Alla Casa Bianca non piace la Morte Nera. Se è lecito chiedere lo è altrettanto rispondere.

Nel 1789 gli Stati Uniti d'America varano la loro Costituzione. Le prime tre parole contengono l'ideale della democrazia repubblicana: noi, il Popolo. Dal Settembre 2011 l'amministrazione Obama ha attivato un portale (We The People) con lo scopo di raccogliere le petizioni online. Dai 13 anni di età chiunque può creare una petizione con relativa raccolta di firme, ma il sito di una specifica petizione non sarà visibile a tutti fino alla soglia minima di 150 adesioni. Secondo filtro: 5 mila firme in 30 giorni: in tal caso la richiesta sarà esaminata e riceverà una risposta ufficiale.
Aveva quindi pieno diritto di essere ascoltata la richiesta del 14 Novembre 2012 inerente la richiesta di costruire la Morte Nera ("Secure resources and funding, and begin construction of a Death Star by 2016").
Aveva altrettanto diritto, quindi, la Casa Bianca a rispondere come ha risposto: con ironia e precisione: costa troppo (850 milioni di miliardi di dollari) e il nostro obiettivo è ridurre il deficit, non aumentarlo; non è nostra intenzione far saltare in aria pianeti; sarebbe troppo vulnerabile, dato che può essere fatta saltare in aria da una navetta spaziale guidata da un uomo solo.
Nella risposta, firmata da Paul Shawcross (capo dell’ufficio bilancio per la scienza e lo spazio), si legge anche che l'amministrazione condivide il desiderio di creare posti di lavoro e di garantire la difesa nazionale, ma una Morte Nera non è nei piani del Presidente Obama.
Ecco di seguito la risposta originale.
Che la Forza sia con voi!

Andrea Mameli www.linguaggiomacchina.it 13 Gennaio 2013

This Isn’t the Petition Response You’re Looking For

By Paul Shawcross
The Administration shares your desire for job creation and a strong national defense, but a Death Star isn’t on the horizon. Here are a few reasons:

• The construction of the Death Star has been estimated to cost more than $850,000,000,000,000,000. We’re working hard to reduce the deficit, not expand it.
• The Administration does not support blowing up planets.
• Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?

However, look carefully (here’s how) and you’ll notice something already floating in the sky — that’s no Moon, it’s a Space Station! Yes, we already have a giant, football field-sized International Space Station in orbit around the Earth that’s helping us learn how humans can live and thrive in space for long durations. The Space Station has six astronauts — American, Russian, and Canadian — living in it right now, conducting research, learning how to live and work in space over long periods of time, routinely welcoming visiting spacecraft and repairing onboard garbage mashers, etc. We’ve also got two robot science labs — one wielding a laser — roving around Mars, looking at whether life ever existed on the Red Planet.
Keep in mind, space is no longer just government-only. Private American companies, through NASA’s Commercial Crew and Cargo Program Office (C3PO), are ferrying cargo — and soon, crew — to space for NASA, and are pursuing human missions to the Moon this decade.
Even though the United States doesn’t have anything that can do the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs, we’ve got two spacecraft leaving the Solar System and we’re building a probe that will fly to the exterior layers of the Sun. We are discovering hundreds of new planets in other star systems and building a much more powerful successor to the Hubble Space Telescope that will see back to the early days of the universe.
We don’t have a Death Star, but we do have floating robot assistants on the Space Station, a President who knows his way around a light saber and advanced (marshmallow) cannon, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is supporting research on building Luke’s arm, floating droids, and quadruped walkers.
We are living in the future! Enjoy it. Or better yet, help build it by pursuing a career in a science, technology, engineering or math-related field. The President has held the first-ever White House science fairs and Astronomy Night on the South Lawn because he knows these domains are critical to our country’s future, and to ensuring the United States continues leading the world in doing big things.
If you do pursue a career in a science, technology, engineering or math-related field, the Force will be with us! Remember, the Death Star’s power to destroy a planet, or even a whole star system, is insignificant next to the power of the Force.

• Automating 'We the People': New White House Initiative for Citizen Petitions (Sarah Granger, The Huffington Post, Sept. 4, 2011)
• Death Star Petition Gets White House Rebuff ( Ethan Klapper, The Huffington Post, Jan. 11, 2013)
• We the people want a Death Star (Emi Kolawole, Washington Post, Jan. 12, 2013)