Nonviolent Revolution

Born in Flames was certainly interesting in its depiction of revolution, although I didn't agree with all of the movement's methods—for instance, the use of violence. I thought for a while about whether revolution can actually be achieved without some amount of violence, and I was about to admit that there was no possible way, until this past week provided a potentially viable counter-example. SOPA and PIPA, two Congress bills which seek to stop the illegal exchange of copyrighted material online, have received a great deal of attention in the past few weeks. Under these laws, websites would be made responsible for any user-generated links or content posted, and said websites could be shut down at will by the government—without due process. The language of the bills is so vague that sites like Etsy, Kickstarter, and Flickr could be shut down, and sites such as Youtube and Facebook would be devastatingly affected. Essentially, these bills would destroy the Internet as we know it, curtailing creativity, smothering sharing, and making people unwilling to invest in an area with such excessive restrictions. This opinion is shared by many, many Internet users, as illustrated by the “blackout” on January 18^th; Wikipedia, Reddit, Etsy, Google, Wordpress, Wired, Tumblr, and more than 115,000 other sites either completely shut down for the day and/or posted messages asserting their opposition to SOPA and PIPA. Meanwhile, all opponents of the bills were urged to call their representatives and inundate their offices with calls to make it clear that the citizens of the U.S. would not stand for Internet censorship. The media has dubbed it as the biggest online protest ever, with millions of participants. You can view some of the estimated statistics here: http://www.sopastrike.com/numbers. After this (peaceful) revolution, Congresspeople's positions on the two bills shifted radically towards the side of opposition, and SOPA and PIPA have been put on indefinite hold. Not all revolutions are good, but this one—accomplished with the unity of citizens against censorship and against the crippling of the web—was certainly positive, and did not require any violence whatsoever. It is yet to be seen whether the demonstration will continue to succeed in the long run; the bills, or some form of them, will likely be back. But I would like to believe that some revolutions can succeed permanently and peacefully, and I would like to have faith in the power of the people over unfair legislation.