Mike Masnick comments on an opinion piece by Douglas Wood asserting ‘The Party of We’ is already in control.
…and the least understood in many of the discussions around what’s happening online. In the past, with traditional systems, if you didn’t agree with something, you would just protest.
But if you look at what’s been happening lately, when the public doesn’t agree with something -official secrecy, draconian copyright laws, censorship, privacy violations, etc.- rather than just protesting, they’re simply routing around those things. It’s an incredibly important point. They’re not protesting by saying “this will not stand”. They’re protesting by saying “your laws don’t matter, because we can simply route around them”. That’s a hell of a lot more powerful than most people realize.
Angela Natividad hoists that all the way up the pole: It’s a battle for the soul of all of us.
“When you read this, take into account that there’s no room left to behave as if human equality is a subjective thing. There is no more space in an increasingly connected world to say that what a tyrant, a tyrannous government or a tyrannous enterprise does with its dependents is its own business.
“Faster communications makes territory less important and distances insignificant. That means institutionalized repression and blows to free thinking, to the liberty that sparks innovation, becomes everybody’s business. The world is now too small for this.
“I’m going to say something cheesy now, but I think it has to be said this way. Technology is where it is today because of higher numbers of ever more ambitious hackers fighting odds, rigid corporate standards, suspected limitations and attempted castrations of the Internet’s liberty. They are dogged, they self-organize and recognize no authority but the merits of what works, cutting away what doesn’t, and we have all advanced because of it.
“In this world and tomorrow’s, that hacker culture belongs to everyone: people with access to the tools to fight governments, self-organize and speak out against human injustices without having to go through prescribed channels.
“The channels that matter now belong to us. Use them wisely, tirelessly and fearlessly. United, able and armed with knowledge, we can make civilization a kinder, more efficient machine, worthy of its name and richer because of the dynamism that serves one god: freedom. The freedom to think, be educated, feel safe, ask hard questions and decide our destinies.
“This is what Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan, Yemen and other countries, newly inflamed, are fighting for now. This is what we should be defending every day, even if we feel like it’s not our fight.
“It’s always our fight.”
In this world and tomorrow, live and uncensored:
“Christians protect fellow Muslim protesters as they prostrated themselves to pray is worth bearing in mind while Mubarak talks his nonsense about not being able to leave lest the roiling mob destroy the country.”
I was there! they placed newspapers and towels on the floor so we wouldn’t pray on the hot asphalt. I love Egyptian Christians and although I am Muslim I would die defending any one of them.
