Obama’s first online address to America
p2pnet news view | P2P | Politics:- The owners of Facebook and similar social networking sites are struggling desperately to find ways to ‘monetize’ their businesses. And while they come up with one self-serving scheme after another, people continue to use them as they’re supposed to be used: as information vehicles. Damnit!
The same applies to YouTube. Bought by Google and bitterly fought over by virtually every major media corporation, YouTube users blithely continue to see it as belonging to them, employing it it to tell stories and pass along information.
Unpspun, untrammelled, unfiltered
Until the dawn of this century, you and I have been seen as mindless animals, cash-cows, to be driven relentlessly hither and thither with no true free will of our own.
But that changed when the Net and digital communications came into their own. Now we talk to each other one-on-one, group-to-group, country-to-country, every second of every day, completely bypassing the corporate print and electronic media which had hitherto been our principal sources of news and data.
Now we get our information from the source and pass it along to each other unpspun, untrammelled, unfiltered.
It truly is a new age.
God’s gift to advertisers?
Canada has just lost its most recent election with Stephen Harper’s massively unpopular government scraping back by the skin of its teeth.
In America, however, it was a very different story.
From Day One, Barack Obama saw the Net for what it was — direct access to the people — and it won’t be long before the world will learn whether or not this really is a new time and a new deal.
Obama has promised to use YouTube to deliver weekly talks. It’ll be a way for him to tell not only Americans, but people around the world what he’s thinking and planning.
Google will see it as God’s gift — an absolutely priceless, free vehicle for advertisers.
But we suspect people will continue to ignore these embarrassingly obvious attempts to hijack user-created visual media to get into the minds and wallets of their creators and fans.
‘My first order of business as President’
Today, November 15, Obama kept his promise with his first video in which he discusses the global economic crisis.
Interestingly, however, he and his advisers were wise enough to recognize the medium is indeed the message, to paraphrase Marshall McLuhan, including text with images.
Here’s what he had to say »»»
Today, the leaders of the G-20 countries — a group that includes the world’s largest economies — are gathering in Washington to seek solutions to the ongoing turmoil in our financial markets. I’m glad President Bush has initiated this process — because our global economic crisis requires a coordinated global response.
And yet, as we act in concert with other nations, we must also act immediately here at home to address America’s own economic crisis. This week, amid continued volatility in our markets, we learned that unemployment insurance claims rose to their highest levels since September 11, 2001. We’ve lost jobs for ten straight months — nearly 1.2 million jobs this year, many of them in our struggling auto industry. And millions of our fellow citizens lie awake each night wondering how they’re going to pay their bills, stay in their homes, and save for retirement.
Make no mistake: this is the greatest economic challenge of our time. And while the road ahead will be long, and the work will be hard, I know that we can steer ourselves out of this crisis — because here in America we always rise to the moment, no matter how hard. And I am more hopeful than ever before that America will rise once again.
But we must act right now. Next week, Congress will meet to address the spreading impact of the economic crisis. I urge them to pass at least a down-payment on a rescue plan that will create jobs, relieve the squeeze on families, and help get the economy growing again. In particular, we cannot afford to delay providing help for the more than one million Americans who will have exhausted their unemployment insurance by the end of this year. If Congress does not pass an immediate plan that gives the economy the boost it needs, I will make it my first order of business as President.
Even as we dig ourselves out of this recession, we must also recognize that out of this economic crisis comes an opportunity to create new jobs, strengthen our middle class, and keep our economy competitive in the 21st century.
That starts with the kinds of long-term investments that we’ve neglected for too long. That means putting two million Americans to work rebuilding our crumbling roads, bridges, and schools. It means investing $150 billion to build an American green energy economy that will create five million new jobs, while freeing our nation from the tyranny of foreign oil, and saving our planet for our children. It means making health care affordable for anyone who has it, accessible for anyone who wants it, and reducing costs for small businesses. And it also means giving every child the world-class education they need to compete with any worker, anywhere in the world.
Doing all this will require not just new policies, but a new spirit of service and sacrifice, where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves, but each other. If this financial crisis has taught us anything, it’s that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers — in this country, we rise or fall as one nation; as one people. And that is how we will meet the challenges of our time — together.
Meaningless rhetoric and political waffle?
Stay tuned.
(Thanks, Liz)
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News 1130 – , November , 2008
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November 15th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
I sure hope he atually does what he says he will do, Because I need a job. But here’s the thing.
You got people who are so busy trying to get social security.
And People cheating the system.
People who get it, and do not need it, because they are perfectly capable of working. Yet me, someone with a disability, went through pure hell to get it, because I actually needed it, and I want to work and not live off of it at all.
November 15th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
that problem isnt limited to the USA
ive been told by welfare i dont have to look for work yet was turned down and need to get a lawyer to get disability and there statement is that , that is the way its done now because of the abuse of systems
ya people that need are picked on , sued , and harmed by the system while scammers and jerks get off scot free.
November 16th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
” People who get it, and do not need it, because they are perfectly capable of working. Yet me, someone with a disability, went through pure hell to get it, because I actually needed it, and I want to work and not live off of it at all. ”
Boy do I feel ya.
It took me two years and a really good lawyer to get Disability.
what doesn’t help is that my heart is the problem, but I LOOK fine.
I still get dirty looks from people who think because I look OK that I must be sheating the
system out of laziness.
People that cheat the system make things so much worse for those of us that really need it.