News Corporation chief executive and chairman Rupert Murdoch lashed out on Twitter against the changing tide of public opinion with regards to SOPA and PIPA. In this video post, SG Political Contributor David Seaman talks about why big media corporations such as Fox and Disney support these ugly sister acts, and gives us an overview of yesterday’s day of internet action against them.
He also gives us an update on NDAA – one of the most treasonous bills ever signed into law by Congress according to some – and points us in the direction of the grass roots groups who are seeking to recall every congressman that supported it. Also, David talks about last night’s NDAA segment on Coast to Coast, in which he participated.
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David Seaman is an independent journalist. He has been a lively guest on CNN Headline News, FOX News, ABC News Digital, among others, and on his humble YouTube channel, DavidSeamanOnline. Some say he was recently censored by a certain large media corporation for posting a little too much truth… For more, find him on G+ and Twitter.
With its release scheduled for July 20 of this year, The Dark Knight Rises is now well into its post-production and marketing phase. Entertainment Weekly was the first to debut several official shots in their issue last week. On top of several shots of Bane and others inside the magazine, the cover featured a close up of Batman and his new suit.
A new still has flown in from the set of The Man of Steel as well. The shot isn’t official, and is a bit blurry, but even out of context, it’s pretty epic. It features a fire truck that has been impaled by a tree and what could possibly be Superman underneath doing said impaling.
Despite all the epic news coming out from other superhero films, we’re being reassured that Iron Man III will be one of the best superhero movies ever. Now that is a tall order considering the lackluster spectacle that was Iron Man II, but Robert Downey Jr. has added his weight to the claim that the third film could be one of the best superhero movies of all time. The film will be going back to its roots and is looking to recapture the elements that made the first film successful.
The CW hasn’t given up on riding the superhero train. They are now working on a pilot episode of DC Comics’ Green Arrow franchise. Unfortunately, Justin Hartley, who became well known for his portrayal of the Green Arrow on Smallville, is not involved with the project.
Speaking of DC Comics, the company has gone through another logo change. They have gotten some flak for their past logo changes, but this might be by far the worst. Their new logo screams ‘CORPORATION’ not ‘COMICS.’
After concluding its second season on BBC, Sherlock has been renewed for a third. The show’s co-creator, Steven Moffat, confirmed the renewal via Twitter. The second season in the series is set to premiere on PBS this spring.
Talking of turning classic tales into shows, NBC is making a television series based on the Dracula lore. The series is going to be set in the 1890’s, and is being developed by Tony Krantz and Cole Haddon. While Dracula is the iconic vampire, I don’t see the need for anymore vampire television for a few years.
That isn’t to say there aren’t some vampire stories still worthy of being told on screen. For instance, Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter has just released several new pics and a behind the scenes video. And the historical fiction doesn’t end there. The second most badass president (first place still goes to ol’ honest Abe) is getting his own film. That right, FDR American Badass will feature our polio stricken president fighting Nazi werewolves.
Abigail Spencer has joined the Whedonverse and will star in Joss Whedon’s next film. What film is that exactly? Well the only details we have is that it’s a “supernatural romance.” Spencer does comment that, “It’s the most romantic film in the history of time.” There is no saying what Joss is up too, but let’s be honest, has he let us down yet?
On a final note, it looks like George Lucas is going to be taking things easier. After the release of his upcoming film, Red Tails, Lucas will be taking on his own form of retirement. What this seems to mean is he will no longer be working blockbuster films, and will instead focus on movies on a smaller scale. Lucas has also been rather honest about why he has made this decision, and it’s all our faults. The massive amount of negative fan criticism from the Star Wars prequels and special editions really hurt him. Who would want to keep making films for fanboys who hate you? Despite flaws in his latter work, this fan would just like to say, “Thank you.” George Lucas transformed the world of sci-fi for so many of us, and we must respect the tremendous effect he has had on the evolution of nerdom.
Despite the fact that the sound of crickets could be heard in all the coolest corners of the web, it was an EPIC day in internet history as thousands of sites went dark to protest SOPA and its sister act PIPA.
Here’s a roundup of some of the sites that voluntarily plunged themselves into a temporary dark age for the greater good:
After being bombarded by phone calls, emails and online petitions, several senators distanced themselves from SOPA, with a total of 10 withdrawing their support by day’s end. Meanwhile, with many of their fave sites offline, internet lovers in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Vegas took to the streets, and members of the artistic community made their voice herd with an open letter to Washington (via Neil Gaiman’s blog):
We, along with the rest of society, have benefited immensely from a free and open Internet. It allows us to connect with our fans and reach new audiences. Using social media services like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, we can communicate directly with millions of fans and interact with them in ways that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago.
We fear that the broad new enforcement powers provided under SOPA and PIPA could be easily abused against legitimate services like those upon which we depend. These bills would allow entire websites to be blocked without due process, causing collateral damage to the legitimate users of the same services – artists and creators like us who would be censored as a result.
We are deeply concerned that PIPA and SOPA’s impact on piracy will be negligible compared to the potential damage that would be caused to legitimate Internet services. Online piracy is harmful and it needs to be addressed, but not at the expense of censoring creativity, stifling innovation or preventing the creation of new, lawful digital distribution methods.
But the MPAA and much of Hollywood’s old guard remained defiant, their refusal to understand the new paradigm and their determination to wage war against their greatest consumers and turn their customers and champions into a criminal class merely underlining how out of touch they are with their future sales base and the outlets that promote their wares. (One genius meme likened SOPA to dealing with a lion that has escaped from a zoo by blasting some kittens with a flamethrower, which was a pretty damn accurate metaphor.) In a statement yesterday (see excerpt below) and via multiple (and quite absurd) tweets, the MPAA explained/excused their pro-SOPA stance by blaming foreign criminals, claiming that they were taking action to defend “American jobs” (and not the movie studios’ bottom lines) – this, despite the fact that SOPA would put many websites like our own – and the jobs of the people who work at them – in jeopardy.
“…A so-called ‘blackout’ is yet another gimmick, albeit a dangerous one, designed to punish elected and administration officials who are working diligently to protect American jobs from foreign criminals. It is our hope that the White House and the Congress will call on those who intend to stage this “blackout” to stop the hyperbole and PR stunts and engage in meaningful efforts to combat piracy.”
Though many of the politicians that support SOPA, and the corporations that bought them, also remained unrepentant, the unprecedented day of internet action thrust the issue to the fore, educating many who were previously unaware of the bill and forcing the mainstream media – however unwillingly – to report a little of the Orwellian reality that SOPA would bring.
The internet, and all the freedom fighters who sail on her, should give themselves a +1 for today.
**Updates – Thursday, January 19**
According to Wikipedia editor Aaron Muszalski (aka @sfslim), over 150 Million people have viewed Wikipedia’s blackout page!
PIPA support collapses: According to Arstechnica, 18 Senators, of which 7 are former co-sponsors, now oppose bill.
Yahoo News / Digital Trends has an excellent article which breaks down the SOPA/PIPA blackout by the numbers. It includes the following statistics:
75,000: Approximate of websites that participated in the blackout, according to SOPAStrike.com, which helped organize the protest.
25,000: Number of WordPress blogs that completely blacked out their sites to protest the bills
162 million: Number of people who saw the Wikipedia blackout page
4.5 million: Number of people who signed Google’s anti-SOPA petition on Wednesday
2 million: Number of emails sent through the Electronic Frontier Foundation, FFTF and Demand Progress
25: Number of senators who publicly opposed PIPA after the blackout went into effect
13: Number of additional senators who are “leaning towards opposition,” according to OpenCongress
The Los Angeles Times reports that “8 million U.S. readers took Wikipedia’s suggestion and looked up their congressional reps from the site.”
As reported by Rawstory, during Thursdays GOP debate in South Carolina, all four remaining Republican presidential candidates said they did not support SOPA.
From Techrunch: “At the beginning of Janaury 18th, there were 80 members of congress who supported the legislation, and 31 opponents. Now, just 63 support SOPA-PIPA, and opposition has surged to 122, according to ProPublica.”
Following the anti-SOPA online blackout, the Wall Street Journal reports that most of the bill’s remaining supporters are, somewhat ironically, on the left. “It’s a tougher call for some Democrats, thanks in part to the bill’s strong union backing and the fact that Hollywood has opened its collective wallet wider for Democrats historically,” the publication explains.
**Updates – Friday, January 20**
[Ding Dong The Wicked Witches Are Dead – Sort Of]
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced he will postpone next Tuesday’s PIPA vote [Source: TPM].
The full statement from Chairman Smith on the Senate’s delay of the vote on PIPA can be found here.
SOPA sponsor Rep. Lamar Smith announced he will postpone the bill’s markup hearing which was scheduled to resume in February. [Source: TPM].
While, as a subscriber funded site, we cannot blackout on #J18, we would like to express our profound gratitude and support to those that do. Wikipedia, Google, Reddit, CraigsList, BoingBoing, RawStory, and YourAnonNews are among the 7,000+ sites that are going dark or marking their opposition to SOPA in some form.
Many internet users know SuicideGirls as a pinup site, but, as a social network that predates both MySpace and Facebook, much of our content is user generated. Under the restrictive and open-ended terms of SOPA it would be virtually impossible for us to operate. It would be an utterly impractical and economically unviable task to police the providence of all the content our users upload and the links they post prior to publishing, and being forced to do so would seriously stifle the free speech our members currently enjoy.
Non-members can therefore view Arabella’s entire Pirate Girl bounty for free here.
(Note: this link is NSFW – don’t walk the proverbial plank by clicking it if you’re at the office!)
“It’s not democracy anymore.”
– Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
On the surface, The Last Mountain is a documentary about the dirty business of coal, the highly destructive and toxic practice of mountaintop removal mining, and one community’s fight to preserve their homes, their livelihoods, their health, and the last great mountain in the region. However, the story of Coal River Mountain in West Virginia is allegorical of much that is wrong with America, which is why during our roundtable conversation with the film’s champion, renowned environmental lawyer and activist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., he barely mentions the four-letter word that is coal. Instead, Kennedy focuses on the underlying history and climate that has allowed corporations to rape and pillage our environment, and poison and kill our citizenry with impunity.
In The Last Mountain, Don Blankenship, the former CEO of Massey Energy (he retired at the end of December 2010), is typecast in the role of modern day robber baron. As the largest coal producer in Central Appalachia, his company is only able to function on the scale it does by subjugating democracy. Mountaintop removal mining is cheaper and less labor intensive than traditional underground coal extraction methods, but it causes such an affront to the landscape, water and air, that it can only be done when the authorities charged with protecting the public interest are willing and able to look the other way.
Between 2000 and 2006 Massey chalked up a staggering 60,000 EPA infractions, but has suffered little in consequences beyond much belated and pitifully low fines that serve the government’s need to be seen to be doing something while maintaining the status quo. Of course, Massey is not the only corporation and coal is far from the only industry that is using and abusing our severely compromised shell of a democracy. In light of the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling allowing corporate campaign donations (and a subsequent one that makes direct-to-candidate payments permissible), our government couldn’t be for more up for sale if it were posted on eBay.
Though there will inevitably be dark days ahead for our democracy, it’s not all doom and gloom thanks to a groundswell of grassroots activism as witnessed in Coal River Valley and documented in The Last Mountain. As for the environment, Kennedy points out towards the end of this interview that there’s an (LED) light at the end of the tunnel, and ironically it’s capitalism in its cleanest and purest form that may end up saving the day.
