Below this commentary are links taken from
Face book. Suddenly, relatives and
friends (ages 18-34) who are normally labeled complacent by the political
pundits are speaking out. The two issues
that have brought this generation to a rallying cry are the Keystone XL tar
sands pipeline and the imminent possible passing of two bills (Protect IP Act
-PIPA in the Senate) and (Stop Online Piracy Act- SOPA in the House of
Representatives).
The President has stalled the Keystone XL tar sands'
bill (http://www.savebiogems.org/). If you have not been paying attention, this
bill was fast-tracked by our U.S. Congress to put down a pipeline from Canada
to Texas. Look it up on the links provided. It should shake your world a bit. Talk about a major target. Furthermore, we are not looking at
alternative methods of energy. We really
need to think outside of the box about energy. What are our alternatives?
Then these two bills in Congress are throwing the
baby out with the bath water. The
following link will help you understand these bills a bit more (https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/sopa-pipa/). Being a fan of the Internet, the frustrations
of worms, hackers, and pirates are costly. The beauty of the Internet is its accessibility. Before the Internet, piracy was alive and well. Knock offs and plagiarism are old artifacts
of our commercial culture. Censorship is
not the answer. This is a country where freedom
of speech has been a tenant our military fought to preserve. We cannot shrivel up and just let our
legislators make a decision without hearing from us.
Kudos to all my friends and family who are rallying
and working to get the word out about these issues. It is important that citizens
are active in the political dialogue. Now
call, write, text, tweet, or email your legislators and tell them what you
think.
