Afghanistan - Saffron - and "Enduring Freedom" ... or What?

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Afghanistan gets the highest number of hits on this blog (5,616 to be precise). By far (Note 1). People still read my posts from 2010 - and for understandable reasons, their sons and daughters are serving their country, so it is claimed, in the name of democracy and freedom. "Operation Enduring Freedom" - remember that?

"As of December 29, 2011, there have been 2,765 coalition deaths in Afghanistan as part of ongoing coalition operations". I copied that from Wikipedia... bear with me this point is relevant.

I'm back here in Herat working on the saffron industry for the US Government; saffron (perhaps) substitutes for poppy (opium) so this is part of the on-going effort to reduce drugs - and so preserve the American Way of .... Freedom and Democracy.

However, saffron (beautiful as it may be) is NOT the subject of this post - which is written with more than my usual sense of outrage.

Actually the post is about the outrageous attempt by the same United States Congress that sends young Americans to be killed and maimed in Afghanistan (and Iraq) in the name of Freedom to restrict my ability to write this post, and indeed to have a blog at all.

Sound far-fetched?

SOPA and PIPA are bills going through Congress to do just that. Here's why: I copied Wikipedia, but no permission - simply because I use Wiki as a research resource and it seems to be what it's for. The links to "Herat" and "Saffron" are copied because I try to make it easy for readers to get to background information. The beautiful photo of the young man in a field of saffron is NOT mine; I copied it deliberately from its source to illustrate my point. Sharing it with you on this blog is probably illegal - and SOPA and PIPA are aimed at stopping me (and you) sharing digital copies.

In fact I do NOT ever publish photos other than my own on Q's World; after all, what's the point? And I fully support the idea that creative artists should not have their work stolen.

But SOPA and PIPA pre-suppose that I do steal other people's work and insist that I (and I assume Travelblog.org) prove that all our material is not encumbered by copyright. If I understand the proposed legislation correctly, it's a presumption of guilt and I (as a writer and blog publisher) have to prove my innocence. Oh, OK; that works in a country that sends its military to teach governance and justice to folk like the Afghans.

The cost of proving I DO NOT STEAL will be prohibitive and so I'll have to stop blogging or risk being sued or even criminalised - even though in no way am I anywhere inside an American jurisdiction. But, hey, when did that ever stop the USG?

So folks kiss goodbye to Travelblog.org if these two bills pass. And Quartermaine's World (which will please the Pinoys), and my professional blog "Agrimarkets" (where I also link and share information).

Check out this video from TED.com "Defend our freedom to share (or why SOPA is a bad idea) .... it's a much better explanation than I can give. And remember, using this link would also probably be prohibited by SOPA......!!!!!

The irony won't have escaped you. The US Government on the one hand expends the lives of its young people and billions of dollars of treasure promoting high falutin' notions of Democracy (which last I heard involved sharing ideas) and Freedom (of speech? Or what?), and on the other hand seems intent on destroying the one single institution, the Web, which has in practice done more for these ideals than anything else since that great day July 4th 1776.

Go figure. And send this post to your friends. And (if you are American) to your Representative and Senator. If you have a son or daughter serving here, then think about the reasons they are being asked by YOUR government to make this sacrifice, Thanks.

P.S. For more technical blah blah on saffron, wait for the post on my company blog (which will also probably get taken down - LoL).

Note 1: Of course the ridiculous Philippine post got nearly 90,000 hits, but that's the Philippines and doesn't count among sensible people.

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