We shot our wad on SOPA
By
Dave Winer on Friday, April 27, 2012 at 6:18 PM.
Mathew Ingram asks on GigaOM if we should be as worried about CISPA as we were about SOPA? 
 I say that's not a good question -- because our response to SOPA was inadequate and wrong, and proves that Internet that's supposed to be so responsive to threats, is as centrally controlled as Viacom, Disney, Fox, Apple, Google etc. Instead of being controlled by a few media and tech moguls it's controlled by Jimmy Wales. So he did what MSG did when they didn't like the terms that Time-Warner was offering. Wales got what he wanted this time, but I don't think it's going to work again. That bullet, once fired, can't be fired again. And sooner or later someone is going to ask the question, if the Internet is a chaotic cacophony of the free and brave, why is it that one person can turn off Wikipedia? The tech and media moguls might ask aren't you just like us? And the answer is yes. We are just like you.
What had to happen, and what still has to happen, is as unlikely as the people of the earth waking up one day and realizing that unless we all radically reduce our production of carbon and also stop having so many children, our species is looking at some really hard times, if not extinction. The Republicans are worried about Social Security running out of money in 40 years. We might run out of oxygen before then.
There won't be a mass uprising in defense of freedom on the net. Some people will get book contracts, and we'll probably be watching Wolf Blitzer on Twitter and/or Facebook before too long.
We didn't have much of a wad to shoot, but it's shot. It would have been so much more impressive if we made sure Wikipedia was functioning 24-by-7, without interruption, no matter what the government did.
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