Broadband BS

Were you in favor of the stimulus?

Now that Vermont has secured $172 million dollars for Broadband infrastructure are you?

Are Vermonters no better than the politicians that claim to serve them, I wonder?  Has your resolve softened, your character drooped, are you ready for some compromise?  Maybe just a little stimulus would be ok, especially if you can have some internet in return!

I say BULL.

This Vermonter would like to know how many Vermonters are ready to sell out.

If I remember correctly when the “bailout” was first proposed, hundreds, if not thousands, maybe more, Vermonters called, wrote and emailed our representatives in DC to tell them NO!  It’s true right?  That’s what I did.  What about you?

And they ignored us.

And now, like trophy hunters hunting in fenced pens, those same representatives bring home money never wanted and tell us all how good it will be for Vermont.

So I ask, because I have a young son and I want to know what I should be teaching him, I ask:  Does the end justify the mean?  Is it ok to forgive the stimulus decision as long as the money is spent on me? – actually the questions are rhetorical.

The stimulus was still the worst idea I’ve ever heard (except for Real ID, oh and Cap and Trade, yeah and the new Ag bill) and it’s as bad an idea today as it was then, like a bottle of wine without an air tight seal, it’s gotten worse.  And simply because Vermonters have a desire and simply because it would be really great to have broadband in all areas and simply because it would be more than great to be “connected” around Vermont doesn’t change, not for one minute, the fact that we were sold out by politicians.  We were sold out by our representatives in Washington.  And what’s worse…the same guys that sold us out, the same guys who choose not to listen to the people who elected them are now selling themselves as the hero’s of the hunt.  They’ve come back from the pretend wild with their trophies and they pretend as if what they have brought back is the real thing, it looks like the real thing, smells like it, even feels like it.

But it’s not.  It’s not the real thing.  It’s the result of a deception an arrogant betrayal that has put the future of our sons and daughters in peril.  Leahy, Sanders and Welch are pretenders and the worst of the bunch.  They pretend the money they bring back is good for Vermont but they must not realize that real people live here.  Real people who spend money and balance their books, and practice responsible finance and create value in business…these three have forgotten.  They think that what they are doing is right.

$172 million for broadband.  What a celebration.  We really need broadband so I guess we can overlook the truth of where the money comes from.  I guess a little compromise never hurt anyone, and anyway, just look at what our Vermont politicians are saying…it’s good for us, really, really good for us – so pay no attention to the methods, pay no attention to how, as long as we get the thing we want, we will quickly forget.  Right!

Right?

Not me.  I won’t ever forget because what was done by the three representatives of Vermont and by the rest of the minuscule percentage of our population will never be forgotten because we will continue to be reminded, unless we can change it, of the ever constricting noose of dependence that they have secured for us and with every dime they tout they have fought for and with every mention of doing it for the people of Vermont you can remember it was all based on a fraud and on a betrayal of the wishes of the people of Vermont.  Or you can continue to pretend.