ThePirateBay’s press release in regards to SOPA and PIPA.
THIS. EVERYONE SHOULD READ IT.
I don’t think the US Government has really stopped to consider what will happen to its culture if it shuts itself off from the world. How much does the youth of the USA learn from their interactions with the thoughts and creative output of people around the world? How much with the intellectual and cultural growth of the country be stunted by the isolation that this bill makes possible? Third world countries that are just beginning to receive access to the internet are learning so much, and becoming inspired by those more forward countries who put content up for the world to see. To risk taking that away from the citizens of the USA is foolish. The Internet is freedom. The industries who are losing money need to adapt to the Internet’s advances, not attempt to backtrack.
THEY CANNOT SILENCE THE WORLD.
![thedailywhat:
Powerful Photo of the Day: Chief Raoni, of the Kayapo tribe native to the Brazilian state of Pará, weeps upon learning that Brazil’s newly elected president Dilma Vana Rousseff has authorized the construction of the controversial Belo Monte hydroelectric dam despite hundreds of thousands of petition signatures, letters, and e-mails begging the government to reconsider.
From Etcetera:
[A] death sentence [for] the peoples of Great Bend of the Xingu river [has been] enacted. Belo Monte will inundate at least 400,000 hectares of forest, an area bigger than the Panama Canal, thus expelling 40,000 indigenous and local populations and destroying habitat valuable for many species - all to produce electricity at a high social, economic and environmental cost, which could easily be generated with greater investments in energy efficiency.
To learn more and sign a last-ditch petition, go here.
[ver2go / thanks telemonz!]
UPDATE: I may or may not have crashed Amazon Watch. Sorry about that. So here’s an alternative link to the petition. (Site’s in Portuguese, so here’s a link to the Google translation.)
Damn, I just studied this case in Visual Anthropology, showing how indigenous reappropriation of western media technology had raised awareness for the Kayapo’s political issues. Apparently all in vain… = (](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lm0yi5Jj6C1qfuifjo1_400.jpg)
