We the People

I saw Farenheit 9/11 last night and it has no doubt excited a fury that I must first direct at an existing issue. My thoughts on the movie will be reserved for another day. For now, my attention is focused on the Induce Act and another meandering thought.

"It may soon be possible to carry around an AK-47 assault rifle and an iPod with you down the street - and be arrested for carrying the iPod."

- From this piece in The Register

"The reality of this is that you're going to have a world where Hollywood controls technology"

- EFF attorney Jason Schultz in this Wired article

I am beginning to feel that people in this country are being treated less as citizens and more like a resource; as a group to be controlled rather than a constituency to be served.

If corporations can exert their will over the legislators, and incite them to enact regulations that give its desires priority over the rights of citizens, business gives rise to a kind of privatized law. The policy-making power, relinquished by despairing citizens, is adopted by business and used to serve its own needs. Law becomes the way to extract money from a demographic. It becomes the new marketing.

The legislators listen because businesses are aggressively visible and the benefits are intensely alluring.

No doubt I oversimplify and under-comprehend what's happening here. But there is a pit in my stomach that says much of this is revolting and it wonders why we are not. And the new patriotism says...