[free-sklyarov] Protest strategy & goals

[Bob La Quey]

At 07:38 PM 7/21/01 -0400, you wrote:
>Folks,
>Draw an analogy with Rosa Parks, who was also jailed for violating a law that suppressed her civil rights.  Most of the headlines from the white-controlled media were along the lines of "Colored Woman Arrested for Refusing to Sit In Proper Section of Bus".  How do you counter that?  The successful protests weren't just about "Free Rosa", they were about ending the oppressive laws, and restoring everyone's freedom and civil rights.
> 
>Adobe in this case is just the bus driver.  They're not the root cause of the problem, 

Wrong. Adobe and the big corporations whose greed got the DMCA passed by 99-0 
are the root cause of the problem. The DMCA is an important symptom but please
let us not confuse cause and effect here. Adobe must suffer a massive PR hit 
from this action or large firms every where will be emboldened to get even more
repressive legislation passed enabling them to criminalize all kinds of behaviour
that they do not like. Once the DMCA is repealed or declared unconstitutional 
this battle will continue. It is a lifetime struggle. The DMCA is not the last 
piece of anti civil rights legislation that the younger people on this list will 
see. 

I am old enough to have lived thru the Rosa Parks era. I find the analogy worth
exploring ...  

Jim Crow Laws      DMCA
Rosa Parks         Dmitri Sklyarov
Adobe & Other      White Citizens Councils &
Corporations       Legislatures in Jim Crow states       
FBI                Bull Conner & his dogs

Feel free to play with this and improve it. We do need, as Izel is so ably 
pointing out, to communicate with a much wider audience in terms that they 
will understand. 

I hope I do not offend any of the members of the earlier civil rights 
movement with this analogy. I do realize that programmers are for the
most part a much more fortunate elite than was Rosa Park's constituency. 

BTW, thanks for bring up Rosa Parks ... it never hurts to honor past heros. 


Bob La Quey