“Recovering legislator” Ron Gomez appeared on the Moon Griffon show defending LUS’ fiber-to-the-home plan, correcting misinformation, and appearing as the voice of calm reason. Nice, and courageous considering the level of invective that callers on that show too often revert to. He noted that LUS, not BellSouth, built Lafayette’s fiber ring, that the incumbents have no intention of building a fiber-to-the-home network in the foreseeable future, the difference between FTTH and FTTCurb, the economic reasons corporations favor big cities over small towns, what legislators are elected to do, and the sordid history of how telecom corporations have waged campaigns of disinformation across the country in an attempt to keep local communities from providing for themselves.
Gomez clearly knew his stuff. But what was most impressive to me as a listener was his ability to calmly and clearly explain this complicated stuff on the fly. I’m envious. He’d make a great host on AOC.
For his part, the day’s moderator, C. B. Forgotston (no slouch at invective himself) gracefully accepted correction and endorsed public bodies doing for the community what private corporations will not when he learned that this was what was really going on in Lafayette. He lectured the audience as well on American democratic procedure, arguing that we elect legislators rather than laws and that the proper solution in a case like this would be to vote against the folks who had passed a law you didn’t like. Here’s a guy who was awake in civics class.
Refreshing stuff in that venue… and proof as well that this isn’t a left vs. right issue but a community vs. corporate one. Kudos to all.
(Thanks to an alert reader for cluing me in that the topic was being discussed. It’s been a good day for those alert reader sorts.)
The political solution mentioned by Forgotston is no solution at all. Even if we defeat the politician who gave us an obligation we didn’t want, we still have the obligation. A corporation may not always give us what we want, when we want it, but the corporation can never oblige us to anything against our will. If a corporation overestimates demand and fails, it costs me nothing. If a politician overestimates demand, it costs us all. I prefer the market solution to the political.
Thank you for great information. I look forward to the continuation.