Now that we’re all at home and online, has anyone noticed that the Internet is slow? In America, all of us at home are dragging it to a halt. And that’s strange, isn’t it? Isn’t America supposed to be the best country on the planet? Instead, we’ve fallen behind the world on so many measures. Maybe it’s time we looked at ourselves objectively.
Republicans insist on American Exceptionalism as a point of absolute unquestioning faith. Woe to anyone who doesn’t genuflect quickly enough for the attack machine. But it’s perverse. Why on earth are Americans required to celebrate ‘successes’ that are lies? Look around us. We’ve been lagging for decades, shortchanged in budgets and legislatively hamstrung by Republicans. They’ve been hacking at whatever parts they could saw out and hand to the rich and connected. It’s worked, too. The rich are (much) richer, more powerful, and unquestioned. And the rest of us have fallen behind the world, lagging the rest of the developed countries.
Look, I’m an old I.T. engineer. All of us — the engineers, programmers, hardware builders, the industry — we helped create, defend, and build the computer revolution, and then the Internet. Those of us ‘of a certain age’ can talk about how hard IBM tried to crush the PC market, or how fervently Microsoft worked to undercut the Internet.
And, in the end, we lost. The Internet has become modern television: mindless, static content pushed out by big corporations for the general public. Sit in front of the screen, color between the lines, don’t make a fuss, push the button when we tell you, and watch all the damn ads. Sophisticated communication and cooperation used to be more fulfilling, but not as much now. And we’re stuck here. It’s like watching 50s sitcoms. The big companies captured the regulatory agencies, entrenched their monopolies with copyright abuse and weaponized patents.
Monopolies have simple goals: make people pay the maximum for your minimum effort. No new stuff, no improvements, no changes, because change threatens the profit structure. Repackage the same crap as last year, raise prices just a bit, invest as little as possible, and bang, you’re done. You stay fat and happy for as long as you can crush the competition out of your existence.
So now we pay way too much for Internet access that’s slow and unresponsive. Congratulations, you’re exceptional.
Republicans are always telling Americans that we’re the greatest. I suppose that’s a pleasant fiction? “America has the greatest health care system in the world!!!” Republicans spout all the time (and always with exclamation points). The reality is: nope. We’re better in some areas and worse in others, but overall, we’re maybe 37th? Mention that and Republicans sputter. “But you have to wait forever to see a doctor in the UK!” they swear. Again, nope, we’re below average. Before you ask, it’s you’re much more likely to get a same-or-next-day appointment in the UK than in the US. All that talk about rationing? They’re Republican lies.
We invented the Internet, we’re told, so we have the best networks! Well, really no, huh-uh. We finally pushed up past Slovakia, but the most recent numbers I found have America far down the list, and still well below Estonia. And we pay through the nose for our crappy service, too. It’s not a surprise. God forbid we work together to make the country better.
America has the world’s biggest, strongest infrastructure! Except no, it’s not. It’s not that our roads, bridges, power grids, networks, etc., are entirely awful. It’s impressive. At some point, though, we stopped building new stuff. And then we began shortchanging the maintenance on things we’d already made. The change is slow because there’s just so much stuff here. We didn’t notice when we fell behind. But we did. According to the World Economic Forum scale (from 1 to 7), we score a 5.6 on infrastructure, which puts us back around ninth. We’re behind Netherlands, Singapore, Switzerland, U.A.E., and France. But hey, we beat Iceland!
Schools? We’re 29th, which I suppose isn’t horrible. Still far behind Estonia, mind you. How about “Freedom!” (whatever that means)? We’re fallen behind the world there, too, down to around 20th in institutional health.
I’m wondering how much the facts will penetrate the protective shell of American Exceptionalism. Republicans have engineered it surprisingly well. I don’t have a clue how they made an issue immune to facts or the truth, but it’s fantastically persistent. Tell any of these facts to someone inculcated in the Republican nonsense, and they’ll deny the reality of… well, the truth. Not because the facts aren’t right, they’re just not acceptable. So enjoy your slow Internet, America. We could be doing better, but we chose not to. Perish the thought that your telecoms could make less money or that they’d have to keep building new stuff. And above all else, make sure our federal government protects all our established companies from any competitor with a better deal.
If we’ve fallen behind the world, it’s something we’ve done to ourselves.
