preamble_.html

<!-- New Clues: Preamble 
	 By Doc Searls and David Weinberger
	 Draft: Dec. 30, 2014
	 Release date: Jan. 1, 2014
	 Released into the public domain under a Creative Commons 0 license.
-->

<div id="intro">
	<p id="bigemph"> Hear, O Internet! </p>
	<p class="intro"> It has been fifteen years since our <a href="http://www.cluetrain">previous communication</a>. </p>
	<p class="intro"> In that time the People of the Internet — you and me and all our friends of friends of friends, unto the last Kevin Bacon — have made the Internet an awesome place, filled with wonders and portents. </p>
	<p class="intro">From the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/">serious</a> to the <a href="http://lolcatbible.com">lolworthy</a> to the <a href="http://www.truthforhumanity.com/">wtf</a>, we have up-ended titans, created heroes,&nbsp; and changed the most basic assumptions about<br> How Things Work and Who We Are. </p>
	<p class="intro">But now the People's years of work face mortal dangers.</p>
	<p class="intro">When we first came before you, it was to warn of the threat posed by those who did not understand that they did not understand the Internet.</p>
	<p class="intro">These are The Fools, and they are with us still, although many have by now adopted the trappings of the Internet. They are like unto aging baby boomers wearing their baseball caps backwards. It's just embarrassing.</p>
	<p class="intro">Now two more hordes threaten all that we have built for one another.</p>
	<p class="intro">The Marauders understand the Internet all too well. They view it as theirs to plunder, extracting our money and data from it, thinking that we are the fools.</p>
	<p class="intro">Then there is the horde of our own Evil Inclinations. We give in to this eternal aspect of our nature when we too easily exchange the truly valuable for the merely shiny — and then we sit back complicitly as the Fools and Marauders amplify the very worst of what we are. </p>
	<p class="intro">Make no mistake: We can lose the Internet we love with a stroke of a pen, a covert handshake, or by allowing memes to drown out the cries of the afflicted.</p>
	<p class="intro">We come to you from the years of the Web's beginning. We have grown old together on the Internet. Time is short.</p>
	<p class="intro">We, the People of the Internet, need to remember the glory of its revelation so that we reclaim it now in the name of what it truly is. </p>
	<p class="byline"> <em><span id="author1">Doc Searls</span> <br>
  	<span id="author2">David Weinberger</span></em> 
   	<br /><span style="font-size: 0.8em">January 1, 2015</span></p>
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