I realized this morning that I’ve been living, up close and personally, a Lawrence Lessig story with this “WiscNet” thing here in Wisconsin state politics.

Below is a recent talk that Lessig gave at the Personal Democracy Forum.  In his famous “3 arguments” style, he tells the story of “Why Broadband Sucks”, weaving the technical, public policy, and political realms.  He tells the story of recent events in North Carolina where communities tried, and failed, to take broadband into their own hands.

This story played out just weeks later here in Wisconsin, with one interesting difference. WiscNet, the place I work for, is focused exclusively on broadband for the public sector. Schools.  Libraries. Universities.  Government. Broadband to support research, education, and public service in Wisconsin.  Broadband for public good.

Lessig tells the story of the intersection of broadband, public policy, and politics better than anyone I’ve seen.  Lessig’s “3rd argument” drives the bigger issue home.  It should resonate with the #democracyaddicts here in Wisconsin.

While most don’t understand “WiscNet” here in Wisconsin, our common bond is that we realize we are in interesting political times.  On June 3, 2011, my personal and professional political interests came together in a particularly brutal way.  We, and by we, I mean you, stepped up and made a big difference.  It’s nowhere near resolved.  We will need you again.  The next time will involve not only a brute force “call to action”, but (hopefully) a better understanding of what the “WiscNet” story means for Wisconsin.

This is a great first step towards that understanding.

An aside: #rootstrikers, the organization, was particularly cool along the way with us at WiscNet.  I highly encourage you to visit their site http://www.rootstrikers.org after watching the video and thinking about how their interests intersect with yours.