Posts Tagged ‘fight’

A Fight Turned Ugly

Wednesday, May 2nd, 2012

One person, one voice can make all the difference. If you see wrongdoings, injustice or atrocities, don’t hesitate to speak out. As soon as you do, chances are others will rally behind your cause.

They Want to Take Over the Internet!

Tuesday, January 10th, 2012

Stop SOPA! Prevent PIPA! The Internet community has spoken – we do not want the government to destroy our beautiful, free Internet.

Yet, just as vigilant Netizens have been rallying the troops, the mainstream media has – GASP! – once again failed to offer any significant coverage of these seriously flawed bills. The folks at Media Matters confirmed this, showing how the big TV news players have almost entirely ignored the issue.

No matter. It’s the Internet we are trying to save, and it will take Internet people to save it.

Take, as an example, Rep. Paul Ryan’s decision to suddenly drop support for SOPA after being inundated with pressure from constituents. The majority of this criticism came from social powerhouse Reddit, whose members coordinated the attack on the former SOPA supporter.

Rob Zerban, Paul Ryan’s 2012 Democratic challenger, extols Ryan’s flip-flop as a prime example of social networking power, saying “This is an extraordinary victory. Reddit was able to force the House Budget chair to reverse course — shock waves will be felt throughout the establishment in Washington today — other lawmakers will take notice.”

Ryan’s about face parallels last month’s change-of-position by GoDaddy, whose support of SOPA prompted a mass-migration as clients shifted their business elsewhere. GoDaddy did eventually drop SOPA backing, but not before doing irreparable damage to their brand.

Even the Internet’s biggest players – Google, Facebook, Twitter and others – are throwing their hat into the ring. The online giants have stated that they will take drastic measures, blocking access to their highly popular sites as a means of protesting the proposed censorship legislation.

With so much at stake, we must fight tooth and nail just to keep from sliding down the slippery slope being laid out under our feet. The future of a free human species could very well depend on what transpires in the next few weeks, so let us carpe this diem while we still can.

War is like Crack

Wednesday, December 7th, 2011

What happens when a bunch of testosterone-fueled dudes have tons of weaponry to play with and nothing else to do? Well, you just know they are going to blow stuff up. Case and point, the video above, showing an A-10 strafing some Arab soldiers trying to expel what they see as foreign invaders.

Most chilling from the video, apart from the gory realities of a battlefield, is Sgt. Steiner’s reaction at the end describing the unparalleled rush that comes from combat. “That’s fun, though. That’s fun,” Steiner says to the cameraman about the live firefight, “You can’t get a better high. It’s like crack.”

Great, so not only are these bored soldiers stuck in a foreign place, armed to the teeth and given free rein over a nation, one of the most stimulating behaviors they can partake in is to fight and kill the people around them. No wonder the over-a-decade long war in Afghanistan has proven so fruitless.

Of course, it’s not about ‘winning’. The only real goal for the war machine is to perpetuate and proliferate armed conflict. As long as war is waging, profits are being made, and that is all that matters to the entities responsible for the majority of modern warfare.

But apart from enriching a tiny minority, war serves no purpose in today’s world. It’s just that institutionalized violence has been around for so long that it has etched a deep groove into our minds, making the path of least resistance lead straight to armed conflict.

The path to peace, on the other hand, remains so underdeveloped that a lot of people don’t even know it exists. But this will change dramatically over the coming few years, as humanity continues to unite on unprecedented levels and the way to a peaceful planet further reveals itself.

The vast majority of the world’s people – 99% or more – have already grown sick and tired of war and want it to stop. Now, it’s more about realizing that peace can and will happen when we make it happen.