To:       Doc Searls - dsearls@cyber.law.harvard.edu

Cc:       Dave Winer - dave.winer@gmail.com

Cc:       Glenn Greenwald - GGreenwald@salon.com

Cc:       Bill Domhoff - domhoff@whorulesamerica.net

Cc:       Jeff Jarvis - jeff@buzzmachine.com

Cc:       Jay Rosen - jr3@nyu.edu

Cc:       Ken Doctor - kdoctor@gmail.com

Cc:       Dean Starkman - dean@deanstarkman.com

Cc:       Paul Krugman - (Address unknown, please forward)

Cc:       Clay Shirky - (Address unknown, please forward)

From:  Doug Skoglund - skoglund@pdmsb.com

Date:   Sunday, Dec 18, 2011 

Subject: My Way LII - My Rant...

Well, well, well -- thirty plus  years into the Personal Computer/Internet age and the shit is beginning to hit the fan -- how come it took so long??

I, of course, am referring to SOPA, as described so eloquently by Doc Searls, "If you hate Big Government, fight SOPA."

Nobody who opposes Big Government and favors degregulation should favor the Stop Online Piracy Act, better known as SOPA, or H.R. 3261. It's a big new can of worms that will cripple use of the Net, slow innovation on it, clog the courts with lawsuits, employ litigators in perpetuity and deliver copyright maximalists in the "content" business a hollow victory for the ages.

A few years back, a former government official confidentially issued a warning to a small group I was part of, which favored some kind of lawmaking around technology. While this isn't a verbatim quote, it's pretty close, because it has been burned in my mind ever since: "In the course of my work I have met with nearly every member of Congress. And I can tell you that, with only a handful of exceptions, there are two things none of them understand. One is economics and the other is technology. Now proceed."

Know-nothing lawmakers are doing exactly that with SOPA. As Joshua Kopstein says, "Dear Congress, It's No Longer OK To Not Know How The Internet Works."

SOPA is a test for principle for members of Congress. If you wish to save the Internet, vote against it. If you wish to fight Big Government, vote against it. If you wish to protect friends in the "content" production and distribution business at extreme cost to every other business in the world, vote for it. If you care more about a few businesses you can name and nothing about all the rest of them -- which will be whiplashed by the unintended consequences of a bill that limits what can be done on the Internet while not comprehending the Internet at all, vote for it.

Sorry, Doc, but that is the biggest bunch of Bull Shit you have written lately. Obviously, SOPA needs to be rejected; however, the problem has absolutely nothing to do with Government, Big or Small -- it has to do with us, you and me and all the rest of the citizens of the United States -- WE are the government.

Because of our individual selfish interests, WE have allowed the creation and installation of a completely broken system (and you know damn well what I mean) and it has been festering for well over 15 years since Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson ruled that Microsoft was an illegal monopoly and should be split in two.

And none of you guys want to talk about it -- and talk is the only way to finding some kind of reasonable resolution to all the problems that have been created.

Actually, I agree with something you wrote further down.

We don't need SOPA. What we do need is for Congress -- along with lawmakers and regulators everywhere, right down to public utilities commissions and town councils -- to at least begin to understand what the Internet is, and what it does for everybody, before it starts making laws protecting one business at the expense of all the rest.

However, Congress needs to get more involved in the entire process in order to unravel the spider web created by Bill Gates and Company (AKA: All those other millionaires/billionaires). BTW, please note that when Paul Krugman talks about that upper 0.1% of the population, he never gives names.

Any attempt to solve small portions of the problem will end in failure without a good understanding of the entire problem -- good old common sense should tell us that. 

Dave Winer, nailed it in his comment:

SOPA might be the fastest way to get the Congress we need.

Because the disconnect here isn't with the members of Congress, it's with the voters who keep sending the same ignorant people to Washington every two years. 

What better way to politicize the electorate, to show us all how important it is to have adequate representation in Washington to make sure stuff like this doesn't happen.

The failure is with us. We forgot that we have the power here.

And, we need to start talking with each other.

To be continued (I Hope)

Doug Skoglund skoglund@pdmsb.com

This page posted at http://ifihadmyway.com/myway052.htm

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