OMG it’s Eliot Spitzer. I. Love. Him.
I also just made eyecontact with Mary Katherine Ham in the hallway, and we exchanged smiles. Woah. She looks really, really young. She looks even younger than me.
And now Spitzer is speaking. I’m sitting next to my dear friend Shankar Gupta, a regular Feministe commenter, who’s here on a press pass. He’s groaning as Elliott is being introduced. Don’t worry, I glared at him and shook my head. He just doesn’t understand the greatness that is The Spitz. Jessica from Feministing and Gwynn from The Real Hot 100 are sitting next to him. It’s a good row.
Spitzer’s speech is fantastic. If you haven’t ever seen him speak, you should try. He’s incredibly engaging and passionate. Today, he’s discussing access to broadband in the United States, and in New York in particular. Not everyone has access to this technology. Broadband is multiple times more expensive in the United States than in other industrialized nations. We are the only industrialized nation without an explicit policy promoting broadband access. Spitzer further points out that areas like Red Hook in New York City don’t have access beyond dial-up. We’re at a transition point when it comes to the internet and technology, and our country and our localities need to catch up. While New York has a vast infrastructure to move goods, “we don’t have that infrastructure to move ideas,” Spitzer says.
He announced a state-wide initiative to ensure affordable broadband access to every New Yorker. He points out that such access would benefit everyone, from the small-time farmers upstate to school kids in the Bronx. Better-off areas are able to afford broadband, but much of the state doesn’t have affordable access to it, and “There is simply no excuse for this digital divide.” He argues that there is a growing effort from cable and telecom companies to limit broadband access, without filling the void themselves. New York, he says, should have a competitive market and review state regulations that limit broadband access. We should leverage the existing infrastructure to improve broadband access and make it available to all. The state’s chief information officer should lead a taskforce to develop state-wide broadband policies to leverage the resources we already have. We should consider ways to promote broadband access in affordable housing process, and protect municiple rights. We should also focus on under-served areas like the outer boroughs of New York City and rural towns upstate. Major telecos don’t think they can make a profit in rural upstate towns, and so they ignore them, leaving these areas at a disadvantage. He points out that in the 1940s, the United States guaranteed a dialtone to everyone, and that “The internet is the dialtone of our time, and it’s time we guarantee every citizen in New York state the right to receive it and the right to use it, in order to expand themselves and to expand the economy.”
Spitzer focuses on New York, and points out that we have some of the highest taxes and healthcare costs in the nation. New Yorkers are “voting with their feet” and moving elsewhere. Upstate has lost 25% of its young people, and its population is one of the slowest-growing in the country — only two states are slower. Since 1940, NY has lost 16 seats in Congress due to our slow population growth. But “We know that government can make things better. In the absense of federal leadership, state government can fill the void.” In order to do this, “we also need a world-class boradband network that offers New Yorkers what is necessary to compete in the 21st century.” He clarifies that he’s not talking about having the government wire the state, and he isn’t talking about free broadband for everyone. But he is talking about affordable broadband. And the way we can do that is by encouraging competition between telecos, and thinking of innovative ways to do this. “The problem isn’t a lack of resources, it’s a lack of leadership and a lack of information.” There will always be naysayers, he says, but the naysayers are often wrong — and the greatest developments in human history have always been contrary to what the naysayers say.
Now Mark Halperin from ABC and The Note is up, having an “informal” chat with the Spitz. He’s asking Spitz if he thinks that technology is changing politics in any negative ways, and Eliot basically says that even the arguments as to why the internet is “negative” are actually good things. The rapid dissemination of information and breaking monopolies of information flow have always been criticized as new technologies have come up, from the printing press to the radio to TV and now to the internet. So the fact that the internet is shaking up the print and television media isn’t a bad thing at all.
“Maybe I’m demonstrating my own lack of parsing the differences sufficently, but bloggers are journalists” with a different way of communicating, Eliot says. He says he sees no difference between reading a column in a newspaper and reading a blog, and he makes a good point — but again, there is a difference between news reporters and op/ed writers. But I’ll forgive him on that.
Halperin asks, Should the government have any effect on the content of the internet? Eliot responds, “Not beyond what we do in other contexts.” He points to pornography as something that we regulate in most medias, but says that it’s difficult to enforce certain online behaviors (like gambling) according to jurisdictional rules, when such behaviors transcend jurisdictions. He says he’s a strong supporter of the First Amendment, and “I do not believe that we should be in the business of regulating content. I do think that we have a role to play in enforcing existing constitutional bans” on content that is already regulated in print, on film, etc.
Eliot just made a joke about his kids reading the Aeneid “in the original Greek.” Shankar, always critical, leans over and says, “Actually, the Aeneid was written in Latin.” Touche, my friend, touche.
Mark Halperin just asked Spitz how much it costs to download a song on iTunes, and Spitzer answered 99 cents. He is connected to the people. Although he doesn’t know how much internet costs in New York, because it goes straight to the Visa bill. So I’ll tell him: TimeWarner wireless is $65 a month. And it doesn’t work half the time.
Spitzer says that he is “hoping that technology will solve the campaign finance condumdrum.” “No matter what laws you pass, McCain Feingold or whatever, it’s like pushing a balloon.” The current standard is using television, radio and print to promote your campaign, and that’s expensive. A younger demographic relies more heavily on the internet for their information and news analysis, and “The internet, theoretically, is a much lower-cost way of communicating with the public.”
In sum: The Spitz is rad. I *heart* him. And my laptop battery is about to die, so it’s time to go. Hopefully I’ll be able to charge it, and will return after lunch.