ReasonedResponse.com

Long ago and in a different war, I joined the military.  It was part of our family's tradition of service to our country, and it was a responsibility I took seriously.  Including qualifying as an expert marksman, even though it was not my job to carry a rifle.

I learned that on a military firing range, the expression "Maggie's Drawers" was used to indicate that you had completely missed the target. 

The same term can be used to describe our approach to bringing broadband to all Americans.  We have been so focused on phony issues and partisan finger-pointing that we have completely failed to even see where the real target lies.

Yet the data is consistent, clear and compelling.  This nation, which once boasted a literacy rate of 99 percent, has seen that rate falling sharply.  One in four high school students is a dropout before graduation -- one in three among black and hispanic kids.  These kids will be forever consigned to low-income jobs and lives.  And, the data says, low-income, low-education Americans don't use the Internet.

For some reason, we continue to pretend that the problem is a lack of infrastructure.  Even though we can now get a broadband signal of some kind to more than 99 percent of all homes and businesses in America.  Even though the cost of our broadband is below the world average.  Even though we continue the amazingly rapid deployment of fiber and other advanced broadband technologies.

The truth is that we can't handle the truth.  We'd rather bluster and blather about "competition" and "duopolies" and "network neutrality" than face the harsh reality that we are failing one-fourth of the American population with our bad policies and partisan bickering.

Already, the Congress is lining up to announce a new slew of bills to manipulate, regulate and complicate broadband in this country.  Not one of those bills even mentions the critical issue of Digital Inclusion, or proposes a program to help people learn the literacy and computing skills they will need in the 21st Century.

Perhaps solving this very real problem is too difficult.  Or perhaps it is not politically expedient.  Or doesn't raise money and support for re-election. 

But I have watched as we spent three years wrangling over the non-issue of "network neutrality."  I have seen a decade of repeated efforts to force broadband's square peg into the round hole of 19th-Century telephony regulation.  I have watched as greedy state treasurers lick their lips over the prospect of taxing Internet access, even though this would only make access less accessible to lower-income families.

In an industry obsessed with social networking, videos and making a fast buck, we've paid scant attention to the fact that most people who don't use the Internet are disinterested because there is nothing on the Internet they want or need.  In an industry of rock stars and overnight sensations, we've left consumers waiting by the curb.

When it comes to solving the real and tangible and proven problems that confront us, or moving toward solutions that will actually make ubiquitous Internet use a reality, we've come up Maggie's Drawers.  And until we start basing broadband and Internet policies on reality rather than political dogma and wishful thinking, we will only see our efforts continue to go astray.