Harnessing this energy

I would like to state a few observations on the issue of grassroots
involvement in setting national policy.

Last year I attended an open software conference and decided to do
something to influence the debate on intellectual property rights beyond
just writing a letter to a congressperson. (BTW, a written letter
counts on the tally sheet of a congressperson for a lot more than email
or phone calls.) So I sent a letter volunteering to help do something
for my local congressman, Joe Barton
http://joebarton.house.gov/Bio.asp>. He is the Chairman of the House
Subcommittee on Energy & Air Quality. A position somewhat important to
the discussions on this list.

This action landed me a seat on what he calls an advisory council. This
council meets about twice a year for a hour and a half dutch lunch.
Interestingly most of the people on the council do not live in his
current district area but have lived in areas that have at one time or
another been in his district area. Almost all of them could be termed
politically active. There also seems to be a large proportion of ex
military. The advisory roll seems to be limited to filling out a small
questionnaire on whatever topic the congressman has on the agenda. No
other topics are discussed.

I have been somewhat mystified about what these lunches represent to the
Congressman. Since most of the people are not in his congressional
district it isn't about getting out the vote. Discussion is limited due
to the short time frame so he is not getting a lot of opinion. The
questionnaires are very basic and in many ways are asking questions that
already imply an answer.

However, I have tried to determine the mind set of the congressman and
the people at the luncheons to see if there is any chance that my
primary objective will ever be on the agenda. Some observations.
1. The Congressman tries to work hard on the areas that have been
defined as his responsibility in congress, namely Energy and Air Quality.
2. Anything outside of his defined area is not on the radar screen and
he will back the party line.
3. Policy flows down. Anything coming from any size group of citizens
that affects law is of a very limited scope and is mostly used as a
sales point for the next election to show how effectively the
congressman responds to his constituents needs.
4. The congressman picks the experts that he will ask for information.
The experts don't pick themselves.

What I think that this means:
1. Intellectual property rights are never going to be on Congressman
Barton's agenda. So much for my original purpose.
2. That if President Kennedy had not directed that a man on the moon was
a national priority that it would have never happened. We would still
be discussing if communication satellites would work.
3. That space programs are a by product of some other national need.
4. It is worthless to talk to a congressman about anything not already
defined as his area of responsibility.
5. That it is the experts that congresspeople use that need to be
influenced. If their basic stance is that there are better ways to
generate power than SPS then SPSs will not happen.
6. The government for some reason has determined that the hydrogen
economy will happen. Not sure what this means for the SSI list. But
Congressman Barton seems determined to do everything in his power to
make it happen.

As a result I think that getting masses of people involved in anything
to do with SPSs or Space Colonization is a waste of effort. This is not
an issue that will flow uphill. No congressman will ever be able to use
it as an advertisement that he responds to the issues of his
constituents .
The people who need to be influenced are the experts (mostly university
professors) and the students that will become the experts that congress
people refer to. As foreseen many years ago the only area where space
colonization could be a by product of national need is in energy as
Solar Power Satellite production facilities. So if you really wanted to
influence government policy you would target all the university
professors who might be used by congress people as subject matter
experts on energy production.

Mitchell James