Ms. Marlene H. Dortch, Secretary
Federal Communications Commission
445 12th Street SW
Washington, DC 20554
Re: A National Broadband Plan for Our Future, GN Docket No. 09-51
Dear Ms. Dortch,
Compared to the rest of the world, America’s broadband efforts are shameful. An open internet is a public resource that deserves scrupulous regulation and a regulating authority that is its champion. An open and accessible Internet is essential to America’s future. It will help revitalize our economy, improve our education and health care, engage millions more people in our democracy and give new meaning to freedom of speech. In crafting the national broadband plan, the Federal Communications Commission must protect Internet users from corporate gatekeepers who seek to keep prices high and speeds slow, limit access to content and stifle innovations and market choice. Net Neutrality must be a basic and enforceable rule of the Internet. Allowing powerful corporate interests to dictate the future of modern communications is a mistake that cannot be repeated. Corporate finance, by its very nature “games” the system in order to maximize profits regardless of service levels. Public service regulation allows providers reasonable profits while assuring that the public has the best service possible. Today, America ranks 19th worldwide in average broadband speeds available to our citizens. Australia ranks seventh. Yet Australia has committed $45 billion toward extending their fiber infrastructure to every home. The FCC must demonstrate the will to plan a level of investment that will put America in the top tier of countries vis a vis broadband speeds. We owe it to the country to gain a place on the leading edge of this technology, a place we have abandoned in deference to maximizing corporate profits.
Cambridge, Massachusetts was in the news this week. A city cop busted a black professor on his own property following some verbal hassles. The professor was understandably freaked out by the cop’s behavior. The cop interpreted that as disrespect for the law or disorderly conduct or something. Basically, the effect of the arrest was to underscore the bust ‘em if they’re black and sort them out later practices of too many police departments across the US. It underscored too, the powerless rage that a lot of people have when confronted or challenged by police authority.
My first thought was that this is just another case of Driving While Black, only this time it’s about forgetting your keys so you gotta go down to the station to get it sorted out. It was probably more nuanced than that.
That it happened in Cambridge is an eye opener. The cop lives in Natick, a town that’s more than 90 percent white and less than two percent African American, and a place where housing is more affordable than Cambridge. That old Unitarian pederast and Harvard graduate, Horatio Alger, was perhaps Natick’s most notable resident. He retired from his Cape Cod pulpit to Natick, disgraced by his “imprudent behavior” with some teenage boys in Brewster. His reputation did not follow him when he left Natick, moved to New York, and befriended young bootblacks who provided inspiration for his tales of young men who found success through constant striving.
Doug Flutie, who exemplified Alger’s “Strive to Succeed” philosophy, went to Natick High School. The Hostess Twinkie factory (think Dan White, famous San Francisco policeman) in Natick is closed but I suppose that the Cambridge cop could still get them retail at the Quik Trip Market. I know. That’s not fair.
So here we have a white working class cop from Natick, and an upper middle class black professor with the reasonable expectation that the shit could hit the fan simply because of the racial dynamic within the Cambridge university community–I’m surprised no one got tazed.
