America has the best government money can buy.

Lobbyists spend billions each year, just lobbying Congress.

They buy all the influence ther billions can buy.

Americans don't know zip about how the stupid bills get to congress, that are created by lobbyists.

There are more rats (influence peddlers) among lobbyists than can be counted on American politican scene.

http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/index.php

If the rats persist with these types of bills they will eventually succeed. The American people are too busy lying on the sofa, sucking up potato chips, french fries, and watching TV to care about politics.

When Nikita Kruschev banged his shoe on the table and declared, ‘We shall destroy you from within’ during the infamous "Kitchen Debate" - he knew what he was talking about. He was talking about the destruction of the so-called American Republic being replaced with communism.

Not necessarily true, but since I do not have millions myself I find it difficult to be on capitol hill lobbying congress to support my interests.

Ouch - you could probably make your point without insulting every American... Not caring and feeling disenfranchised are 2 different things and I believe you may be confusing one with the other. Most adults I know have opinions about the current political scene here and as far as I know most of my friends and co-workers vote. I'm not sure how that equates to not caring.

Corporate take over is facist. Problem is republican primarily as well as some dems allow business to be people and now we see the damage being done.

It seems -right now- that the bill probably won't be passed and rightly so. This is a victory for freedom on the internet and I bet for every try that those money mongering suits do to limit it will meet even stiffer and stiffer opposition. Here in Finland I've done what I've could, commenting on online news articles and informing people on why this SOPA (which actually translates directly to "garbage" in Swedish) bill is such a bad thing.

At the same time though, here in Finland, thepiratebay.org has been blocked by Elisa (which is a big ISP here) because they have been threatened to pay hefty fines by the "IFPI" (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry). It was a court order and Elisa had to comply or pay fines, they chose the former. Other ISP's here are under the same "threat" but nothing has come of it yet. Sadly, I have Elisa DSL connection so I can no more access the piratebay. It does not bother me in the sense that I can't download pirated music/software/games/movies, if I wanted to there are countless alternative sites.

:mad:IT DOES OUTRAGE ME THOUGH THAT IN A SO CALLED FREE AND MODERN SOCIETY AS FINLAND I CANNOT VISIT ANY WEBSITE I WANT, PIRATE SITE OR NOT PIRATE SITE. I AM ASHAMED OF HAVING TO LIVE IN A COUNTRY WHICH ROBS ME OF MY LIBERTIES ESPECIALLY IN SUCH A SNEAKY AND QUIET FASHION AS THIS COURT RULING.:mad:

"It's just one website and a pirate one as well" some might say. I see it as the beginning of the end of the free internet that we have had so far.

When you say George do you mean George Bush our special needs president?

yep.

Cant you use a proxy site to access thepiratebay?

No I don't think so. I don't care so much about piratebay and how to go abouts accessing it. It's just the fact that it's actually blocked, here, in Finland, this is not supposed to be China. That bugs me.

http://i1195.photobucket.com/albums/...59/funny22.jpg


:-P Anyway, here's a good article on the subject.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/n...s-it-worse.ars

Sure you could, a simple vpn connection would do the trick.