LETTERS: Turn the wheel for ourselves

To the editor:

The market economy is one of mankind’s greatest achievements but it works best for society when there is competition. Starting in the 1980s the application of anti-trust laws switched from “anti-competition” to “anti-price fixing”. Since then we experienced an explosion of mergers and acquisitions that has resulted in fewer providers of goods and services and fewer employers to choose from.

For example, 73 percent of all meat sold in chain grocery stores are provided by only four giant companies, like Tyson Foods. Here in our local area we saw cable company Adelphia bought by Time Warner Cable, which lied to us thousands of times per day. Remember, “high speed internet starting at $14.95”? Then TWC was bought by Spectrum, which is owned by Charter Communications. How long will it be before all of that is owned by Amazon, Disney, or Google? In the past year Spectrum has raised my monthly subscription twice, the last time by 28 percent. “He who owns controls” – and we have no control. Working with small companies we can create the competition that Spectrum doesn’t have.

Due to the hard work of some local citizens who have experienced, “Taken Enough Already” and, like those Boston “Sons of Liberty,” who were sick and tired of dealing with a giant corporation, the East India Company, we have the opportunity to be free of the tyranny of Spectrum. Instead of dumping tea we can be dumping the burden of making some financial elites even wealthier. We can own, and therefore control, the infrastructure that provides internet service.

Once in place, rates will rise only if we say so. The quality of maintenance will be determined by us, the local community. We need not be the frogs in the boiling water.

Everyone knows that owning a house is less expensive than renting. Renters always have the risk that their home will be sold to some distant owner that will keep raising the rent. Let’s break free from this system that sends our local wealth to people who care nothing for us. Let’s take a hold of the wheel and turn it for ourselves.

Vote Yes for our own Fiber Optics internet.

Brad Sherwood
China