Socio-Logic with James (on FBi Radio)

Hey everyone

As some of you may know, I have a regular gig on FBi Radio (94.5 FM). It is a trial for 6 weeks so let’s hope that they like me and keep me! (You can email them and tell them I rock or even better subscribe to keep independent radio alive and well in Sydney).

I am on Up For It with the cool and funky Alex Pye every Wednesday morning at about 8.15 am, so please tune in!

This week’s stories…

1. Pay to use the internet:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/10/10/2710367.htm

This week at a conference in Beijing, the News Corporation chairman, Rupert Murdoch, criticised online companies like Google – saying they were ‘content kleptomaniacs’. His argument is that Google makes money by directing people to content loaded by organisations such as Fox News and Sydney Morning Herald, and they should pay (and by extension, we should pay).

The internet has always been a battleground since its development as corporations have always tried to commodify it and make us pay, while the open source software movement has always believed that this is something that we all own as it was built by our tax dollars and should remain free. An amazing guy here is Lawrence Lessig – you should check out his work!

I am all for free content – and think Rupert’s move is a negative one. He never establishes why we should pay to visit his site: is it better than everybody else’s? I do not think so: it is just a way to enclose more area for profit.

Watch this one – I think it will heat up – and get ready to get active to protect what is owned by all of us already (a true commons) – in which corporations are already making money off!

2. Climate camp

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/10/11/2710652.htm?section=justin

The second story was a discussion about Climate Camp – which is a community of volunteer’s environmental group – that has emerged because they believe that the government is not doing enough to combat climate change: and I think they are spot on the money!

The Climate Camp ran for three days at Helensburgh near Wollongong. This was symbolic because it is the site of one of Australia’s oldest coal mines and the NSW government, despite everything we know about carbon emissions, coal and climate change, has decided to expand it! (Note that residents are also concerned – not just about the emissions, but the risk to the local environment and water quality).

The meeting culminated with about 500 protesters blocking and closing down the mine on the Sunday afternoon. It was a peaceful protest though 13 people were arrested.

I am all for non-violent civil disobedience – it may be the only way to make people list and confront power.

Again, watch this space – I think we are going to see a whole lot more of these leading up to the climate negotiations in Copenhagen later this year. (Click here to be linked to Oxfam Australia's discussion and background information and Copenhagen).

Join me next week on FBi!

Cheers, james