.
All I know is, I was trying to look up Lana del Rey on Wikipedia and...what the fuck???
*fist in the air*