It's Time To Make Some Real Change.

I have often said that I do not support Republicans, and I do not support Democrats, that is because I do not support politicians in general.

I do, in all truth, believe that our Congress has become unsustainably corrupted. With the influence of corporations to provide campaign funds to a candidate, which leads to the inevitable siding of these candidates toward the sides of these corporations, has become a deciding factor in modern government.

And before it's brought up, no I do not think it is a good idea for billion dollar companies to influence politics in any way what-so-ever. I thought we lived in a democracy, not an oligarchy. I cannot even imagine why this is a legitimate debate.

Also, we have the largest library in the world, if you weren't aware. It is called The Library of Congress, but socially, historically, philosophically, and educationally speaking we have one of the most ignorant legislative bodies in the world.

They are no longer the voice of the American people, there aren't many politicians that are. They pass laws that we don't ask for, and they call it freedom. There is no right minded citizen in favor of the destruction of net neutrality, however just recently there was a big push for that against the will of U.S. citizens.

So we live in a state by the people, for the people, but it isn't run by the people, and definitely not for the people... So what is it?

If at the will of corporations government can decide that they're going to go against the will of the public, then what freedom is it that the American people actually have?

However, things don't change, because not only is the American Congress uninformed, a large majority of the American people are also uninformed.

Congress has an 11% approval rating, but has a 96.4% re-approval rating. The American people are not preparing, ready, or worried about changing.

I would like to suggest to all those who read this, that in order to fix a problem, we must first accept that we have one.

I think it's time we make this king of change.

That's all I have for today, but I'm also going to leave a copy of the Guerilla Open Access Manifesto below for all those to read. If you aren't aware of what this is it is an open-source letter Aaron Swartz wrote on the subject of the freedom of information.

I'll be back with a new post tomorrow.

"I encourage people to remember that 'No' is a complete sentence." -Gavin deBacker

"Guerilla Open Access Manifesto

Information is power. But like all power, there are those who want to keep it for
themselves. The world's entire scientific and cultural heritage, published over centuries
in books and journals, is increasingly being digitized and locked up by a handful of
private corporations. Want to read the papers featuring the most famous results of the
sciences? You'll need to send enormous amounts to publishers like Reed Elsevier.

There are those struggling to change this. The Open Access Movement has fought
valiantly to ensure that scientists do not sign their copyrights away but instead ensure
their work is published on the Internet, under terms that allow anyone to access it. But
even under the best scenarios, their work will only apply to things published in the future.
Everything up until now will have been lost.

That is too high a price to pay. Forcing academics to pay money to read the work of their
colleagues? Scanning entire libraries but only allowing the folks at Google to read them?
Providing scientific articles to those at elite universities in the First World, but not to
children in the Global South? It's outrageous and unacceptable.

"I agree," many say, "but what can we do? The companies hold the copyrights, they
make enormous amounts of money by charging for access, and it's perfectly legal —
there's nothing we can do to stop them." But there is something we can, something that's
already being done: we can fight back.

Those with access to these resources — students, librarians, scientists — you have been
given a privilege. You get to feed at this banquet of knowledge while the rest of the world
is locked out. But you need not — indeed, morally, you cannot — keep this privilege for
yourselves. You have a duty to share it with the world. And you have: trading passwords
with colleagues, filling download requests for friends.

Meanwhile, those who have been locked out are not standing idly by. You have been
sneaking through holes and climbing over fences, liberating the information locked up by
the publishers and sharing them with your friends.

But all of this action goes on in the dark, hidden underground. It's called stealing or
piracy, as if sharing a wealth of knowledge were the moral equivalent of plundering a
ship and murdering its crew. But sharing isn't immoral — it's a moral imperative. Only
those blinded by greed would refuse to let a friend make a copy.

Large corporations, of course, are blinded by greed. The laws under which they operate
require it — their shareholders would revolt at anything less. And the politicians they
have bought off back them, passing laws giving them the exclusive power to decide who
can make copies.

There is no justice in following unjust laws. It's time to come into the light and, in the
grand tradition of civil disobedience, declare our opposition to this private theft of public
culture.

We need to take information, wherever it is stored, make our copies and share them with
the world. We need to take stuff that's out of copyright and add it to the archive. We need
to buy secret databases and put them on the Web. We need to download scientific
journals and upload them to file sharing networks. We need to fight for Guerilla Open
Access.

With enough of us, around the world, we'll not just send a strong message opposing the
privatization of knowledge — we'll make it a thing of the past. Will you join us?

Aaron Swartz

July 2008, Eremo, Italy"