SOPA Hearings Stacked In Favor of Pro-SOPA Lobby 302
Adrian Lopez writes "Techdirt reports that 'apparently, the folks behind SOPA are really scared to hear from the opposition. We all expected that the Judiciary Committee hearings wouldn't be a fair fight. In Congress, they rarely are fair fights. But most people expected the typical "three in favor, one against" weighted hearings. That's already childish, but it seems that the Judiciary Committee has decided to take the ridiculousness to new heights. We'd already mentioned last week that the Committee had rejected the request of NetCoalition to take part in the hearings. At the time, we'd heard that the hearings were going to be stacked four-to-one in favor of SOPA. However, the latest report coming out of the Committee is that they're so afraid to actually hear about the real opposition that they've lined up five pro-SOPA speakers and only one "against."' Demand Progress is running an online petition against such lopsided representation."
It seems very lopsided to me. (Score:4, Interesting)
It seems that this is hideously lopsided. One out of the six speakers being openly against the bill is an outrage!
Given how much has no doubt been paid by companies for their representation, that sixth person is a bit of a slap in the face. They should take action immediately, and refuse to pay their representatives.
(More seriously, American politics is becoming a textbook on how not to represent the people.)
Fallen (Score:3, Interesting)
It should be a fun hearing (Score:5, Interesting)
I know Conyers (D), Coble (R), Sensenbrenner (R) and Berman (D) and others are basically owned by the entertainment industry so there will be a total kiss-ass fest between them and the industry reps.
Jackson-Lee (D), Congress' most "entertaining" member since the departure of Cynthia McKinney, also is on the MAFIAA's side. We might get to see a supremely ignorant and downright mean tirade directed at the one person testifying against SOPA. If she does go off the deep end again, expect her to find some way to bring race into the issue. Who knows, we could get another gem like "two Vietnams" or
Lofgren (D) is the only one on the committee that know has expressed some apprehension at the vast expansion of copyright. It'll be interesting if she actually tries to put the interests of the people first.
Re:Congress, our representatives? (Score:5, Interesting)
What, you want him to fly coach? And where the fuck were you when every other president went on vacation via Air Force One?
Re:Congress, our representatives? (Score:3, Interesting)
Not only that but they should compare Obama's time on vacation to GWB's.
About the only consolation... (Score:4, Interesting)
in this mess is that if SOPA really ends up being as bad as it is currently, its powerful enough to use AGAINST big media.
Warner Brothers links to a Youtube video? Google should file a SOPA complaint against them. After a few such episodes, file for a site takedown and payment blocking to shut down WBs internet presence. EIther WB pays a heavy price in the market, or Google gets a court precedent weakening SOPA. Same goes for CNBC CNN, Fox or any of the other big media sites.
Even better, when the politicians who vote for this farce post infringing material on their own websites or their campaigns' websites, use the same approach. Sue their campaigns out of existence.
Re:Vote third party (Score:4, Interesting)
libertarianism (note the lowercase initial letter) is quite reasonable. The Libertarian party isn't. And isn't libertarian.
I'm not certain that libertarianism is an acceptable political choice, but it is reasonable and defensible. This is not true of Libertarianism.
The government is too large and too intrusive in the lives of citizens is the message of libertarianism. This isn't at all the same as "The government shouldn't interfere with whatever I want to do." But it's headed towards that, even though all sensible people would stop before it got that far.
N.B.: communism (note, again, the lowercase initial letter) is also quite reasonably defensible. And not totally inconsistent with libertarianism...though there are obvious points of conflict. But traditional communism didn't scale. Even a village was larger than it's optimal size.
Question: What is a reasonable social system for a civilization where only 20% of the populace need to work to produce the goods used by the rest of the civilization? Does this change if the number declines to 15%? 10%? 5%? 1%? Nobody?
This is the current problem. If we can solve energy requirements, the percentage of the populace that will need to hold jobs is going to be declining. It has already declined tremendously, even though this is being masked by various societal mechanisms.
Question: What are the implications of the military increasingly deploying robot soldiers?