Liberty, Technology, Duty: Where Peace Overlaps War is well worth a read.
…Disagreements about the nature of government, culture and freedom тАФ once matters of abstract theory тАФ have recently become all too urgent. What sort of government is ideal? What are the connections between a culture and its ideas of freedom? And how is freedom to be balanced with the rule of law? The fates of nations at war rest on such questions.
To gain some perspective it may help to turn away from the international arena and look instead at matters ordinarily left for specialists: issues involving copyright law, intellectual property and open-source computer software, issues that seem far removed from Falluja. Yet now in courtrooms, in scholarly books and in popular tracts it can seem as if similar things are being debated.
For what is at stake in this more placid arena other than questions of ownership and concepts of liberty and obligation? And aren’t the stakes high here as well, particularly as technological innovations make possible a universe in which everything can be copied and anything goes as well as a universe in which everything is controlled and nothing is permitted?
To many critics of copyright, the parallels are clear. Discussions of students being prosecuted for downloading MP3 files or of communally revised software being made freely available can lead to comparisons with antiglobalization protests or to advocacy of multilateralism in a new world order. Copyright law, technology and political culture seem to raise related issues…
If we speak of Freedom and Liberty in the context of Iraq, what is so different when we speak of our own countries? To do otherwise seems less than sane.
Everywhere you turn in the news today, and yesterday, and the day before - there’s the United States, much as it was last year before and during the invasion of a sovereign nation we know as Iraq. A dictator was toppled, which is good. Dictators are poor fare in a world where we regard ourselves as humane. Weapons of Mass Destruction and links to terrorist organization(s) were the reasons behind said invasion. The world was in revolt as the United States disregarded the United Nations - an institution which it mainly founded.
Those that spoke up, that spoke out - these were the sane voices, and the last year has shown that they were right in many ways. Even now as Donald Rumsfeld claims responsibility with nothing but words for the abuse of prisoners of occupation, the world watches and condemns once again. If the world were the human body, white blood cells would surround such things and expel them; flush them from the system to keep them healthy.
But these prisoners are also a victim of legality. Would that George W. Bush, the Head Inmate of the United States, not declared an end to the War, they would be instead Prisoners of War, and the Crimes would be International War Crimes. But the United States is not part of the International War Crimes Tribunal.
Here’s the sad news for you insane inmates. There is No Innocence.
The United Nations
How the United Nations, despite the vehement voices of France and Germany (not to mention the General Public around the world!), allowed the invasion of Iraq to happen is simply astounding. And some people want to put them in charge of the Internet? Verily, if they would turn such a blind eye when it comes to human life, then why should we expect them to look out for interests of people when it comes to the internet? This does not mean that the present system for the internet is ideal, but it would be insane to ask people who have failed horribly at more important things to fail in other endeavours which require the same abilities.
A bit late, but since now there are many remixes on the internet, it’s only right that we tell you where they are.
The master list of remixes is here, on the Free Culture site itself. This was shamelessly copied to give you what is below. We suggest checking out the Free Culture Master Index for an up to date list of Free Culture remixes.
Derivatives/Remixes
Pre-mixes
Free
Culture Flash Presentation, Free
Culture PDF
ASCII
Ralph Amissah
Audio
AKMA,
“Free
Culture” popup audiobook, Noa
Resare (single download)
EasyRead
Blackmask
HTML
montana.edu, ebooks.helptools.net,
Blackmask,
Trevor
Smith, Elegant
Ebooks , Ralph
Amissah, Authorama
iSilo
Blackmask
Mobipocket
MS-reader
Blackmask
PDF
Ralph
Amissah (landscape, portrait),
Palm/Pocket PC Edition
Plain Text
PC: firasd.org,
Paul
Schreiber (Canadian Edition) Mac: FreeCulture.txt and FreeCulture.sit (from spiritwritings.com)
Plucker
Plucker Books
PostScript
Referenced HTML
eAsylum
Rocket e-Book
Blackmask
Wiki
Aaron Swartz
Zipped
Blackmask
© 2008 eAsylum.