What you are saying is true but the defeatism won't improve anything either. By saying and thinking what you posted they have really won, our apathy (or similar sentiment) is and has become their greatest weapon. And also, we can not keep on living thinking that all of us can be bought and there is no chance of "true democracy".
-rgdot
There's a
big difference between not kidding yourself you won and being a defeatist.
And the single biggest tactical mistake you can make in a battle like this one is to lull yourself into a false sense of victory before you've conclusively attained it. And that is going to take a lot more work than has been done so far.
What we've recently had is a minor skirmish with both sides feeling each other out and gauging the degree and nature of the support both sides can expect to get on this issue. It's little more than queen's pawn to queen's pawn 3 so far. An opening move. The
real battle hasn't even begun yet. And the gloves won't come off until some time after that.
So beware of irrational exuberance when it comes to largely symbolic gains in the early rounds of conflict. I've seen more than a few worthy movements defeated by that.
Assumptions are deadly. Which is why it's so necessary to maintain vigilance.
As it stands right now, those arguing for a free net are down a point. We gained a
temporary stay of execution by getting PIPA and SOPA put on hold. But that's all we got.
Or did we?
The media lobby got ACTA
signed into law while we were sitting around congratulating ourselves on how well "we showed 'em."
Now SOPA and PIPA are looking more and more like a diversionary tactic. The classic red herring. The disposable infantry units that got sent out to draw fire and distract attention away from what the real game was -
getting ACTA signed as quickly, and in as many countries, as possible.
My point in my earlier post wasn't to concede defeat. It was to acknowledge the very real chance that
we just might have been had. And big time too!
And if that upsets some people, or rains on their parade badly enough that their confidence is shattered - and now they're worried they might lose faith in the cause ,well... maybe we should let them. Because those of us who are in it for the long haul don't need them. And considering what's to come, we'd probably be better off without them. Because it's going to get a lot harder before we even see the slightest glimmer of real hope this nonsense is going to be put to rest.
And we can up our chances for success by not letting ourselves feel good until we actually have something to feel good about.
There's a great moment in the Terry Pratchett story
Hogfather where a governess is speaking to two young children who are crying because they are afraid of the monster they know is hiding in the basement of their house just waiting for them to fall asleep. The governess asks the children to repeat back to her what she told them they should do whenever they felt afraid. The children dutifully respond "Don't get afraid - get
angry!"
Not a bad piece of advice. 
Why it's good to feel bad about some things!
If you study NLP, there's a technique used to forment change. In NLP's scheme of things, change itself isn't hard. Change occurs in the psychological equivalent of a quantum shift. It takes place in an instant. A new circuit is forged and switched on. Bang! Done!
What takes time, and
is very hard, is getting up the
resolve to make that change.
And one way to get up that resolve is to
begin by not trying to smooth over pain and adapt to it. On the contrary, you're taught to wallow in it until you can't stand it. And then use that like rocket fuel to attain escape velocity.
Here's a proven 3-step technique for bringing about change ala NLP:
Step-1: Feel your pain. Deeply. Horribly. Let it become unbearable. Do not attempt to rationalize it away.
Step-2: Allow yourself get to the point of where you want to scream: This is intolerable! I cannot live even one more second like this!!! This has absolutely got to change!!!!!
Step-3: Now remind yourself the only way anything is ever going to change is if you yourself change it.
Anybody who has ever gone through this "dark night of the soul" process will tell you it's astonishingly effective. Maybe not very enjoyable. But effective nevertheless.
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or better yet a whole new USB key 'protocol'
-rgdot (February 09, 2012, 09:21 AM)
