SOPA/PIPA
Posted by
Steve Smith on
Jan 22, 2012; 5:03pm
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Understanding-the-Occupy-Movementf-tp7210588p7213755.html
On 1/22/12 9:02 AM, Owen Densmore wrote:
The
recent success of the populist response to SOPA and PIPA
gives one some hope that we can steer our ship of state at
least on very particular and concrete issues, at least. I
was absolutely astounded that both of my senators and my
representative in congress were for them both.
There is a
feeling I often have these days which I describe as "shocked but
not surprised" and I apply that to this situation. It is not
unlike what I felt when the Congress nearly unanimously approved
the invasion of Iraq.
The problem is not (merely) with our (specific) legislators, but
rather with the *nature* of our legislators in general. We
paradoxically demand that they be well educated (indoctrinated?)
in systems like Law and Politics and have strong wills of their
own, while also responding to our every whim. We expect them
to have strong drives and strong principles, yet we also expect
them to throw both of those over to serving us on any given
topic.
Alternatively we could ask for strong leaders who share our
values, but we would first have to have sorted our own values
more clearly and not allow clever salesmen (aspiring
politicians) to sell us their snake-oil, no matter how much we
want the goodies without paying any real price for them. We
have all been seduced into various multi-level marketing systems
of politics where we are standing AmWay up against Shaklee or
MaryKay up against Avon and pretending we believe in their
products when really we are just hoping to get rich ourselves.
(Pity the fool who first suckered ME into an AmWay pitch!).
On the surface, "stopping online piracy" and "protecting IP"
sound like *good things*... and from our technorati
perspective, one would think that any educated/intelligent
person (which describes many though not all of our political
leaders) could see the second order consequences, but in fact
they are trained not to look beyond the first order effects (or
second if the law in question is promoted by their rivals).
Few if any laws under consideration are easily questioned on
their first-order merits, it is always second or third order
implications which make them horrible laws. I suspect our
legislators are masters at crafting laws whose real impact are
neither in their first nor their second-order effects. Those
are too easy to rally support against. And those that fit that
profile are probably there to distract us from the ones that
really matter, being passed quietly in the shadow of the high
profile ones, or as riders on the ones they *can* bully through.
Theirs is a war of attrition for us to lose, and we do.
It seems that the proponents of the laws craft them with obvious
first-order effects that are at least delectable to their own
constituents and probably to most of the population but whose
second or third order effects are carefully crafted to result in
power shifts toward themselves personally, or at least to their
political party (i.e. Dem/Pub) or sub-party (e.g.
tea-baggers)and/or various partially hidden agendas.
All (at least Dem/Pub) are interested in what big business is
interested in. I personally don't want to see the individual
artists (musicians, actors, writers, directors, maybe even
producers) lose their livelihood over online piracy. On the
other hand, I really would like the same people NOT to be
beholden to large corporations to maintain their viability in
the first place. Did Capitol Records make the Beatles or
vice-versa? And why would the Beatles form Apple Records
themselves? And where did all the money flow? And what of
Capitol Media Group (or Apple Records) today? And what of the
Stones, Decca and the Universal Media Group? Who cares? Just
get offa my cloud!
So I (and obviously our legislators) are quick to support
actions which protect the interest of the artists even though
those interests have already been subordinated to large media
conglomerates. Do any of the legislators crafting (or
supporting) PIPA/SOPA understand that they are undermining some
important things beyond the piracy of intellectual property?
Surely many understand it very well and promote it anyway...
their interests are apparently somehow furthered by undermining
the interests of "we the people", if not also the true creators
of the intellectual property they claim to be protecting. Could
they admit that? Why would they (except in the smoke-filled back
rooms where they and their kind broker these things)? And if
they manage to give us what we think we want on the surface, why
would we shine a light into those rooms? Occupy seems at least
be getting out their flashlights and practicing with them, if
not yet cracking open those doors.
How do our own representatives stand in this game? I am less
interested in whether my representatives align with me on all
principles, but rather that they be truly principled in their
alignments. The non-partisan self-styling of Occupy seems to
support this. The many liberal/progressives who are not afraid
to question Obama's actions support this. In a very lame way,
the mud-slinging the conservatives are festing with right now
supports this.
All is not lost... yet.
- Steve
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