One of the enduring scenes that I always loved to see in movies, as a kid, was the captain of the ship, who as the ship was sinking, stoically said, “I can’t get into the lifeboat. I have to go down with the ship”.
 
Of course it was a precondition of the situation, that after hitting the iceberg there was  no last ditch possibility of Bruce Willis arriving to save the day and ensure that the ship would not sink.
 
In the case of America, one wonders whether Bush should have stayed aboard the sinking ship, or whether in jumping off and handing over the tiller to Obama, he is enabling change to ensure survival… not just survival of America, but the planet.
 
Now there are some cynical people saying that the only change to come to Washington is the name of the president, and that the lobbyists are so deeply entrenched that only the rhetoric will be different.
 
On the other hand there are those who think that people power is what put Obama in place and that he will be very respondent to what the people are thinking. That is presumably why he has such a visible presence on YouTube and on blogs… He understands the power of the digital network.
 
But, regardless, he is appointing some people who clearly have an agenda.
 
Look for instance at the guy who has just been appointed as the deputy AG. Here is what wikipedia has to say:
 
“On January 5th, 2009, president-elect Barack Obama appointed Tom Perrelli to the position of associate attorney general. Tom Perrelli represented the RIAA in a slew of cases, including a high-profile bid to unmask file sharers without the requirement of a judge reviewing the evidence first. Barack Obama's selection of Joe Biden as vice president showed that the presidential hopeful was comfortable with someone with firmly pro-RIAA views. Biden urged the criminal prosecutions of copyright-infringing peer-to-peer users and tried to create a new federal felony involving playing unauthorized music…”
 
We hope that the philosophy of the Obama administration is very much of the “Yes We Can” variety…. Yes, we can use P2P to create greater efficiency of information exchange; yes we can create a way to reduce carbon emissions from using P2P to shift information around; yes we can enable people all over the world to be entertained…. With the content industry being reasonably remunerated for the consumption of content, but without criminalizing the people who are the consumers of the entertainment that has made the content companies rich….
 
Yes we hope we can…

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Posted in Main Page by Chris Gilbey No Comments Yet