Poor Jessie Jackson, Jr.
He didn’t know what he was saying. He probably had no idea of the backlash. One thing is for sure, he’s now on the list of people who’ve said the most idiotic things possible about the Internet and technology in general. He’s right up there with Al Gore who “took initiative in creating the Internet.” His statement is as infamous as Senator Ted Stevens’s “The Internet is not a big truck… it’s a series of tubes,” and Bon Jovi’s “Steve Jobs killed the music industry.” To that last one I say, “All hail Steve the giant killer!” Unfortunately the music industry is anything but dead.
Anyway, last Friday, Jessie Jackson, Jr., was making a presentation to Congress. It was a typical congressional presentation, one that no one would ever hear, see or think about. He was yammering on and pointing to his silly looking giant cardboard visual aids, when suddenly he went off an a tirade explaining how iPads are costing thousands of jobs.
I know no one was paying attention because I wasn’t paying attention. I was busy looking at LOLCATS and being mystified at the fact that Windows 7 still has config.sys, autoexec.bat, and registry files, and the fact that there really, truly are a lot more raisins in Kellog’s Raisin Bran than other brands. Then suddenly I heard the word “iPad” come from the general direction of the TV, and I glanced up over the top of my glasses. (Yeah yeah, CSPAN entertains me.)
Jessie Jackson, Jr., it seems, had an epiphany. He discovered the “post-Windows-era.” Listening to him, I could almost see him sitting at home one morning, oatmeal dribbling down his chin, blank stare on his face, when it occurs to him, “Gee, if all my publications come electronically, I won’t need books and magazines and stuff, and all those people will be out of work. OMG! The iPad is killing American jobs!”
To be fair he is sort of correct. Electronic publishing is poised to do away with books and magazines, just as smartphones are killing digital cameras, and iPads are having an adverse effect low cost computers. What he was attempting to do (I think) was explain how technology and globalization are crucifying American jobs. What he did was sound foolish.
“… the iPad is produced in China! It’s not produced here in the United States. So the Chinese get to take advantage of our first amendment value, that is to provide freedom of speech through the iPad to the American people but there is no protection for jobs here in America to ensure that the American people are being put to work…”
What?
Clearly or not so clearly actually, Jackson has mastered his father’s ability to make even the simplest of concepts utterly confusing, but he apparently didn’t attend the same Dr. Seuss Speech Academy. Jessie Jackson, Sr. might have said, “The uh, iPad uh, can be had from here to uh, Baghdad, but we are not glad, we are in fact very sad, because there are no jobs to add, and that is bad, not rad, I am your dad, Jessie, you see.”
While Jackson, Jr. might have stumbled onto how new technologies have dramatic effects on the world, (which is a good thing to comprehend), his solution to the hollowing out of the job market is as naive as ever. He suggests that instead of getting America’s deficits and debt under control that Congress should be focused on creating jobs. This makes it clear that he doesn’t see the correlation is between massive government spending and a diminishing job market. The government can tax us, which sucks money out of the economy and eliminates jobs, or the government can print money, which harms future economies.
He states that 13 million unemployed Americans are counting on this congress to do something. Not really. We are not counting on Congress doing anything at all except getting spending under control, and bringing our debt under control, and of course, making sure a level playing field is kept on the Internet via Net Neutrality.
Change is constant and inevitable. Bookstores may become a thing of the past, like record stores, but publishing, just as with music selling, goes on. Publishers are shifting to an electronic model. New jobs are coming into existence where previously there were none. Ironically, I buy many more books than I used to, and I do it whenever I want. If the urge to go book shopping strikes me at 2:00AM, I can go to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders, Apple’s Book Store, countless smaller electronic publishers, and even free publishers. I can hit all these bookstores 24 x 7 and no fossil fuels are burned and no trees are cut down.
The iPad is a major catalyst of change. This is good change that we must embrace, understand, and nurture, not falsely blame for social ills.
