The end of free? Please, let it be!
<!--- Ed.Note: quotes edited out ---!>
From: psypete[at]windstone[dot]darktech[dot]org
To: dmca_discuss[at]lists[dot]microshaft[dot]org
Date: 12 Aug 2002 18:11:19 -0400
Subject: Re: [DMCA_Discuss] The end of free? Please, let it be!
i agree with andy. the internet was not created for commerce. if anything, the original intent of what could be considered the internet of today was an experiment. the DOD had it's fun, but ultimately did not shape the internet. the universities did. and they weren't looking for a great new source of funding. it was trying to improve our lives, our technology. communication through wires. contact. not commerce. i'm not going to argue that a company or industry doesn't have the right to use the internet, but they nor the government certainly have no right to tell us whether WE have the right to use it or not, as citizens. the internet is OURS, NOT THEIRS. and we control it, not them. they merely control how we should be punished when we do not hand over our rights quickly enough.
now, think about this for a second: why was our country founded? well, to escape the constriction of a monarchy. to give ourselves as much choice and freedom as was possible. we fought for our freedom and won it, and seem to have failed at keeping that freedom. today, a business can put me in jail for a VERY long time if they decide to. i am so hopelessly dependent on products and electricity and entertainment AND THE INTERNET that i now i have no way of attaining it on my own. i have to depend on a greedy corporation to allow me my 5 minutes of use. and if i'm not helping the corporation, or at least behaving as they like, i don't get my 5 minutes. did you ever think that the new millennium would bring companies that would stop you from using your computer if you don't buy their artist's latest album? i sure as fuck didn't.
i think we should take over. Fuck the CEO's. Fuck the Vice Presidents. Fuck the executives. Fuck the companies. Fuck the lawyers. Fuck all those things in our society that stop us from doing what we could be doing without them in the first place. so you have stock in microsoft? get rid of it. or buy it all up and close them down when you get enough power. so your 12 year old son bought the new Linkin Park album? take it back to the store, demand a refund IN CASH, and never buy a cd again. oh, and you just rented the new rugrats DVD online? take it back to blockbuster and demand your money back. that alone won't stop them, though. that's just business though, and it won't stop them from being powerful. you need to attack. take down their phone lines. cut off their power. and for god's sake, stop building their networks! every day you sit in your cubicle and fix their shitty proprietary operating system's network issues you're giving them a little bigger piece of the pie. STOP managing their websites. STOP setting up their routers. if you work on a backbone or isp or telco, find the leased lines the corporations are using and shut them down. but hit the right corporations.
oh, and while we're on the subject of an uprising, let's talk politics. we all know nobody is on our side up there on The Hill. nobody in congress or the house cares about us. they don't care what we want. they don't even care that it's unfair. they are just as bad as the corporations. lackeys, if you will. taking bribes to let a bill pass. giving themselves more and more power, much like in the patriot act. most of them aren't even remotely intelligent, or capable of making a rational thought. and what's with the fucking age limit? how the fucking hell is ANY of these bastards supposed to make an informed, up-to-date decision? most of them are from an era when anything that was unknown was evil, where people like hackers were a mysterious force whose sole purpose was to defraud and antagonize the general public. well, i've got news for you fuckos: our generation is FULL of hackers! we have been born and bread off of breadboards and pci cards. our blood flows with 1's and 0's. we are the digital ones, the ones which know that which you could never know. and you hate us for it. we, as young individuals living in a society that does not care for us, feel abandoned. we feel we have been left in the rain to soak in our own overdose of information. and we can do nothing but learn. the law makers sit in ivory towers and tell us what's good for us, while we, the majority, try not to be stepped upon by laws which make no sense and the piles of power and corruption which you seem to bathe in as you force us into a corner. we do not do evil things! we do hurt anyone! we do not steal! we do not rape, pillage, or vandalize! AND YOU CALL US CRIMINALS! i say we kick all the morons out of office, and actually LOOK for people who have what it takes to make the correct decisions. right now elections are nothing but popularity contests. our votes don't even matter, on a national scale, yet we keep on going to the voting booths trying to make ourselves believe that we are doing the right thing, voting for the right person, yet we know nothing, see nothing, hear nothing, and god knows we speak nothing at all.
the media doesn't help, either. half of the dumbwits in this country that actually believe all the horse shit that's shoveled down their eager throats would probably pay tv shows like Access Hollywood even more money NOT to talk about anything of any importance. our televisions are now many americans' main source of information about the WORLD! and here we are, wondering if Chandler will do this or that with Monica doing the other. it's pathetic, how we idolize movie stars and characters in daytime soap operas, and would gladly follow them straight into hell if we thought we could get an extra 30 minutes of their show a week. the local "news" channels go on and on about a few people trapped in a well, while i'm still wondering whether or not the world is going to explode from all the hostilities between our country's government and seemingly everyone else's. the newspapers don't do any better of a job of keeping us informed about the truth. the truth about what is really happening to us due to all the insanity of politics and "law". does anyone else realize what our government has become? when you have near unanimous votes in the body of your government's law making system, you KNOW it is not fair. and what's really bad is that i didn't even have a clue the DMCA existed until it was passed! i didn't even have a chance, not one chance, to say whether or not I wanted it instated! that isn't fair! it's wrong! so you know what i say? FUCK the law. you want to pass these kinds of laws and expect ME to follow them when i didn't even have a say in them happening? FUCK YOU, GOVERNMENT! fuck your rights and rules and responsibilities. my government would rather protect a soul-less, nameless corporate entity and it's cash flow than me. none of us even WANT a war! it's our government that picks these fights! our government sticks it's big disgusting rude fucking face in the affairs of everyone else and then expects not to get fucked up when it gets in someone's face? i hope the terrorists come back, and hit the corporations. we can fix our government, maybe, at some point. but a corporation is evil. it exists to make profit. a LARGE profit. it feeds off of resources in order to make money. that money is used to make MORE money. all a big cycle of greed. and none of it matters. it simply rolls along, causing pain for whomever stands in it's way, with the executives sitting safely at the top reaping the rewards.
whose fault is it? ours. we let it happen, and continue to let it happen. does it matter? no. it simply needs to be stopped. we need to end the one-sidedness which has a hold over us. we have to stop thinking as consumers and start thinking as producers. that means we need to stop going to our jobs. we need to stop shopping at the supermarket. you go to work to make enough money to eat, right? and to have money to drive places, right? well, what if you made your own car? what if you made your own gas? what if you grew your own food? what if you were self-sustaining? it would be great, wouldn't it? well, why aren't you sustaining yourself? instead, you're really killing yourself. corporations are greedily evil because they think they HAVE to take our money to survive. they don't. they just need to plant their food and live their lives. what would you rather be doing: working for someone else, or yourself? don't lie to yourself and say that all this convenience is worth your life. you will die some day, but it doesn't have to be in a jail for the peer to peer file sharers of the world. it doesn't have to be in an electric chair made by extremist religious unintelligent bigots who think that they have to enforce their view of the world. you can die on your own terms, in your own time. people could still have a television, or a radio, in this kind of live-for-yourself society. open source programming is an example of the kind of freedom i talk of. when i make a program, i give it out for free. i don't ask anything in return. i simply do it because i'd like to help others and share. wouldn't you like to be part of that community? with our current government and society, you can't. so you need to change it. you need to go out and make your life what you want it to be. so go do it.
From: psypete[at]windstone[dot]darktech[dot]org
To: dmca_discuss[at]lists[dot]microshaft[dot]org
Date: 12 Aug 2002 18:11:19 -0400
Subject: Re: [DMCA_Discuss] The end of free? Please, let it be!
i agree with andy. the internet was not created for commerce. if anything, the original intent of what could be considered the internet of today was an experiment. the DOD had it's fun, but ultimately did not shape the internet. the universities did. and they weren't looking for a great new source of funding. it was trying to improve our lives, our technology. communication through wires. contact. not commerce. i'm not going to argue that a company or industry doesn't have the right to use the internet, but they nor the government certainly have no right to tell us whether WE have the right to use it or not, as citizens. the internet is OURS, NOT THEIRS. and we control it, not them. they merely control how we should be punished when we do not hand over our rights quickly enough.
now, think about this for a second: why was our country founded? well, to escape the constriction of a monarchy. to give ourselves as much choice and freedom as was possible. we fought for our freedom and won it, and seem to have failed at keeping that freedom. today, a business can put me in jail for a VERY long time if they decide to. i am so hopelessly dependent on products and electricity and entertainment AND THE INTERNET that i now i have no way of attaining it on my own. i have to depend on a greedy corporation to allow me my 5 minutes of use. and if i'm not helping the corporation, or at least behaving as they like, i don't get my 5 minutes. did you ever think that the new millennium would bring companies that would stop you from using your computer if you don't buy their artist's latest album? i sure as fuck didn't.
i think we should take over. Fuck the CEO's. Fuck the Vice Presidents. Fuck the executives. Fuck the companies. Fuck the lawyers. Fuck all those things in our society that stop us from doing what we could be doing without them in the first place. so you have stock in microsoft? get rid of it. or buy it all up and close them down when you get enough power. so your 12 year old son bought the new Linkin Park album? take it back to the store, demand a refund IN CASH, and never buy a cd again. oh, and you just rented the new rugrats DVD online? take it back to blockbuster and demand your money back. that alone won't stop them, though. that's just business though, and it won't stop them from being powerful. you need to attack. take down their phone lines. cut off their power. and for god's sake, stop building their networks! every day you sit in your cubicle and fix their shitty proprietary operating system's network issues you're giving them a little bigger piece of the pie. STOP managing their websites. STOP setting up their routers. if you work on a backbone or isp or telco, find the leased lines the corporations are using and shut them down. but hit the right corporations.
oh, and while we're on the subject of an uprising, let's talk politics. we all know nobody is on our side up there on The Hill. nobody in congress or the house cares about us. they don't care what we want. they don't even care that it's unfair. they are just as bad as the corporations. lackeys, if you will. taking bribes to let a bill pass. giving themselves more and more power, much like in the patriot act. most of them aren't even remotely intelligent, or capable of making a rational thought. and what's with the fucking age limit? how the fucking hell is ANY of these bastards supposed to make an informed, up-to-date decision? most of them are from an era when anything that was unknown was evil, where people like hackers were a mysterious force whose sole purpose was to defraud and antagonize the general public. well, i've got news for you fuckos: our generation is FULL of hackers! we have been born and bread off of breadboards and pci cards. our blood flows with 1's and 0's. we are the digital ones, the ones which know that which you could never know. and you hate us for it. we, as young individuals living in a society that does not care for us, feel abandoned. we feel we have been left in the rain to soak in our own overdose of information. and we can do nothing but learn. the law makers sit in ivory towers and tell us what's good for us, while we, the majority, try not to be stepped upon by laws which make no sense and the piles of power and corruption which you seem to bathe in as you force us into a corner. we do not do evil things! we do hurt anyone! we do not steal! we do not rape, pillage, or vandalize! AND YOU CALL US CRIMINALS! i say we kick all the morons out of office, and actually LOOK for people who have what it takes to make the correct decisions. right now elections are nothing but popularity contests. our votes don't even matter, on a national scale, yet we keep on going to the voting booths trying to make ourselves believe that we are doing the right thing, voting for the right person, yet we know nothing, see nothing, hear nothing, and god knows we speak nothing at all.
the media doesn't help, either. half of the dumbwits in this country that actually believe all the horse shit that's shoveled down their eager throats would probably pay tv shows like Access Hollywood even more money NOT to talk about anything of any importance. our televisions are now many americans' main source of information about the WORLD! and here we are, wondering if Chandler will do this or that with Monica doing the other. it's pathetic, how we idolize movie stars and characters in daytime soap operas, and would gladly follow them straight into hell if we thought we could get an extra 30 minutes of their show a week. the local "news" channels go on and on about a few people trapped in a well, while i'm still wondering whether or not the world is going to explode from all the hostilities between our country's government and seemingly everyone else's. the newspapers don't do any better of a job of keeping us informed about the truth. the truth about what is really happening to us due to all the insanity of politics and "law". does anyone else realize what our government has become? when you have near unanimous votes in the body of your government's law making system, you KNOW it is not fair. and what's really bad is that i didn't even have a clue the DMCA existed until it was passed! i didn't even have a chance, not one chance, to say whether or not I wanted it instated! that isn't fair! it's wrong! so you know what i say? FUCK the law. you want to pass these kinds of laws and expect ME to follow them when i didn't even have a say in them happening? FUCK YOU, GOVERNMENT! fuck your rights and rules and responsibilities. my government would rather protect a soul-less, nameless corporate entity and it's cash flow than me. none of us even WANT a war! it's our government that picks these fights! our government sticks it's big disgusting rude fucking face in the affairs of everyone else and then expects not to get fucked up when it gets in someone's face? i hope the terrorists come back, and hit the corporations. we can fix our government, maybe, at some point. but a corporation is evil. it exists to make profit. a LARGE profit. it feeds off of resources in order to make money. that money is used to make MORE money. all a big cycle of greed. and none of it matters. it simply rolls along, causing pain for whomever stands in it's way, with the executives sitting safely at the top reaping the rewards.
whose fault is it? ours. we let it happen, and continue to let it happen. does it matter? no. it simply needs to be stopped. we need to end the one-sidedness which has a hold over us. we have to stop thinking as consumers and start thinking as producers. that means we need to stop going to our jobs. we need to stop shopping at the supermarket. you go to work to make enough money to eat, right? and to have money to drive places, right? well, what if you made your own car? what if you made your own gas? what if you grew your own food? what if you were self-sustaining? it would be great, wouldn't it? well, why aren't you sustaining yourself? instead, you're really killing yourself. corporations are greedily evil because they think they HAVE to take our money to survive. they don't. they just need to plant their food and live their lives. what would you rather be doing: working for someone else, or yourself? don't lie to yourself and say that all this convenience is worth your life. you will die some day, but it doesn't have to be in a jail for the peer to peer file sharers of the world. it doesn't have to be in an electric chair made by extremist religious unintelligent bigots who think that they have to enforce their view of the world. you can die on your own terms, in your own time. people could still have a television, or a radio, in this kind of live-for-yourself society. open source programming is an example of the kind of freedom i talk of. when i make a program, i give it out for free. i don't ask anything in return. i simply do it because i'd like to help others and share. wouldn't you like to be part of that community? with our current government and society, you can't. so you need to change it. you need to go out and make your life what you want it to be. so go do it.
