Lawmakers Intent On Approving SOPA, PIPA 513
snydeq writes "U.S. Congress appears likely to move forward with SOPA and PIPA, despite widespread opposition, IDGNS reports. The U.S. Senate is expected to begin floor debate on PIPA shortly after senators return to D.C. on Jan. 23, and supporters appear to have the votes to override a threatened filibuster. Some opponents of the bills hold out hope: 'We're optimistic that if members really understood the Internet architecture and cybersecurity measures, they would not support SOPA as written. Instead, members who are really committed to combatting online piracy would look for effective ways to do that without compromising cybersecurity or the open architecture of the Internet,' said a CCIA spokesperson. Others remain doubtful that Congress will come to this understanding."
Freedom (Score:5, Insightful)
You are free to do as we tell you. Buy BUY BUY....
Understanding? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it's pretty naïve to think that SOPA passing is an issue of understanding, as though lawmakers wouldn't consider it if they knew anything about technology.
The vast majority or these people have already been bought and paid for by the entertainment industry. Their technological knowledge is irrelevant. They need to be removed from office, not educated.
Re:Freedom (Score:5, Insightful)
lately, everything our "leaders" do sucks
Re:Can't wait (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Can't wait (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Can't wait (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd love to see Google de-list ALL SOPA/PIPA supporting organisations, even if its just for a day.
Amazon could stop selling products from the same people.
Re:Freedom (Score:5, Insightful)
This legislation, which is so tilted against the interests of the vast majority of the populace
I don't know how much more evidence it is going to take before people stop listening to the propaganda and start facing reality.
They don't care.
Representative government is a myth. It's a contradiction; there are rulers (those who govern) and there are subjects (those who are governed). Guess which one you are? [youtube.com]
Re:Freedom (Score:5, Insightful)
Congress understands the Internet just fine. They don't use it much, but seriously, they get it. The issue here is not ignorance or stupidity, but loyalty. They owe favors to powerful lobbies, and those favors include restrictive legislation that will pull the claws right off the Internet and return the technological landscape back to a state where specific old business models were extremely profitable.
They understand the Internet, and they want to make it go away. For want of that ability, they want to make it so useless that it may as well be gone. They pay lip service to its importance because of its popularity, but since they don't rely upon it themselves they simply don't buy in.
To modify a popular quote...don't attribute to ignorance that which obviously stems from malice.
dangerous because it will be used at the fringes (Score:3, Insightful)
Whoever votes for this, their ISPs should disconnect their household from the internet entirely.
Some people on slashdot are saying things like, "this could end up disconnecting youtube!" But that's just the problem: it won't. Youtube is huge, everyone knows about it, nobody is going to want to cut it off. And that's where the problem lies: this legislation will be used only against less popular sites on the fringes and the margins - things the average DWTS watching idiot doesn't care about. So there will never be significant public support against it. THAT is why it's dangerous.
Re:Freedom (Score:5, Insightful)
QFT. They don't understand SOPA, don't want to understand. What they do understand is someone is giving tons of money to pass a bill.
Business as usual in Congress.
What I would like to see happen is repealing all the extra copyright legislation such as the DMCA and not passing any more. Let the content producers use the existing system to sue copyright infringers. Our existing copyright law works. It has teeth. It just requires things such as "evidence" and "due process," which is an annoyance to Hollywood. However, I doubt this will ever happen.
Racketeering shakedown (Score:5, Insightful)
The government is shaking down the Internet related businesses, and that's what these laws are aimed at I think. The politicians are looking at Google, Yahoo, Amazon, etc., and asking themselves a question: WHAT THE FUCK? Why aren't these putzes paying us the racket money like the rest of them? Of-course those businesses are also paying something that has to do with taxes, but there is so much money there (and everybody knows about it), that the politicians want more than just tax optimization/evasion money, they want REAL money, they want - "hey, you have a nice business going here, it would be a shame if something was to happen to your entire business model and you were shut down" money.
That, and also of-course they want the RIAA and MPAA money and they want ISP money and they want your money and they want to be able to shut down the Internet because it's scaring them - just look at the way Ron Paul support grew because of the Internet.
So you have too much freedom - and that's what politicians want to take away and I had a long [slashdot.org] discussion [slashdot.org] about the fact that every single law that politicians push forward ends up reducing your freedoms and increases 'strength' of the government while weakening the individual liberties and the economy and the society of the nation, and even on this site people don't see this.
Here's What Needs To Happen. (Score:4, Insightful)
Some of you won't like this, but I hope you'll at least give this a hard consideration. The bottom line is that it's our fault.
For example, I know from the comments here over the years that some of you are complete partisans. I'm surprised that, even this early in this thread, we haven't already seen "It's the Evil Republicans(tm)," followed by, "no, it's the stupid Democrats," complete with scores that go up and down like a VU meter on a rap tune: troll, insightful, back to troll, then insightful, over and over, as each partisan group lashes out.
BOTH PARTIES ARE CORRUPT AND HAVE SOLD YOU OUT. This doesn't mean there aren't a few honest congresscritters running loose. But folks, there's a REASON why, during the primaries, candidates can call each other every name in the book, but once a nominee is selected, all of the losers magically say, "well, of course I'll support him/her! He/She is a fine person!"
It's all about the money and the power: Chairmanships in Congress, lucrative appointments, voting blocks and power brokers. This plays out every two years, and the best we can do is scream, "less filling/tastes great/less filling/tastes great," Dem vs. Repub over and over.
Here's the example that some of you really, really aren't going to like. I know (again, from reading comments) that there are some of you here who supported the Health Care bill, but who are vehemently opposed to SOPA. (For the record, I am in opposition to BOTH.) You can't have it both ways. Every reputable poll ever taken has shown that the American people were strongly opposed to that HealthCare bill, but there were some of you here who said, "yay!" when it passed. You called those who passed it, even knowing that they might be un-elected, "brave heroes."
(Or, a quick conservative example: Scott Brown wins Ted Kennedy's old seat in Mass, and right wingers rejoiced. A few months later, he voted for a treaty that the right wing hated. They attacked Brown and wondered why he had "betrayed" them. What they should have asked was, "what do the people of Massachusetts want?" If he was reflecting their desires, they need to SHUT UP. He represents THEM, not a party or an ideology.)
So, SOPA. If you can convince enough Congresscritters that enough of US care to un-elect them if they vote for it, it can be stopped. But if they (and more importantly, their strategists) convince themselves that they can finesse it, or find some other issue that will cause you to hold your nose and re-elect them, they'll vote for SOPA.
In plain English: some of you who hate the "Repugs" may have to vote for one in November, if your Dem congressman votes for SOPA. Will you do that?
Likewise, my conservative friends: will you vote for a "Demoncrat" if your beloved Repub congresscreature votes for SOPA?
If the answer to either question is, "no" (or even just a little hesitation), you have only yourself to blame. That's the bottom line.
Re:business can use stuff like this to stop compet (Score:4, Insightful)
Gee, if someone wrote a program to automatically submit a claim against a site, and someone else wrote an extension to use that program to submit a claim against every single internet site on the planet, and many many people used it all at the same time, I wonder what would happen?
People would be arrested for filing false reports until everyone was too terrified to keep up the effort. Filing a false report is not a form of protest; protests are supposed to be held in free speech areas where nobody has to be bothered.
Re:Can't wait (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Can't wait (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Freedom (Score:5, Insightful)
In such a situation, there are a few options available:
1. Give up. Dont' do anything, just don't bother enforcing the law, and it it fall into obscurity.
2. Make it enforceable via draconian measures - get rid of the difficulties of fair trials and the need to gather evidence for the minor cases, and make the enforcement process as quick and cheap as possible. This does run the risk of punishing some innocent people, but that is the cost of catching all of the guilty.. That was the purpose of the DMCA: It wasn't practical to sue every site hosting a pirated file, so the DMCA allowed copyright holders to achieve much the same with nothing more than a quick email. SOPA takes the same approach a step further.
3. Decriminalisation. If everyone is breaking a law, and the government can't stop them, then accept that perhaps the law itsself is at fault and needs to be abandoned - possibly to be replaced with something more workable.
The currently popular approach with politicians around the world is option two.
felonies en masse (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, this is worse than usual--the definition of the willfulness requirement for criminal copyright, technically ambiguous for about a century, will make it absolutely clear that a massive percentage of the American population--even those who have never shared a file in their life--will be felons.
Re:One possibility (Score:5, Insightful)
There will be one good consequence of SOPA: The US will lose control of DNS.
Re:Can't wait (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not surprised... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Here's What Needs To Happen. (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, both are examples of government over-reaching, but one attempts to serve the public trust (quite imperfectly) while the other serves to enforce fascism on the US and the world at large.
Re:Can't wait (Score:4, Insightful)
No, because its about making a point. If Google starts to delist thing just because they disagree with something then where will it end.
Should they delist Apple because they're a competitor who condones slave labour in China?
Should they delist religions because they are evil, offensive and promote hatred?
Re:Freedom (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, Belgium didn't have a government for about a year.
Lucky bastards...
Apparently, the rest of the world doesn't need one. Our beloved WWW is ruled by the World Senate in Washington D.C. (Department of Commerce).
Just like we pay 5$ to MS for an Android device, covered by software patents that don't apply over here.
Re:One possibility (Score:5, Insightful)
Is that if SOPA gets passed that it could have positive consequences.
Yeah, like finally waking up a populace that's been asleep for many years. If this shit passes, the U.S.'s days are numbered. If you consider that a positive (and given the nature of our government, I absolutely fucking do) then that's probably about the only positive effect this shit is going to have.
You''ve got to be kidding! If you think SOPA and PIPA are going to "wake up" the populace, you need to adjust your medication. The Patriot Act was *welcomed* by many Americans. If the Patriot Act wasn't enough to wake people up, they're out for the night, bud. Yes, it's sad.
Good luck with that (Score:5, Insightful)
My recommendation? Focus on living a life where you don't feel the need to drown out the misery in copywrited content. I find most people fall back on movies/music/TV as a way to cope with and escape from the misery that is their day to day lives. Keep needless and unpleasant complications out of your life and to hell with the rest of the world.
Re:Freedom (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, the internet is right the opposite of what they'd probably want: A medium where anyone, anywhere, anytime can publish his information to anyone, anywhere, anytime. This is anathema to governments. By definition.
Government, also the US government, suffered blows from free press. More than one government tripped and fell over the opinion generated by the press. It's not coincidentally called the "fourth power" in a country.
Press now can be brought under control by various means. That doesn't apply to fully independent bloggers and self proclaimed reporters who do it for various, non-profit reasons. They're not dependent on money from government or corporations, and sometimes not even subject to the country's legislation they write about.
That is of course a threat to any government.
Re:Freedom (Score:4, Insightful)
In Texas, the legislature only meets ever other year. The less often the legislature is in session, the better is it for the people.
Re:It's time to take a historical approach... (Score:2, Insightful)
The actual endgame for the USA is a long decline into a has-been, with ever decreasing standard of living as we are more and more unable to compete in the modern world.
You say that like it's a bad thing. It's actually the best of the possible outcomes - that the US slowly declines in influence / avarice / resource hogging and learns to live with the rest of the planet.
Much worse (and, IMHO, more likely) outcomes go downhill from there. Look at all of the nonsense in the Iowa primaries - the ONLY demographic the "Republicans" have been courting are the evangelical Christians. Don't know about you but I don't think they're the most stable (nor the sharpest) of pencils in the drawer.
Hold on to your butts.
Re:One possibility (Score:5, Insightful)
I am anticipating a lot of positive consequences from SOPA. More funding for Internet-based businesses, more income for hosting companies from international customers and more interest from foreign companies in selling their products here.
I should probably mention that I don't live in the USA...
Re:Freedom (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Can't wait (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd love to see Google de-list ALL SOPA/PIPA supporting organisations, even if its just for a day.
Which will immediately followed by: BREAKING NEWS, Google Declared a Monopoly, Justice Department promises "steep fines"...
The government isn't going to sit idly by and let Google exact their influence if it diminishes their own. I wouldn't be surprised if something like that would qualify as a "terrorist act". $10 says that, if this actually occurs, our lawmakers refer to it as a "digital 9/11". I know they'll work the 9/11 rhetoric in there somewhere...
Re:Freedom (Score:5, Insightful)
Most Americans are suffering fro such a horible case of Stockholm syndrome, that they will never wake up or believe you.
You can see it perfectly here on /.
It's frothing over in the summary and article!
"If only I can change him, he wouldn't be such a bad person. I just need to get him to understand" while at the same time getting the crap beaten out of them daily.
People refuse to look at the actions and still believe the words.
Our government is very aware of the results of SOPA. This is their goal and plan.
Making them "understand" is exactly like trying to convince the abusive husband to stop what he's convinced is the proper behavior for his entire life.
You see it in the comments here as well, and arguing with such people is just as frustrating as trying to get your childhood female friend to leave the guy that beats her nightly but just won't leave because "Next time will be different"
She will actively fight any help you try to give her, since your "help" goes contrary to what she wants to believe.
So they put the blinders on and convince themselves that it's the government that doesn't understand the SOPA effects, and if only they can bring them around...
The one and only goal of SOPA, is so they can point at any random website they wish, and be 100% assured that website is performing criminal activity, because they made sure ALL websites are performing criminal activity.
SOPA never did and never will have squat to do with copyright or piracy or justice.
To the parent poster: Thank you for existing! At least there are a tiny handful of us who aren't suffering from this Stockholm affliction, and even if we are less than 1% of the population, it gladdens me to see there are still at least a few left.
It only pains me deeply to know what kind of country, and what type of people, we will be surrounded by and immersed in next month :{
Just like how a lot of Chinese citizens fully support their governments censorship, and there are not enough left against it to be able to do anything about it. We are now in a similar situation.
Re:It's time to take a historical approach... (Score:4, Insightful)
What "fundamental freedom" is being curtailed by SOPA?
- oh, just the first amendment rights (and every other human right as well, including ability to pursue happiness, to do business without being abused, everything).
SOPA is not about copyrights, it's not about patents, it's about government getting power to prevent free speech and business by government. Copyrights, etc., those are all excuses.
Re:Can't wait (Score:4, Insightful)
What do you suggest, then? I mean, short of armed rebellion?
I don't want to go to some megacorporations for help, either, but unfortunately, there is no other legal option. Our representatives have already told the few experts they even allowed to testify that they don't care what they say. What the fuck makes you think they give a shit about anything we say or do?
We don't have a voice in this fight. There are multiple petitions about this on Whitehouse.gov, the congressional switchboards have been blowing up, millions of emails have been sent to pretty much every representative, and has anything changed at all? NOPE.
So what option do we have? Do we just sit here and definitely get fucked tomorrow, or do we support Google and potentially get fucked later on? Either way we're getting fucked, no? Seems to me, then, that the best course of action is to focus on stopping the imminent fucking; we can worry about the potential fucking once SOPA and PIPA is out of the way...
Re:One possibility (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine the shit hitting the fan when the Congresscritters realize that SOPA is useless.
They don't care if their legislation is useless. They wrote what they were paid for and until they get paid again they don't give a $hit. "Your government at work for you"
Re:It's time to take a historical approach... (Score:4, Insightful)
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
- John F. Kennedy
Re:Can't wait (Score:5, Insightful)
Does the MPAA/RIAA block have more lobby-power than all those companies combined?
Yes, the MAFIAA gives more campaign money than the tech companies, but that's not all. There is another huge factor at work.
Once SOPA passes, precedent will have been set for censoring the Internet. With the MAFIAA taking most of the heat for the censorship wrap, the politicians can pass the bill under the guise of not understanding how the Internet works. Then, a year or two from now, they pass the law that lets them do the same for terr'rists. Actually, correction, they attach an amendment of the PATRIOT act to the defense budget bill, and they do it in the panic'd last minutes to avert a budget shutdown (that they fabricated). It will happen on a Friday, or the Thursday before a holiday weekend, to give the public he whole weekend to forget.
Only thing I might be wrong about is the "year or two" part. Things have been moving faster and faster -- might happen before Summer's out.
Re:It's time to take a historical approach... (Score:2, Insightful)
Buddy, John Adams was imprisoning newspaper editors for writing unfavorable editorials. The Revolution itself may have had high-minded idealists in it, but they weren't even close to the majority of the Founding Fathers. By any objective metric, this country has become much freer and richer over time. Yes, even now. There are plenty of good fights to still fight - military detention, the death penalty, the use of torture, copyright reform, health care reform, immigration reform, SOPA - plenty of them. Yet we're living in the good times.
There never was some glorious principled past. Crooks have been running the show since 1776, and it's nothing unique to America.
Re:Freedom (Score:5, Insightful)
You cannot make the old model profitable. You cannot get the geany back in the bottle.
You most certainly can stuff the geany [sic] back in the bottle. Have you noticed how, over the past few years, most people have switched to using web apps instead of desktop software? Have you noticed how demands for faster Internet connections coupled with FCC regulations and court decisions have allowed a small group of ISPs to become critical to the workings of the Internet? All it will take is the right legislation to turn the Internet into a massive cable TV system, where decisions about what is or is not allowed on the network are made in board rooms by small groups of powerful executives.
The turning point was when people became scared of P2P distribution systems. If networks like Gnutella had been better developed, things would be different -- congress would have to literally destroy the Internet to return the power to the old media executives. Instead, we have a reliance on easy-to-regulate centralized systems, and the media companies only need to conquer or destroy those systems to reclaim their power. The legislation that follows SOPA will be designed to help those companies run the services that people depend on, so that consumers can go back to being consumers and stop trying to become part of the distribution system.
Re:Freedom (Score:4, Insightful)
Nothing attracts amoral sociopaths more than centralized, concentrated political power. As long as those types of people exist they will always be drawn towards politics.
Re:Freedom (Score:3, Insightful)
Mike Godwin's worry is coming true. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Freedom (Score:4, Insightful)
And it's worse than that now. Once thees bills pass the government will have handed over the reigns to the mega media thugs and content providers. No government, No judges, No Due process. No recourse. No Freedom
Re:It's time to take a historical approach... (Score:4, Insightful)
SOPA will eventually be used to suppress sites that expose the corruption in DC.
Re:One possibility (Score:2, Insightful)
The USA will force an equivalent law down the throat of your government, as well.
The threats are probably already being made to your governors, in fact.
Re:Freedom (Score:3, Insightful)
On the subject, Texas is doing fine for itself. Outside of some crazy conservatives and the oppressive summers, it's a good state with a lot of good non-unionized work to be found. Dirty cities? Crime ridden? Have you seen LA? Oakland? Every single city has its good parts and bad parts. You cannot generalize a state by a few square miles in huge cities. Seriously, it just doesn't even make sense.
I could rant about typical Northerners with their undying disgust of the South or their prevalent smugness, but it just isn't worth it. You know why? We are all Americans. Keep that in mind next time you bash some part of the country you know so little about.
Re:Good "Why SOPA is bad for non-geeks" article? (Score:3, Insightful)
"What sites are at the greatest risk? Sites where people are expressing themselves...." That's why it has bipartisan support. Congress hates that. Normal people will oppose it, but anyone powerful enough to keep themselves in power through censorship will take full advantage of that power.
That is the main reason I am opposed to it, the inevitable abuse of power that seems to follow from every seemingly innocent government power grab.
Re:The other 3 have failed, break out the 4th box. (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess it's really handy for them then that they can throw you in some hidden prison forever for just saying that now. By saying that, you could probably be considered by them, a "terrorist". It was no accident they passed that. Nor is it an accident that they plug their ears and want to establish as much control as possible over the Internet or even destroy it by unleashing these thugs loose on it with the ability to destroy it.
This is all about domination and control by the rulers of this country. They watched the Arab Spring and the riots in London and it has them scared. But they are dangerous when they are scared. They are now taking the steps they need to take to preserve their way of life and control over us all. This is no accident, they aren't playing dumb, they are doing as they are told to do by those who control them.
Now here is where it gets interesting. What do we the people do about this? Absolutely nothing, is what we will do. Collectively, we are dumb, fat and happy. We will not for such a puny concept as "freedom" risk our comfortable lives. Sure there are a few disgruntled people, but this isn't 1776, and we aren't going to have a Revolution.
Your lone gunman theory isn't going to work. They will simply just cover it up. They have proven themselves quite capable of controlling the media in this country. The Internet is the only leak they need to plug, and this SOPA bullshit, is just the excuse they need to stick their foot in the door, and then turn off the mechanisms. Once they destroy the free flow of information, they survive. It's desperate, and destructive to humanity, but once you understand that this is indeed a war on us the people, versus those who wish to dominate us, you will understand that sacrificing the Internet means nothing to them.
I will stop here before I end up in a cell next to you. It's a God damned sad day in America when I have to ponder what I am about to post because I fear I might end up in a prison with no rights, or ability to defend myself. Make no mistake, we have cross a line recently. It's official, we are the evil empire. We are the modern Nazis.
What it boils down to is this, once laws become so far gone, twisted and evil, one has not only the moral right to ignore them, but they have the moral duty to resist them to the death. We are talking about pussy Americans though. We've let so much slide, that we have proven to be a collective bunch of dumb pussies. If our founding fathers could see us now, they would cut their own ball sacks off so that they didn't sire descendants this cowardly.
Think about it, we have this "Tea Party", which is a laughing joke at the original Boston Tea Party. Our founding fathers did "terrorist" acts in Boston harbor on tea shipments because they had a tax on them. It was violence over Taxation without Representation, and it's our history of how we carved our freedoms out in blood from the British. Do you think we would get off our asses now over Taxation without Representation? We don't get off our asses when our Constitution is systematically shredded before our eyes.
We are too dumb to see it happening, and even if we do see it, we are a big bunch of pussy cowards and just let it happen. To me this defines us as a people who are collectively a bunch of pussies. And I am not talking about violence, hell, I am talking about how half of us don't even FUCKING VOTE. You talked about the boxes, well damn it, why fuck with the last one, when the other 3 have hardly been touched? Do you seriously think you will have support on the 4th when these pussies will not even lift up a bleat with the other three?
Just whine about it all at the kitchen table, forget the Internet, it's fucked. Go about your life, enjoy what comforts you have while you have them. You are in the Matrix and there is no escape.
Re:felonies en masse (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The other 3 have failed, break out the 4th box. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the problem. Vapid, ignorant, uninterested people who don't even bother to illuminate the vast empty place between their ears. You mention Nazis. So let's do this by the numbers. WHY WERE NAZIS BAD? Because they were Fascists and slaughtered a bunch of innocent folks. What is a Fascist? Well, Mussolini, a Fascist, said its the corporate state. Why is this bad? Well when a nation's corporations determine the fate of that nation and its people all kind of predictable things, bad things, begin to happen. You see profit is a great thing to motivate people, but as a guiding target for a society, it can lead to dark things. At first everything is great and the society enjoys explosive growth. But soon, the system begins to cannibalize itself. Ultimately the wheels come off, it crashes and explodes, and often a lot of people die. That why we don't like fascism. If you want to know how to tell a Fascist State here are some signs [rense.com] to look at. If you've not been in a coma for the last decade, you may notice that modern day America now has something in common with Germany and sadly its not the love of beer. So your Nazi comment as clever as you might have thought it was echoes a sad and frightening irony.
As for soup kitchens and bread lines, are you brain damaged? Here, try these sites: People in line at foodbank [mlive.com], The State of Poverty in America [worldhunger.org], What replaced the Soup Kitchens [seekingalpha.com], The real state of Unemployment in America Today [theatlantic.com], Tent Cities Sprouting up all over the country [theeconomi...seblog.com]. One in five children in America today goes to bed hungry. One in six people in this country suffers chronic malnutrition. One in eight is out of work and can't find employment. Entire regions of America have been depressed for so long, they now have names like "The Rust Belt." One in seven people in this country is saved from hunger by food stamps or federal food programs. There are scenes all over the country of people lined up for blocks waiting for food from food banks. There are shanty towns and tent cities across the nation of homeless people who were formerly middle class, and tens of millions of middle class Americans who live a single pay check away from becoming homeless. Food banks are pleading for support, they've never before been required to support so many people and many are on the verge of collapse. Are you so blind and poorly informed that you don't even see the profound state of social collapse around you? Are you sleep walking? Medicated? Either you have no mind or you have no heart, please which is it?
As for the ruling class, the top 400 people in this country now have the same wealth as the bottom HALF of the country, over 160,000,000 people. The imbalance of wealth in America today is greater THAN ANY TIME IN HUMAN HISTORY. That is the ruling class. They have hijacked our government. They have hijacked the media and our sources of free information. They have robbed us of our Bill of Rights and damaged our form of government to the very edge of its ability to be repaired. They are working hard to rob us of our last best hope for human freedom and development, the internet.
I don't advocate violence, and never have, but I tell you now, I am plenty angry. I pray that we find our way back without the spilling of blood, but I have a hard time imagining a bright future with so many like you walking the street today. You scare me more than the despots.