COPE a DOPA, ROPE a DOPE

The question is...can we survive until the next election when we throw the bums out? DOPA passed the House, Net neutrality amendment to COPE is rejected by the House. Jeb Bush vetoes $2.2 million for libraries. All this bad news is available from Library Journal. In case DOPA and COPE are new to you, here's a quick explanation (with music accompaniment):

DOPA: Deleting Online Predators Act. Yet another restriction tied to CIPA funds. This time, the libraries and schools must prevent the children from accessing any social networking websites which, of course, are the sites they MOST want to visit. Ever heard of MySpace.com, Flickr, Frappr, Facebook, or del.icio.us? Well, none of those sites would be allowed with DOPA. Just when libraries are moving well beyond the "Shush!" image, the government passes Super-Shush laws like this. Going to be hard to pursue our Library 2.0 plans with DOPA hobbling our efforts.

COPE: Communications, Opportunity, Promotion, and Enhancement Act. Big, complicated communications legislations but the key thing is that any attempt to build in protections for net neutrality were defeated. Per Common Cause), "net neutrality is the principle that you should be able to access whatever web content or services you choose, without any interference from your Internet service provider." Without net neutrality, network operators can (and probably would) ensure that certain (probably undesireable, commercial) content arrives to your computer much faster than other (probably educational, non-commercial) content. Creates a whole new meaning for the term 'digital divide.' Speaking of educational, Jon Stewart did a piece on net neutrality viewable here.

ROPE a DOPE: Boxing style successfuly employed by Muhammad Ali in which the fighter lies on the ropes and allows his opponent to punch him until he gets so tired from the effort that the recipient of all the punches can take advantage of his opponent's fatique (thanks Wikipedia). This takes me back to my initial question...can we survive until the next election? Do we just hang onto those ropes and hope none of their punches knock us out? Will they be tired out from their aggression of the past six years? Will we ultimately find an opening to land a knock-out punch?

For our environment, our libraries, our kids, our middle class, our troops, our self-respect.....I hope so.

Lots more good material on DOPA on Del.icio.us