[PLUG-TALK] Re: [PLUG] Re: Unwire Portland public meeting tomorrow

Jeme A Brelin jeme at brelin.net
Thu Jul 28 00:31:39 UTC 2005


On Wed, 27 Jul 2005, Russ Johnson wrote:
> Aaron Burt wrote:
>> AFAIK, the city wants to build a net anyway, for its own uses.  Point 
>> of this is that if we're paying for it, we should have unfiltered 
>> access.
>> 
> Can you borrow the city dump truck because the city paid for it with 
> taxes?
> No.

But we absolutely should.

> The same rule applies.

That's a false analogy.  Dump trucks are a scarce resource with a discrete 
usability and finite number.  There are only so many and one is either 
being used or not being used.

The public network, however, has partial usability and can be structured 
such that any and all bandwidth not being used for public services is 
allocated to the people.  The real scarcity would be on the outbound 
bandwidth to get off the wireless network and out into the broader 
internet.  The city already has excess capacity here that is just going 
unused.  Surely we can build more and the incremental cost to the public 
is nominal compared to the cost for each individual or family to build a 
network connection of their own.

> The city wants to build a net for itself. If it were to give everyone 
> access, the net in question would have to be many orders of magnitude 
> larger... cost more, etc.

The city is going to build a network with public access.  That's not a 
question.  The question is who builds and maintains it and what kind of 
access does the public get.  Unfettered access with public management is 
clearly superior to some minimal access restricted by a corporation whose 
profits are part of the public budget.

> Publically owned does not mean public resource. It never has, and it 
> probably never will.

But privately-owned CAN'T mean public resource, so where are we?  If we 
want public resources, they have to be publicly owned.

> I'm speaking of reality here, not some form of anarchistic, or marxist 
> idealistic plan.

Perhaps we move toward the ideal asymptotically.  That's better than not 
moving toward it at all.

It's certainly superior to a world of exclusive privilege by wealth where 
the ONLY use for public funds is maintaining a 
police-prison/military-prison system for maintaining property relations 
and ensuring the haves stay haves and the have-nots stay in line.

J.
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      Jeme A Brelin
     jeme at brelin.net
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