This article, titled “Double-Think,” outlines the rather dire implications for web start-ups and the general future of web media itself. This bill gives extreme power to the media companies frantically trying to crack down on the rampnat copyright infringements sinking the industry ship.
It’s not going to work. If anything it will just intensify the rot tearing the media industry to pieces. I know from first hand experience what increased Government involvement does to an industry.
My father is a commercial fisherman. He built a fifty foot shrimp trawler and fishes off the cost of Tybee Island Georgia. His vessel is magnificent to behold, especially since he built the damn thing himself.
Beautiful huh?
To build this thing, Dad had to put down one HELL of an investment. Long story short, the industry has fallen apart around him. Why? A hell of a lot of reasons: foreign dumping of farm raised shrimp and oil prices just to name a few.
What makes this story relevant to the almost totalitarian tactics offered up by the British? Government involvement and failure. Local wild shrimpers can no longer turn a profit because of either unfair, or simply cheaper practices of competing countries. It’s ugly yes, but it is the truth.
The Government offered a lifeline to the local shrimping industry, taxing foreign imports like there was no tomorrow and offering grants and funding to keep the industry afloat. In a few years, there will be NO local shrimping industry left. The government stepped in to try and resuscitate and dying industry and all of their most pointed and aggressively efforts failed miserably.
The situation with the British is a bit scarier, but I would not give the ultimate outcome of this legislation a second thought. It WILL fail becuase government simply CANNOT sustain an industry with no viability. The fact that media companies are pushing this through proves just how desperate they have become.
I just finished reading the latest tirade against Wall Street, penned by Rolling Stone’s own Matt Taibbi. If you have not had the chance to pick up the latest Rolling Stone, head out to your nearest seller of dino magazines and read his piece titled “Looting Main Street.” Frankly, I have never encountered a writer who can clarify the financial mud so well and actually turn it into an enthusiastic read.
Taibbi does a great job explaining this crisis, but he falls tragically short on ideas about fixing the problem. His latest post “Babies and Bathwater,” ponders the polarizing nature of any suggested solution to the banking crisis issue, as a blogger relents his suggestion to increase the government’s power to regulate the banks when corrupt politicians are part of the problem.
Taibbi is right to lament this immediate stalemate tactic, because the discussion does truly never move in any direction. However, the anonymous blogger DOES have a point. Both government AND businesses are institutions in need of dire reform, and both contributed in some way to the current crisis, both in housing and in the now exploding municipal fraud cases.
Looking at Taibbi’s articles has given me an idea about how to counteract both of these annoying truths in one fell swoop, though it will take a bit of time.
Digital democracy needs to be the next step in the evolution of the American political system. So much time and money is wasted in the election of representatives, paying their salaries, and financing their constant corruption. I believe digital representation through a more direct vote system could clean up a great deal of waste in Washington and make government a more streamlined and accountable force in modern society.
If you look around my blog a bit, you will see that my constant solution to every modern problem is rooted in the development of technology. In this case, we already have many of the resources we need to create a more direct democracy, hell American Idol already does it.
I'm a patriot!!!
As much as I hate the banks Matt, I don’t think more government intervention is the answer. Innovation and a resurgence of real capitalism through web 2.0 innovation is the only way to tame that beast. The right’s talking points may be stupid and banal, but sometimes there can be a little hint of truth to there.
A mix of good and frustrating news today as Governor Perdue continue to defend the university system with rather sharp rhetoric. This gets more entertaining every day, as Senators Harp and Ehrhart contradict each other and betray their obvious frustration with the constant deluge of emails and protests. I have never been a big fan of Sonny Perdue, but at this point, he has won a great deal of loyalty from me by standing up to these two.
Its not over yet, as Ehrhart and harp have not officially backed down, but now that the true intentions of these cuts have come to light, maybe the legislators can sit down and craft some REASONABLE cuts to help get us through the final phase of this crisis: cuts not influenced by political agenda.
I use the term “final phase” there rather confidently as economic data has finally pulled into what looks like encouraging territory. Locally, some firms have begun to rehire old employees in an odd trend. Usually employers look for new talent after a bloodletting, but as the AJC reports, this recession has been so damaging, many are turning to the same workers let go less than a year ago.
While things are not exactly roaring back, there are very positive signs of healing as the unemployment numbers stabilize and the stock market has officially recovered all of it losses from the year. I will be honest, I thought we were on the path to another crash, putting us at 8500 hundred on the Dow by the end of March. Thankfully, that does not seem to be the case.
This data is very important, because as the states fight to get their budgets under control, the data suggests that things are actually improving. We need to be on the lookout for politicized budget maneuvers, because obviously, many politicians look at this crisis as a potential gold mine for their agendas. Now that the recession could be losing steam, they could try to ram through all sorts of crazy stuff to just make a political point.
Keep writing and keep pushing. If we let up on these guys now they will just try to sneak it all through again.
It’s scary out there. Rumors of budget cuts here at the university have sent me in a scramble to update my resume and look for possible emergency lines of work should worst come to worst. Honestly, the job market looks like a wasteland. I can’t even begin to think of a backup plan.
Then today I see this video.
That would be Georgia Southern University’s president laying out what this school is facing. I have been through this process once before, and I can say with confidence this is much worse. The face of this university will likely undergo a radical shift into something we can only theorize about it. What’s worse is the number of people the organization will be forced to cut from their livelihood, and cast into a job market already desolate and ruined.
I could go on about this from a personal perspective and illustrate my horror as these events unfold, but I think I would rather let my wife speak for me. This is the letter she currently plans to send to our State Senator.
March 2, 2010
Hi Mr. Hill,
I am writing to you with concern about the recent budget cuts. My husband
is temporary faculty at Georgia Southern University. He loves his job and
is upset to hear about budget cuts…. again. He went through this last
year also, and luckily survived. David and I married this past July, and
we were so happy. I had just graduated from GSU with my elementary
education degree, but unfortunately with the budget cuts that went on, I
was not able to find a teaching job. I am currently a nanny for two
children before and after school, while their mom is a nurse and their dad
is in Iraq. I leave every morning at 4:40 a.m. and don’t get home to see
my husband until 9:30 p.m. (During the day I substitute teach.) You can
see we both work really hard, and if we did not have his income we could
not survive. We have so many student loans that we are trying to pay on,
so please consider young couples like us when you think of budget cuts.
We really need his job, and I of course would love a teaching job, so
please think about us when you are working on cuts.
Thanks so much
Sincerely,
Whitney Bailey
I love my wife more than this limited space can say. Her letter to the senator makes no rigid demands and does not devolve into an angry tantrum. She simply implores the senator to consider our plight as the cuts rage on.
We have to fight this, not just for MY University, but for the sanctity and survival of education itself. Everywhere Schools suffer as the myriad cuts tear them apart piece by weakening piece. If these cuts continue at this pace, education will become a mere shadow of what it once was: a shell mined of all progress and innovation. It will become a mockery of the values our nation stands for. Freedom, opportunity and equality shrivel and die as education withers. We MUST do something.
We can start with a conversation. Anything will do, but this story must circulate. What cuts has your institution suffered? Any institution, not just education, is worthy of discussion here. What crisis do you now confront that threatens your livelihood? Your well being? Your family? How will you personally respond to the worst? I have been considering the military, just because I can fathom no other immediate route.
Perhaps there may be solutions and ideas our leaders have not shared. Maybe some of you out there have faced or are facing a situation just a dire. If we come together here and offer up our strategies, perhaps we can truly push this crisis aside and move toward a repaired system of education.
Its better to be a wasp that stings and kills even as it dies than to go gently into that arguably good night. But if we push, and meet here (or other virtual venues) we can demonstrate our resolve and confront this horror not with fear, but logic, reason, and cold calculation.
Roll up your sleeves and spread the word. The next few months are going to be interesting.
Push Aside 