Fight On!

The Blackout Day is over. But the fight goes on.

The entertainment industry put out an advertisement on one of the MSNBC programs Wednesday evening. I caught it at Madre's while waiting for my dinner I ordered at the local bar and grill. From what I can tell, the commercial was a light bulb burning out, or being smacked by someone. I heard no words, but that was because Madre always turns off the sound when we are talking (I get too distracted by the television when I am trying to talk). The commercial, I suppose, means nothing in the long run, except that MSNBC supports CLOACA. Well, duh.

This is part of the entertainment industry's campaign to neutralize the message their enemies are trying to convey in Blackout Day. Another was some electric billboard in Times Square. The irony is that News Corporation sponsored the billboard. Yeah, the murdochists want you to support America's creative community so that they can further siphon your money into their international coffers. Thank you, America's creative community — suckers!

It is evident that Blackout Day was a success, as the issue has made it before the public as it never has before, as both the commercial and the public media had been too busy with the presidential elections and some nonexistent pipeline out West to give CLOACA the notice it deserves. And, more senators and representatives in Congress have backed out of sponsoring CLOACA, even though its chief sponsor still insists on fighting. It does not do to anger your Internet-dependent constituents, who can vote you out of office no matter how much money the entertainment industry contributes.

And yet, the fight continues, as the entertainment industry blindly and angrily fights on for CLOACA, regarding Blackout Day in the same light as everything the industry itself does — as a stunt. The entertainment industry sure as sugar will NOT talk to the Internet/electronics industry, not matter how much a now-enlightened Senator Feinstein tries to bring them together. The entertainment industry also swears that it won't donate anymore to the Obama presidential campaign — meaning that it will donate to nobody, since the industry abhors Republicans — even though Obama dutifully coughed up a copyright czar to fight for their interests. Among the reasons for the entertainment industry's refusal:

[W]e make 24. We don't make national security problems.

To translate that amazing gorp, 24 is a television series about national security and espionage broadcast during the last decade. What a television show has to do with the defense of our country is a mystery.

What makes this all the more galling and bilious is that this is a struggle between knowledge and ignorance, as understood even by those whose livelihoods depend on our being entertained:

How is this possible? Because the divide over SOPA/PIPA isn't political, it's between those who understand how the internet works and those who don't, those who see opportunities for growth and innovation and those who fear change and are holding on to old business models for dear life.

Seriously, we have a long and painful fight here, because the American people let themselves be governed by the Stupid, entertained by the Stupid, and educated by the Stupid. And what does that make the American people? Go on, take it to its logical end. Then change your attitude and join us to keep the Internet free.