Today, January 18, 2012, sites all over the internet will be blacking out to protest and try to mobilize more people to speak out against this bill coming up in the Senate next week – S. 968: the Protect IP Act (PIPA) – in an attempt to let U.S. lawmakers know how much opposition there is. WordPress.org, Wikipedia, and even WordPress.com, Google, Yahoo, will be participating in the blackout to raise awareness and spur you to action.
The proposed U.S. legislation (SOPA/PIPA) that threatens Internet freedom borders on some ludicrous insanity. How’s any thinking being comfortable in sending a bill to the U.S. Senate that if passed would put publishing freedom severely at risk, and could shut down entire sites at the whim of these multinational, big money, media companies? Fight for the Future created this nifty video to sum it all up better than I can.
When this fight is over, in the same vain that people fought for the Separation of State and Church, it should become imperative for us to consider a new excision – Separation of State and Corporations.
Why are corporations gallivanting around State Capitol making deals with government officials we put there to work for us? If the defenders of the free market system stay true to their own principles in the land of the free, then Lobbying in itself should become a criminal offense. Is this Communist USSR or China? Come on people! Sometimes I wonder if this is the same USA that threatens other countries about freedom of expression.
Day in and day out we come to understand that, the American voice around the world and in America, is only the voice of the top 400 people whose wealth is more than the bottom 150 million Americans. The war of the classes is on. Was Marx perhaps right?
Here on filmclique.com, we want to participate in the protest as well. Sorry to take away your daily fix of great black film web content, but this bill threatens to do that on a much wider scale. You don’t want that, do you?
More importantly, we are making it possible for you to participate in the protest. I hope that a significant number of you will join in this protest. Publishing freedom is a right we must protect!
So whatever you decide to do about this bill, please take a few minutes to head over to americancensorship.org and take action. It only takes a few moments of your time to be an agent of change! That’s it! Easy-peasy activism right at your fingertips
