Eyes on the Prize and Google™ Have Something in the Commons?
A few Blog posts come across my screen that are short and bland—something like, “Check out Lessig on Free Culture. It means a lot to me.” When you actually hear what Lessig is talking about—quite passionately—I am moved to mention how bland people are when they refer to this post. But this blandness is better than nothing—and it is far better than the throes of people inexperienced with being outraged doing it for the first time—it’s like stumbling upon that self-described “white girl” at the inner-city Reggae concert doing some horrible dance, completely out of touch with the sounds and vibes of the environment.
“Normal” (regulated) people assume that outraged people must have broken their religious bonds and have entered into savage indignation—foaming dogs to be shot on sight after the New Orleans floods. Such people need to struggle against their own extremism and remember nuance and complexity. And here we have Google™—a multibillion dollar company actually in conflict with publishing conglomerates over the same issue that prevents a great documentary like Eyes on the Prize from moving to DVD. Amazon.com is selling the VHS edition for over $300US! As the Wired feed for “Writers Side With Google in Scrap” reads, “One writer’s copyright infringement is another’s salvation from obscurity.”
So that “white girl” at the Reggae concert may find it hard to believe how the generation of her mother and grandmother spoke so matter-of-factly about the magical inferiority of dominant-gene Africans, simply because Eyes on the Prize with its several hundred dollar price tag makes it impossible for most people to see it documented by news cameras. These facts are made obscure by what makes Mr. Lessig so passionate—and me so “savagely” outraged. Boo!
What actually hurts is to hear young African people all over the world speak of their history in barrenness. They are permitted to assume that the previous generation did nothing except clap for Martin Luther King when the white folks told them to do so… Hey! Much respect for Negroes with Guns. It’s not about the guns; it’s about the grass roots unity—the KKK brought the guns first—a fact easily forgotten when it’s “protected” by copyright.
To see just how far the “reality” of copyrighted private property extends into deadly fantasies of total domination—even over the food you eat and the water you drink—listen to “Vandana Shiva: Planting Seeds for Change,” here at kintespace.com. And, oh yeah, to completely “terrify” you we have “Book Review: A Terrible Thunder” here as well.