<story><title>SOPA is dead: Smith pulls bill</title><url>http://mashable.com/2012/01/20/sopa-is-dead-smith-pulls-bill/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>jellicle</author><text>SOPA is not dead.  This is an election year.  One incumbent President, 33 Senators, and 435 Representatives all desperately need money.  The President needs to raise upwards of $1,000,000,000.  The Senators need to raise upwards of $10,000,000 each.  The Representatives need to raise upwards of $2,000,000 each.&lt;p&gt;The media industry is awash in money.&lt;p&gt;This is how your government works: a bill that is either good or bad for a wealthy industry is proposed, and then the backers go to that industry and hold out their hands.  If sufficient money is forthcoming, the good bill is passed or the bad bill is not passed.  If sufficient money is not forthcoming, the reverse happens.&lt;p&gt;The bill will be redrafted, with some mitigating clauses added here and there.  Implementation will be delayed a year or two, to make sure that you&apos;ll have forgotten who voted for it by the time any consequences occur.  All of the Congresspeople who expressed reservations about it will be visited with large checks.  And it will be resubmitted within a few months.  A couple of folks who have been greased especially well will stand up and say, &quot;My concerns about the bill have been addressed.&quot;  The new bill will pass.  Obama will not comment on the new bill and will sign it privately, without press coverage.&lt;p&gt;Your objections raised the cost of this bill for the media industry.  Congratulations, you cost them some money.  You in no way affected the final outcome.  To affect the final outcome, you would need to signal that you represent a large enough sum of campaign money to counterbalance the money-weight of the media industry.  You have not even come close to doing so.</text></comment>
<story><title>SOPA is dead: Smith pulls bill</title><url>http://mashable.com/2012/01/20/sopa-is-dead-smith-pulls-bill/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>ypcx</author><text>While we all know that they will regroup and strike again, we also know that somebody, somewhere out there, has gotten a very powerful message that lead them to reevaluate the scope of the grip they thought they had on this society.&lt;p&gt;Something of a historical importance has happened this week, and we all were part of it.</text></comment>