Cook’s Collaborative Edge

For the past year I had some hope that the election of BHO would truly make a difference. That hope is gone. BHO is business as usual not change one can believe in.

When I read Art Brodsky’s December 14th piece on Connected Nation in Colorado yesterday I was outraged. But then this morning I though wait a minute - Mr Strickling is no fool and certainly knows how Washington works. What if he is doing precisely what the ARRA legislation envisions and the Mapping NOFA calls for as a point of administrative law? I did some checking and it seems that indeed Congress has bought Senator Durbin’s plan and that what we are likely to get - see Colorado for example - is a taxpayer funded assertion that our broadband is just fine thank you and no extra infrastructure is needed. Qwest ATT and Verizon step forward and take their bows and go merrily forward with their predatory ways. Given the hopes we had a year ago, this is a sad turn of affairs.

I remembered that Art Brodsky had unmasked Connected Kentucky nearly two years ago, so I started Googling.

Cassandra like, Art has called this one every step of the way. Follow along

January 9 2008 Connect Kentucky Provides Uncertain Model for Federal Legislation

March 4 2008 Testimony of Art Brodsky Before the House of Delegates Committee on Economic Affairs Hearing on HB 1144

December 31, 2008 This is the only entry not written by Art — Telecom industry brings Connected Nation to North Carolina by Fionna Martin “I think e-NC is the model of how you do it right,” says Art Brodsky, communications director of Public Knowledge, a Washington, D.C. public interest group. “They do their own surveys and they’re not industry-backed. E-NC has a proven track record.”

Feb 17, 2009 Connected Nation Takes Aim At Stimulus Broadband Mapping; Rural Areas Could Be Hurt

March 23 2009 Statement of Art Brodsky: NTIA/RUS Roundatable on Broadband Mapping

March 30, 2009 $350 Million In Mapping Money To Be Wasted, Unless…

June 29 2009 Texas and Tennessee Have Fun With Broadband Mapping Money

July 7 2009 $350 Million Internet Program Being Set Up to Fail

July 30 2009 Connected Nation’s Other Shoe Drops On NTIA

Aug 8, 2009 NTIA Losing Game of Data Chicken

August 31, 2009 Florida Awards Stimulus Contract to High Bidder — Connected Nation

September 9, 2009 Connecting the Dots — How Big Telecom Will Try to Squash Our Fast-Internet Future

October 8, 2009 Connected Nation Buys Off Florida Challenger

December 14 2009 Connected Nation in Colorado: Rocky Path Ahead for Broadband Mapping

December15 2009 (yet another post from Art on BHO’s selling us down a different river) Big Media Writing Joe Biden’s Script

In the torrent of information to which we are exposed — how soon we forget.

A Matter of Perspective

I am sure Mr. Strickling believes himself to be patriotic. I also love my country. But I suspect our patriotism takes a very different form. The only way I can make sense out of what is happening is that he is very firm in the belief that, if it does not get done by private industry, it should not be done. That the national interest or public interest is definable only in terms of what the private sector supports.

I will assert that I hope to live long enough to see these beliefs no longer dominate the United States of America. For in my opinion they are not shared to nearly the same extent by people in Europe or in Asia. Fukiyama may have prophesied the end of the nation state in 1999. But what happened over the next decade was hardly the triumph of a globalized corporate led society. At least not after the collapse of mid September 2008. If there can be no agreement among the 300 million residents of the United States as to a shared public or national interest, we become ungovernable and divided against each other. And in Washington DC the belief that if the incumbents want the status quo maintained, or Wall Street wants its status quo maintained, they must have and therefore will get it maintained is clearly still dominant. Watch not what BHO says. Rather watch what those he appoints do.

Fortunately there are still countless good people in the USA and elsewhere and innovation is still alive although i am increasingly concerned it is alive far more outside our own shores. I have a plate full of inspiring deeds and actions to write about that have nothing to do with out broken domestic policies. I wish the FCC luck. But I expect nothing positive to happen there. As someone who knows the FCC far better than I explained to me last August, the Commissioners are essentially puppets and their public pronouncements are essentially pre-approved by their legal staff.

So I expect lots of rumbling and the FCC “plan” mandated for delivery early next year twill change nothing. The deck is stacked against us and in my opinion any significant change will require a second economic collapse and even then i am not sure that Washington will get the message. Like Bob Metcalfe in his 1997 prediction that the internet would collapse i really hope to be proven wrong. In the mean time, since game set and match have been lost, I will focus of finding the Greg Mortensons of the Internet. I know some already and i imagine all of you do too.

PS: This is just the external face of what is going on at NTIA. There are internal issues which bear watching as well.

And by the way Art Brodsky has done us all an enormous public service. Please at least spread the bibliography of his posts wide and far.

UPDATE

NTIA is a diversion best ignored… the action is at the FCC and it is very real. More in another entry.

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