roundtable: Re: Lack of Public Interest Protection in H.R. 1555

roundtable: Re: Lack of Public Interest Protection in H.R. 1555

Re: Lack of Public Interest Protection in H.R. 1555

Vigdor Schreibman - FINS (fins@access.digex.net)
Sat, 27 May 1995 01:13:00 -0400 (EDT) 

Date: Sat, 27 May 1995 01:13:00 -0400 (EDT)
From: Vigdor Schreibman - FINS <fins@access.digex.net>
To: roundtable@cni.org
Subject: Re: Lack of Public Interest Protection in H.R. 1555
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.91.950526171839.6316C-100000@essential.essential.org>
Message-Id: <Pine.SUN.3.91.950527002155.6808A-100000@access2.digex.net>


On Fri, 26 May 1995, Brad Stillman wrote:
> 
> Curt:
> 
> I take issue with your characterization of CFA's lobbying on this bill.  
> If you had read any of the letters sent to the hill, read my testimony 
> or heard CFA and other ratepayers representatives speak on the bill, 
> we spoke on a wide variety of issues.  CFA has spent a tremendous 
> amount of time speaking out against cable/telco cross-ownership, 
> including offering amendments to the subcommittee, state pre-emption, 
> absence of a role for the DOJ, lack of adequate competitive safeguards, 
> PUHCA and others.

  The well supported arguments mounted on Capitol Hill by CFA that I 
have seen have been devastating.  No reasonable person, in my view, 
could fail to understand the issues Brad has addressed, if they were 
listening.  That is the problem, however.  Members of Congress listen 
primarily to the power being projected in the currency of cash or 
voter involvement.  The arguments offered by lobbyists with *hat in 
hand* counts for little. 

  Industry alone has the cash, so the question for Brad and other 
members of the public interest community is this: have they informed 
the voters about the most appropriate design of the National 
Information Infrastructure (NII) in any coherent form, or encouraged 
and facilitated meaningful public participation in the process?  The 
answer, of course, is clearly no.

  There remains at this late date no coherent public interest vision of
the NII, connecting broad purpose with a viable strategy to realize the
same, and consequently, the public is neither informed nor involved. 
Moreover, many people think that public involvement is an undesirable
intrusion into their own power; they prefer the Madisonian formula for 
the exercise of power by strategically located persons.  That is the 
role they picture for themselves, however unrealistic this may be in 
real-world terms. 
  
  The *hat in hand* lobbying by public interest groups must be 
radically transformed into a more dynamic participatory movement, to 
prevent the complete breakdown of our social and political system.  
Nevertheless, I have seen no inclination of the public interest 
community to either listen to alternative possibilities or change 
their devastating cycle of failure. 

  Of course, the people get the government they demand.  If the people
fail to adequately sustain their ultimate responsibility for
self-governance, democratic political systems stop operating.  That 
seems to be where we are right now in this technological civilization. 


  Vigdor Schreibman
  <fins@access.digex.net>

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