Tioga Herald

Cable TV

While living in South Florida, we had choices for cable TV and Internet services. Here in Tioga County, we often have only one choice. For many of us, that one choice is Spectrum, unless we try HughesNet, Dish, or DirectTV through the airwaves of satellite.  Satellite services are not given a good review, particularly with Internet. 

The FCC has given favor to big business and corporate welfare and has nationalized (socialism) by way of corporate welfare and favors to the wealthy who run such services. Not only have we lost local content in newspapers which were once chock full of local news, information, and culture, we have lost control of local broadcasting.  Television broadcasting, especially in rural hilly areas has been made so weak by the FCC, that we are forced to subscribe to Internet and cable TV.  It’s all a strategy to nationalize by way of corporate welfare by way of money funding the government and favors done for the wealthy.  Radio broadcasting, too, is weakened.  When in my younger years here, we did not have difficulty in driving in a car and receiving the local radio broadcasts just about anywhere, whether AM or FM.  Today, to open up bandwidth for the thumbing on mobile phones which come nowhere close to what we had in local broadcasting, we are unable to have powerful local broadcasting stations in this rural hilly area. Oh, I forget. When we go on top of the hills where the density of population is lower (smaller audience to make money), we can get clear signals.  In the valleys, the reception sucks.  It might not be a huge number of people, but sure is more densely populated with a larger number than on top of the hills.  Perhaps we should be like Chinese communists and move populations to where they wish to have them located – on top of the hills?  This is ridiculous.

In the 1960s, in the hills of upstate New York and Pennsylvania, the cable television industry was born – on the local level.  The FCC did not micro-manage these things with regulatory authority. The regulatory agency involved the local authorities.  The FCC, doing favors for corporate welfare CEOs, has wrongly regulated cable TV and other local media outlets. 

To reiterate. In South Florida, we had a choice of cable TV and Internet. The old copper telephone lines into our home were used to deliver Internet by way of AT&T fiber optic lines up to the box and connected to the copper wires.  We also had the choice of copper coax lines by way of Comcast.  The lines within the home were all the same type of lines as what we had with telephone and cable TV in the past. 

In addition to these two options, a small and local firm named Laurie’s TV offered cable television and Internet within our Homeowners’ Association development.  We could pay extra and at a lower cost for this HOA cable / Internet access, in addition to the HOA fees we paid.  The speed for the Internet was not good, so we chose AT&T, delivered by fiber optics and copper.  We chose Laurie’s TV for cable TV.  (FYI: Laurie’s TV was sold to another firm). 

Explanation about this HOA.  The HOA was like an incorporated village, but run by a private organization based 60 miles away in Miami.  Residents had problems trying to pay their bills at such a distant location, but were treated like dirt by an attitude of “I’ll break your knees if you don’t pay,” even when a check was lost in the mail.  The one-party dictatorial fascist Republican control in that state put teeth into the ability of these private organizations, called “condo commandos” to run rough-shod over the people.  Even a retired NY State Trooper was treated like crap by an organization like this. 

Within the “mini-village” environment, they provided choices for local cable TV and Internet.  But the costs for us, per year, to maintain sidewalks, streets, public lawns, and social hall were about four to six times what Newark Valley village residents pay in government taxes in order to do the same thing.  And they were like Mafia bosses in attempting to collect, protected by Republicans who controlled the state. 

I say, to people who wish to move to Florida, be careful what you wish for.  I say to people here who complain about incorporated village taxes, be careful  what you complain about because I have seen it much worse when such village services are provided by PRIVATIZED HOA services.  After all, George W. Bush and his brother, Jeb Bush of Florida always said, “what’s good for [PRIVATIZED] business is good for America.”  Not so fast in believing such stuff because it sucks, like a Nazi Hitler-type in Germany. Like a communist Chinese. Like a Putin fascist dictator.  Be careful what you believe and dig in your heals in such regard.  Being humble means learning so as to overcome ignorance. Not being humble and refusing to learn means being a stupid idiot. 

After some 40 years living in Floridan and observing what happened there, I bring a different perspective to this community. Cable TV is one issue in which I bring a different perspective.  I have a different perspective on other issues besides cable TV.  It would be nice if somebody would listen, consider, and THINK about my perspective and the information I have to offer. Stop the BS about whether this is politics and my opinion. It is my experiences with facts to share.  Stop  scoffing at me in the same manner 19th Century NY Governor George Clinton was scoffed at when he proposed what was called by the scoffers, “Clinton’s Ditch.”  Stop the taunting of me because I give my perspective.  Cable TV in rural upstate NY really sucks, but so does the nationalization of cable TV and media, for the sake of corporate welfare, while social welfare and taxes for all are issues castigated with wishes to destroy, not reform. 

Side note besides cable TV:  What the people need is to take back local control which is good for all, not just for a group of white supremacists called Nazis.  The Republican Party is no longer the party of Abraham Lincoln, but should be re-named the Nazi KKK Party.