Slashdot Mirror
Lessig Campaign and the Change Congress Movement
GoldenShale wrote a follow up to last week's discussion about Lessig running for congress. He writes "Larry Lessig has created a Lessig08 website, and it looks like he is getting serious about running for congress. In his introduction video he proposes the creation of a national "Change Congress" movement which would try to limit the influence of money in the electoral and legislative processes. Having a technologically savvy representative and a clear intellectual leader to head this kind of movement is exactly what we need to counter the last 8 years of corporate dominance in government."
8 years? Corporations have been exhibiting control over the legislature for much more than the past 8 years... One only has to look at the copyright act extensions to see that.
I'm all for this, but as the old spam form response says, "Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been shown practical".
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
Intellectuals make terrible politicians. You need a wheeling-dealing sort, not a thinker.
Anyway, the only way to change the game is to play it - if the congress is run by corporate types, then you need to become a corporate type to change congress. Revolution happens, but it's pretty rare - and frankly I don't think that Lessig has it in him.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Seems there are 2 major obstacles which will surely hinder him from getting anywhere in politics. (I could have said "American politics", since he is aspiring to get into that, but that would disregard the universal nature of politicians.)
Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
Corporate influence over Congress has been way past acceptable levels for a lot longer than eight years, even in the sphere of intellectual property. Even the DMCA is ten years old.
I recognize the temptation to blame Bush, but this is too old and it runs too deep to pin on him alone.
Appeasing Europe is the dumbest thing any American President can do. Europeans are not American allies, or they would be fighting with Americans in Iraq.
This is my sig.
the truth is of course that, even if lessig were voted in, lessig would be but a drop in an ocean of the entrenched financial stranglehold on washington dc. however, most of the american public would probably agree with his charge about undue influence of money in politics in washington dc
that being the case, one has to put a stopper on the defeatist and cynical comments about his chances. simply because his fight is the right fight and every good fight has to start somewhere, no matter how formidable the opponents and how dire the odds
your brain can say lessig is hopeless. but what does your heart say? so give voice to your heart, and shut your brain up for the moment. because heart is exactly what is needed with issues like financial influence in washington dc
everyone knows the fight will be long and hard. no shit sherlock. so your cynical observations about his long odds are in fact useless and obvious. so shut up about the obvious. give voice to your heart on this issue instead, and commit to the long hard battle
to believe lessig's fight is not our fight, or can't be won, simply means you support the evil status quo
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Most lobbyists are working for companies who want tax laws changed in their favor.
Implement the FairTax and the power of the politicians goes back to where it should be.
I'd also favor a simpler flatter tax system THAT CAN'T BE TWEAKED once implemented.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
The main point of my post was corporate control is not a liberal or a conservative problem, its an institutional problem.
It's not Walmart's fault that people shop there and buy so much Chinese stuff. It's not Toyota's fault that Americans would rather pay Toyota and get a nicer car than have a better standard of living for American auto workers. It's not just that a banker on wall street is greedy. It is that -every- American is greedy, and therefor, we got the institutions we asked for.
This is my sig.
... heh? Did Y2K reset your counter??????
Yam, yam, uga booga, yam, yam, yade, yade, uga booga, yam, yam, yade, yade
Hate to break the news to you, child, but Shrub isn't that innovative.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
As the late Terence McKenna once said:
:D
"But we are led by the least among us - the least intelligent, the least noble, the least visionary. We are led by the least among us and we do not fight back against the dehumanizing values that are handed down as control icons"
Culture is our Operating system and Culture is NOT your friend.
http://erocx1.blogspot.com/2007/12/terence-mckenna-culture-is-not-your.html
And why is the small quote at the bottom of the page saying the following right now?
"The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that, you've got it made. -- Jean Giraudoux"
When I visit Lessig08 all I see is a bunch of "download plugin" boxes. How lame is that?
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Who? Never heard of him, but good luck.
Anyone know what state he's planning to run in? (The article submitter was a little thin in this area.)
Do you mean the EVIL tm BUSH Administration started "8 years of corporate dominance in government."??
No better example of Slashdot bias exists than this.
I think it is fallacious to say money is the problem in the congress. It's not money, its the sheer greed of all involved. Congress has too much power and therefor people want it too much. If you take away the money for elected officials, there will be other, more secret levers that will be unaccountably manipulated. Decisions will be made in stealth, in secret, like the smoke filled back rooms of the old days.
No, it is better, really, to just have money go to whomever and without restriction. That way, we can at least see whom is owned by who, and vote accordingly. Better a billionaire writes a million dollar check to a senator than the same billionaire indirectly invests into a bevy of people to work some foul valve of power in the furnaces of Washington.
This is my sig.
Hello! We're there with you. Not that we want to be, damned Blair.
Bein allied with someone doesn't mean "invaeds the same places despite advice", it means mutual defence and giving consideration to any other military actions.
Frankly I've more respect for those that didn't go than those that did.
You can not "limit influence of money" without trampling the First Amendment-provided right to free speech. McCain-Feingold did just this, but it does not make it right (it is the primary grudge against McCain, in fact)...
Funny, how the same people, who complain about First Amendment violations almost all the time — right to sell porn, right to distribute copyrighted (by someone else) material, right to create/publish law-breaking software are all deemed protected by the same Amendment by these people — not only fail to see this trampling, but actually demand more of it... Or, rather, it would've been funny, if it weren't sad.
I thought more of Lessig...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Wheeler-dealer types are precisely why we are where we are now.
One compromise after another, until eventually we're in this mess. What we *need* are people who actually have some ideals and well thought out principles and are willing to stick to them or go down in flames trying. Then we might actually see some change, rather than continued appeasement of the entrenched interests.
Look where your "wheeling-dealing sort" president has got you...
I watched Lessig's video, and my concern was that selfish, clever people will find a way to game pretty much any democratic system. So I'm afraid that Lessig's goals are unattainable.
For example, if campaigns are all publicly funded, then someone will find a clever way to make lots and lots of other campaign speech be volunteer, which is protected by the First Amendment. If there are limits on the sources of money, someone will find a way to sneak in money through cracks in the definitions.
While I applaud Lessig's goals, I'm just not sure they're attainable in a world where many actors lack scruples and seek something other than the common good.
However, the only way to limit the influence of money (without gross violations of the First Amendment, etc) is to remove the reason people/corporations/interest groups pour money into the system in the first place. We have allowed the government to micromanage an increasing amount of our lives and activities, and this provides a strong incentive to try to influence the political process so that you don't get screwed (or so that the other guy gets screwed instead). If the government was actually kept limited to its constitutionally-granted powers and otherwise got out of our lives, you would see a lot of the money in politics dry up.
People like to talk a lot about changing politics, changing congress. But how? Things like McCain-Feingold are at best weak protections. If someone wants to get around them, there is always a way. From 'issue ads' paid for by PACs/Lobbyists to other even harder to track things.
For example, there is a 'donation cap' of $2300 per person for individual contributions to a campaign or party, I believe. I could think of ways to get around such a donation cap. Most people don't have $2300 to give to political campaigns or parties. So, if someone 'arranges' for the people without the money to get the money to give to the favored candidate, it could be used to funnel a lot of money from one person/corporation to the candidate. I mean, there's nothing stopping me from giving $2300 buck to the campaign, then giving you, my close friend, who just so happens to support the same candidate, a gift of $2300, or a job with a 'signing bonus' of $2300.
Also, besides human ingenuity at getting around any type of rule/law, there is the simple, fundamental fact that corporations are made up of people. Boards of directors, executives, employees. Those people have free speach rights, and they have money. You will never, ever, ever be able to eliminate the influence of people with money and power from politics. It cannot be done. The influence of the rich and powerful on politics goes back far beyond the American Revolution and the founding of the United States. The definition of 'powerful' is that you have influence that you can wield.
The best you can hope to do is either convince the people with money and power that it is in their so-called 'enlightened self-interest' to use their influence and powern in such a way that benefits everyone, and not just themeselves and their allies, or else try to accumulate more power, influence, and money than they do.
Might may not make Right, but Right without power is meaningless and useless. Don't get me wrong, this post is not a defense of the way government is currently being run. I'm disgusted by the way Republican majority governments under Reagan and Bush have expanded the Federal Governments spending outrageously, expand earmarks outrageously, and are generally running the country bankrupt. I'm disappointed with the 'leadership' of a government which has gotten us into an occupation which wasn't necessary, under false pretenses, ticking off the rest of the world, and dropping the ball in Afghanistan, a country we absolutly needed to invade and remove the current government from power because it was clearly aiding, abetting, and providing safe harbor for the enemies of the United States who had actively commited crimes against us. By the way the government is systematically attacking our constitutional freedoms and privacy, justifying torture on a scale and with a lack of transparency or accountability that is horrifying to me as a us Citizen. By the way they have been continuousy expanding patents and copyrights, in the name of trying to protect the economy, but which is most likely having the opposite effect.
But, it's just a statement of plain truth: If you want to change government, you must influence the people around you, and it certainly helps to become famous, or run a large company. So go out and start your own company, or your own political group or blog or news organization and start building your power and accumulating wealth. Find friends who can give you $2300 (if you don't have it yourself) to donate to campaigns and causes you believe in, and donate it.
The influence of money on government is DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL to the influence of government on money. If you want a corruption-free government, then you have to stop trying to regulate every business. I mean, for GOD'S SAKE, the ANGLE of the cut on green beans is REGULATED BY LEGISLATION.
The government has exactly one job: to monopolize violence to ensure that people can make arrangements free of violence. Everything else, people can arrange for themselves through voluntary peaceful means.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
In high school, back in the 90's, as I watched politics, I made a fundamental observation about politics. You have third party candidates and independent politicians try to make a run for the Presidency every couple of election cycles, and they never get anywhere. Why? Because they *have no base of support*. Even if the third party/independent candidate did manage to win the presidency, it would be, to a certain extent, meaningless, because the other parties would still control Congress, and a President can't do much without congress (which is as it ought to be; the Constitution sets out a government where the parliament is the primary branch, and the executive branch is fundamentally supposed to be the servant of Congress, carrying out the will of the People).
You won't overcome the republicans or democrats in one big presidential election. Never gonna happen. If you want to make any progress, you will have to build from the bottom up. Start getting candidates into local and state positions, and build on a track record of good governance at the local and state level to leverage your party into the House and the Senate. Once you have enough support in the House and Senate (at least 1/3rd of each), and are nationally known as a party people like and trust, then you are in an excellent position to run a Presidential candidate as a true, meaningful alternative to the two establisment parties.
Otherwise, your just a flash in the pan.
Larry Lessig is better known as Lawrence Lessig, the guy behind Creative Commons. IIRC, he's running for the seat vacated by the late Tom Lantos, who passed away last week.
I agree that limiting money is useless. The current limits + disclosure + federal funding regime isn't working - witness all the presidential candidates refusing federal funds because they (and their opponents) can raise more money outside the public funding system.
The only way to reduce the influence of money in politics is to make it unneeded - to find ways of mobilizing voters without bales of cash for tv/radio/print ads.
Maybe by 2012 it will be possible for a candidate to run with a message like this:
Our movement communicates and organizes via the Internet - the most flexible and least expensive means of information sharing ever invented. The other guys use outdated, expensive media, which means they need lots of campaign money, which means they are indebted to the big contributors that fund them.
Every time you see a slick TV ad, or a full-page newspaper or magazine ad, regardless of the content, THINK - who funded that? Who owns the candidate?
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
Reasons:
- It would provide a level of transparency into the voting patterns, hence the beliefs or opinions, of Congresspersons.
- It would lead to the curtailment of "pork", since everyone would be able to see which Senator(s) voted for another's "special project".
- It would require elected officials to read, or at least know about, any item on which they vote, which would lead to
...
- Reduction in the number of laws passed, since (I would think) more study time would be required prior to a hand-wavey "yea" or "nay". Would any Congressperson actually vote on an item about which he or she knew absolutely nothing? Possibly, but that could come back to haunt them.
- (IMHO)It would have a powerful "focusing" effect on the habits of Congress
.... no longer able to slip personal or corporate privileges into bills as "payoff" for big campaign contributors, and have it accepted by their compatriots, Congresspersons would be stuck paying more attention to necessary legislation.
Drawbacks:- Campaigns would become more difficult. Since a big contribution would no longer be a guarantee of a "reach-around" legislative favor, the big corporate money would probably diminish. There are no doubt wealthy individual contributors with a sense of responsibility, but not enough. Campaigns would either have to be funded directly by the public from, for example, a shared fund, or could only be undertaken by the very wealthy. That might generally be considered a bad idea, since they are already too far separated -- physically, economically, educationally, and culturally -- from the electorate majority.
Having set it down, I can see more thought is required....The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
For a truly honest debate about the power of government - from war to size to control - something like http://www.stopwithholding.com/ is the best solution. It promotes transparency and discussion.
He's a socialist.
The problem is the voters. As long as people let their decisions be swayed by what they see in the mass media (a situation which may never change), it's going to be impossible to keep money out of politics, because the money that buys tropical vacations is a drop in the bucket compared to the money that buys mass media exposure.
If the First Amendment wasn't an obstacle, what would you want to do? Limit political contributions, and all you do is restrict the power of middle class individuals' money (which must be pooled to buy a single commercial) in favor of the rich (who can afford to advertise without going through campaign middlemen. We've seen some of that in these primaries, where the $2,300 cap on ordinary Americans' contributions obviously doesn't apply to wealthy candidates who can "loan" millions of dollars to their own campaigns. Limit political advertisements, and all you'll do is force some of those advertisements to call themselves "fair and balanced news", concentrating power still further into the hands of media owners. Limit news that doesn't pass "Fairness" laws, and that just moves the power into the hands of the incumbent politicians and judges who get to write and arbitrate such laws.
The best we can do is encourage the dissemination of less corrupted political information, to inoculate people against the misinformation that money can buy. By the time a voter is watching the commercials that have been pushed at him rather than trying to pull information on issues and candidates for himself, it's practically too late.
The crux of the matter is the homebuilders wanted Congress to pass a new tax law for them, and only them, which would allow them to offset their past profits with future losses. Congress didn't do this when they implemented their debt-increasing package (er, stimulus package) and so the PAC has stomped off like a mad three year old, taking its money with it.
What is Lessig's opinion of such legalized bribery and how does he intend to compensate for it?
Links to the NAHB PAC announcement may be found here and from The Washington Post.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
your cynicism has distorted your perception of reality. reality is not as you describe it. you are full of more bs than what you describe. you need a vacation
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Are you serious? We have a Presidential Candidate who holds almost all Slashdot's views to a T, and you don't give him the time of day except to link to a Democrat's blog that misinterprets one of his statements. If you want corporate America out of power, you should've supported him more. He's the epitome of not being funded by corporations. Geez, as one person said, "Only on Slashdot..."
Keep it to only 3 months before election, PERIOD. Isseus ads can't be halted, but no candidate ads before that period.
Beside, who said 'spending money' = 'speech'? the SCOTUS.
So, refill the SCOTUS with new members and that decision can be overturned. No constitution amendment necessary.
I think you're the twentieth person to point out the stupidity of the "8 years" statement, and so far I haven't seen a single comment defending it.
Slashdot != submitters;
Slashdot != article summaries;
Slashdot == user comments;
If there were really a bias, there would have been an outpouring of anti-Bush sentiments instead of people pointing out when DMCA was passed, the history of copyright extensions, and the joke about the submitter's counter being reset by Y2K.
Speech is something that everyone has equally. Anyone can take a box to a street corner, stand on it, and start talking. Anyone can take a web browser to blogger.com, create a blog, and start writing (assuming they have internet access, which the vast majority of people at least have access to).
Money is not something that everyone has equally. When money becomes protected as speech, then suddenly a very few people--and, worse, non-people--have a lot more speech than the rest of us. Their words can get out in ways that ours cannot. Microsoft (just as a ridiculously rich example) could buy ads on television across the country with content very carefully crafted to never tell an outright lie, but make people believe that (just, again, as an example) Barack Obama will order the murdering of thousands of kittens if he's elected as president.
I know that the Supreme Court has found that spending money is protected under the first amendment as "expression," but can't see how that is justifiable, given both what the first amendment was designed to protect in the first place, and how that freedom is being used--and abused--by very rich corporations and others whose interests are significantly against those of the American public at large.
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
The real problem isn't that all this corrupting money is chasing political power, the real problem is that there's all that political power available in the first place for it to chase. If the federal government were truly limited, then there'd be a lot less reason to try to buy it.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
Europe is anti-america because it's the devil. It shows that, while lefty politics are failing all over the globe, policies to the extreme right, and extreme liberty amongst citizens largely holding the Christian faith is a working, stable state structure.
I think Europe is anti-American solely because of what they perceive to be American militarism. I think Europe is so scarred from the World Wars that anything that smacks of a risk of a war terrifies them. And, I think that is understandable. Everyone in Europe, especially Germany, has a family member that was killed on the Eastern Front. Everyone in Europe has families tales of occupation, the bombings, the postwar starvations, the homelessness. They have had enough war to last for generations and they see us as fools for seemingly seeking it out.
This is my sig.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I've never heard of such a country as Us. Do you mean the Mexican United States? Or are you referring to the former United States of Venezuala? You know, Brazil was a "United States" before 1968. 'Cause other folks use the word "United States", but only one country uses the word "America" in its official name (Dutch townships excepted), so doesn't it make more sense to use... you know... the correct term? The term "American" is not ambiguous, and it's not silly like "USian."
"Worse, why should a corporation be able to be a copyright holder at all, and in that case, maintain their rights for even longer than an individual who has descendents to support?"
The phrase is "work for hire". Don't like it? Then either negotiate a contract that allows copyright to revert back to you (some authors have done this) or simply don't do "work for hire", or sign a contract that gives your work away (even if you get money in return). Contract law is always going to have the greater weight than copyright. Use it.
The Allegedly Fair Sales Tax And Double-Whammy On Retired People would have no impact on the power of politicians and very little on lobbyists for business. It doesn't eliminate business taxes; it just pretends to replace the income tax (though in practice it would be introduced as a transitional thing and the income side would never get transitioned out.) Lobbyists who currently want the personal income taxes tweaked in ways that affect their customers' spending would have to switch to lobbying to get things exempted from the National Sales Tax instead - and if you don't think so, imagine how the Realtors would react once they understand the implications of a 30% tax on sales of houses.
In theory, if you have an income tax, taxes on businesses are a bad idea economically; better to let the businesses make all the money they want, pay their stockholders and/or employees more, and get the money as income tax from the stockholders and employees. That way you're not artificially interfering with the business decisions, forcing them to operate less efficiently to reduce their taxes, and you still get the money. You lose a little on dividends paid to foreign stockholders, but because they've invested their money in businesses in your country, you're getting more of your people working.
But that wouldn't let you write lots of tax laws to mess around with businesses, forcing them to lobby you and give you campaign funds.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
The thing that disappoints me the most is the apathy of voters toward campaign contributions. It should be political death to fund a campaign with dubious sources. There shouldn't have to be laws like McCain-Feingold.
People should think it's bad for a candidate to owe favors and not vote for him. The media should follow this stuff carefully instead of endlessly speculating on who will win.
It's sad.
-Dave
And possibly convert the lower house into a parliament-style chamber.
It's great that he has a mission, but he does not determine the agenda of Congress single-handedly. He will be presented with myriad bills and be asked to vote one way or the other. Before anyone gets too excited, we need to learn more of the politics of Mr. Lessig. I have a sneaking suspicion that the Ron Paul contingent will not like where Mr. Lessig stands on the other issues, not one bit, but I'm ready for Mr. Lessig to surprise me by enumerating his position on the major political issues that face our nation.
The only reason we are in Iraq is oil.
Actually, the reason we are in Iraq is that for over a decade, Saddam Hussein flaunted and refused to comply with the terms of an armistice he himself had signed.
And then he added to that by doing far too good a job blustering and trying to convince people that he had an active WMD program - so good a job that the Russians, French, Germans, Spanish, Chinese, and even the Swiss thought he did still have it going. Why was he doing it? Because it was the only thing keeping Iran off his ass. Problem? He fooled everyone else too, and his history scared the crap out of people that he'd lob a nuke towards someone (Turkey, Israel, Kuwait, Iran) that he considered an "enemy" and touch off even more crap.
We're in Iraq today because the Middle East is ruled by a bunch of fucktards who use a 7th-century religion to justify barbarity and evil, towards each other just as much as towards the "dar al-harb" they profess to hate.
Want to find out the real deal about congress and the political process? Check out: http://www.goldenagora.com/
I watched the Lessig video and he made 3 points, 2 of which I agree with.
(1) Campaign Contributions should only come from individuals. Not from Corps or PACs. (Totally agree)
(2) Earmarks should be eliminated. (Awesome, totally with you.)
(3) Political Campaigns should be publicly funded by the government. (Ok, you lost me on this one.)
You will never eliminate money from political campaigns. If campaign funding only comes from the government, that only limits what the candidates can spend. It doesn't limit how much money their friends, groups of friends, or groups of supporters can spend. Campaign's would just shift to organizing 3rd party groups to run ads, etc... Unless of course you want to limit the ability of 3rd parties to run ads, which is an attack on free speech in my opinion.
The problem is not the money, its the lack of openness. People can pour huge sums of money into PACs, 507s, you name it. This makes it very difficult to figure out where the money is coming from and who is pulling the strings. Elections need to be open, like software. The rules should be simple.
(1) Only individuals can make contributions.
(2) All contributions must be in the public record and freely available.
(3) No limit on contributions or very high limits (e.g., $1 Million per person)
At least this way if Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, or Rupert Murdoch is funding a candidate, you know that up front. Its up to you to decide if that is groovy or bovine feces.
When you talk about free speech on the Internet, people tell you "oh, no, the First Amendment isn't about protecting pornography and bad art, it's about protecting political speech", but when you talk about the First Amendment protecting political speech, they say "oh, no, elections are *far* too important to let just anybody spend their own money expressing political opinions, especially on Television where people might see it!" Bullshit. The First Amendment means that if you've got something you want to say, you should be able to use any resources you've got trying to say it.
You're asserting that limiting my spending doesn't limit my ability to speak freely, ignoring that it limits my ability to publish freely. If I can't contribute to spending money on political advertising that reflects what I want and the candidates I like, then only the Official Sources of opinions are allowed to be on television, and we're stuck with Fixed Noise, the Capitalist Broadcasting System, and Nationalized Public Radio. (And no, I didn't contribute to Ron Paul this election, though I did back in 1988.)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
So, why would they feel the need to attack? Because they hate us for our freedoms? In that case, it's a good thing the current US government is taking that away a bit at a time. Combine the removal of freedoms with the removal of US troops from the Middle East, and they don't seem to have any reason to come and fight us on our turf, do they?
*sigh*
My less facetious point is, if all American soldiers came home (or, to be fair, had the option to settle as immigrants under proper visas in the countries they have so far lived their lives and raised their families in, in some cases), why would anyone want to attack? The US is far away. It would be better defended. And, it wouldn't be mucking about as the aggressors in foreign wars...
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
Duverger's Law
A successful third party will (in all likelihood) kill off one of the two large parties. Now, you are the big ticket, and in order to win elections, you will need the votes of a number of voters you have previously disenfranchised, who may have mostly unshared or even contradictory views to yours. You compromise, becoming a part of the system you sought to end, or you lose elections. Your plan for reform is self-limiting.
Lessig in congress could do wonders for slashdot-type causes. This is a key way to stop bad laws being made and for us to have an influence. Though I don't agree with everything he says, he is closer on the issues I care about than any other viable candidate. I am making a donation.
Lessig's pledge gives movement progressives sensible glue to hold the movement together. I have always felt that Norquist's pledge made one unfit for public office. Lessig's pledge is about how one will campaign and spend money. Norquist's is about how one will bankrupt the Republic.
Legislation to keep money out of politics has been tried for 100 years in this country, it doesn't work, ever, at all, not even a little bit.
It may divert the stream from outright bribes into jobs for kids and scholarships for them, or into low-cost property (Obama's recent problem), etc.
Prohibitions of economic flows doesn't work, e.g. drugs, prostitution, FDA regulations (OK, these sort of work, but kill 100s of 1000s in the process),
If you want $ out of gov, you have to get the gov on a starvation diet, as the gov's spending is the reason for all of the campaign cash.
How hard is this? Does nobody pay attention to ANY history in the modern world?
"The Constitution, the WHOLE Constitution, and nothing but the CONSTITUTION."
... counter the last 8 years of corporate dominance in government.
Look, guys, history didn't start when Bush was elected. You want to look at corporate dominance, violations of civil liberties, warrantless wiretapping and spying, legal suppression of dissent, all that stuff, look into, eg, the Woodrow Wilson administration.
Oh, and you want to keep money from being used in elections? Well, here's a hint: money is speech. If you keep someone from using money to buy ads, you're effectively using prior restraint on their speech. Where are your civil liberties then?
RECOMMENDATION: Campaign button/slogan, "Giv'em Hell, Double-LL"
... are now under the control of the CSA Corporate States Axis of evil power.
... the grass-root movement should be never vote for an incumbent or prior office holder. In a Democracy one term is always to much for the good of US. So, who do we line up after the Double-L, maybe RHS, Phill Zimmerman ....
!HAVEFUN!
"We need to counter the last 8 more years of corporate dominance and welfare in government."
Overt hostile sedition and treason by corpUSatist is now global even russia, china, iran, israel, saudi, germany, scotland, france
Survival of freedoms' light is dimming globally, soon intelligent (won't include GWB) people concentration camps will be controlled by criminally insane sexual deviants, Abu Ghraib provided proof that only lowly gate-guards will suffer any consequences, which will provide more high-pay government nepotism jobs like DoubleRedCross management positions.
The victorious corpUSatist plutocrats now rule the slovishly-slavishly proletariats. Corporate-Welfare institutionalized by law has now defeated with bait&switch spin-fishing any capitalist competition or democracy threat.
Atypical humans always fail at accepting their inevitable defeat at their height of power. Power is always the fools' fading fleeting phallic fallacy fantasy.
I do hope he wins. Until then
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
My less facetious point is, if all American soldiers came home (or, to be fair, had the option to settle as immigrants under proper visas in the countries they have so far lived their lives and raised their families in, in some cases), why would anyone want to attack? The US is far away. It would be better defended. And, it wouldn't be mucking about as the aggressors in foreign wars...
It's a long swim from New York to Saudi Arabia, I'll tell ya that much. I'm thinking, big oceans still work wonders.
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Our bases in Germany constitute a very large carrot that we can dangle whenever we want Germany to do something for us either on their own or as a member of the EU. That's really why we have bases with so many troops there, now.
Our entire military spending in Germany is fraction of what trade is between the two countries. Germany gets more out of BMW sales to the USA in one month or even Braun shavers than it will see out of US military bases in a year.
If we want to wave a carrot to Germany, we could change the regulation on diesel engines in the USA to make it better for their cars to be exported to the USA.
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i thought Lessig more or less described himself as a free market advocate? that being the case, how will he solve the problem? not that the corporatist government we have is the fault of free markets, but i don't see him necessarily making moves to reign in all the rampant cronyism/corruption.
"To stop the terrorists."
Money follows the power, not the other way around.
If Congress didn't have the power to extend copyrights indefinitely, do you think Disney would hire as many lobbyists? Microsoft only started spending money on lobbyists once the government threatened them with anti-trust lawsuits. GM, Ford, Chrysler all sought to have the government bail them out with the medicare/aid Rx plan.
As long as the government has a basically infinite power to regulate, harass, tax and reward companies, those companies will continue to influence that power to help them and hurt their competitors. We need a drastic reduction in power in Washington and the money will then magically disappear since it would buy these companies nothing.
Given Lessig's knowledge of the Constitution I find it amazing that he supports passing laws restricting both the freedom of speech and of the press.
In truth, the constitution gave the President the unilateral authority of war and peace.
:)
This was only changed after Vietnam. The War Powers Act only allows the President to engage in armed conflict for 60 days without the consent of Congress.
Of course, indirectly, the Congress has always had a lot of authority over war since they're the only ones that can sign the checks.
In practice, though, "you must support the troops" has been a meme that's worked like a charm going all the way back to the War of 1812, when some 'real men of genius' decided that Napoleon was kicking so much dirt in the faces of the British that we could just, oh, CONQUEROR CANADA and the wouldn't hardly notice. You'd think the way we got our asses handed to us (the White House was torched by the Red Coats) would've made us rethink unilateral war powers back then, but it wasn't in the cards.
On a complete side-note, whenever people say that "We've never lost a war" or "We've never lost a war until Vietnam," they always seem to forget about that time that, ya know, OUR CAPITOL WAS CONQUERED BY A FOREIGN ARMY
The idea of a Lessig run gets some love on the National Review Online.
http://www.actblue.com/page/lessig08
Like they say: early money is like yeast. If you can kick down $20 right now, it allows him to solicit more donations (mail, phones, net connection) so your $20 in effect becomes like $2000.
The real problem with all these people demanding change is that they hold some seat in the next incarnation of whatever it is they are trying to change. It's like saying "Damn this guy has no idea what he is doing, but I do, so let's overthrow him and I'll run it." How am I suppose to trust anyone who is making a grab for the same power they despise?
Last time I checked, it was the US government which tried to convince those countries that Iraq had WMD, and they used a significant amount of fake or exaggerated 'evidence' to do so. Look up Colin Powell's address to the UN, for example.
Europeans opposed the invasion of Iraq because they didn't let themselves be fooled by that. If the US had had a case, most Europeans would have supported the invasion.
Lessig compliments McCain for campaign finance reform but fails to mention that McCain has more "K-Street 'Fixers'" on his committee than any other candidate. Is this a trivial detail or a sign that Lessig has an even bigger fight on his hands than he (or his supporters, maybe including me) knows?
Its not the ideals and morals of an individual, but instead the price they can be bought at.
What state did Tom Lantos represent? More specifically, what part of what state did Tom Lantos represent? I've heard of Larry Lessig, but before the news of his death, I had never heard of Tom Lantos.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
I do not know what most USians want, and maybe they really do not want an Empire, but they should very carefully consider what it is they want and what consequences carrying out their wishes bring: whatever they wanted that resulted in such massive support for the `liberation' of Iraq, even if it was not the desire for an Empire, did very much have consequences for which they have to take responsability.
I'll be completely honest. What happened is that Americans were a bit shocked at how fast things unfolded in Afghanistan and it seemed like what had taken the Soviet Union a decade to fail at, the USA had achieved in a matter of weeks. So, there was still a lot of anger over 9/11, and Saddam had been a long time annoyance. So really, it was all about 9/11 rage at the arab world in general and the idea was to just go kick ass in as many arab countries as possible. I'm quite sure that if the USA had not been bogged down in Iraq, then, it would have no doubt moved on into Syria and Iran.
You are right about taking responsibility for Iraq. My wife, a long time liberal, was dead set against the war from the get go, but, to echo Colin Powell, we broke it, so now we have to fix it. The civil war in Iraq may have been decades, if not centuries in the making, but you honestly can't say that we were not warned - every European country with a deep experience in former colonial affairs in the Islamic world warned us that we were making a tremendous mistake. One has to wonder if the French saw Iraq as America's Algeria....
So, the USA -has- to stay in Iraq, and stay until the country is governed in a democracy, under the rule of law and with peace for all. If that takes 100 years and trillions of dollars, that sucks, but the USA made its decision when the bombing campaign opened so long ago in March 2003.
Also, I have had to rethink on the way home my stance with Europe and NATO. I listened to a very moving discussion of the state of affairs about Russia, by a British broadcaster on American public radio. Now, I don't know you much you know about the BBC as presented in the USA, but its a pretty liberal institution, and generally against any sort of confrontation or militarism of any kind. In short, you would say that they are radically left wing. However, I heard about lurid tales about how Russia is trying to bully Europe about with its gas pipelines, has squelched NATO efforts to run other gas pipelines for Europe, has basically reverted to cleptocratic rule, has reverted to state run media, squelched all political dissent, and is once again, and most despicably, resumed putting its political dissidents into psychiatric hospitals. It's "the Gulag Archipeligo" all over again, and it is wrong, it is wrong, and it is wrong. This Putin is a thug.
So yeah, I do not want to be in any military alliance with anyone, but Russia is threatening the peace and freedom of hundreds of millions of people, again.... and so, yeah, we can't abandon Europe to them. Europeans are a bunch of peacenik woosies that wouldn't attack anyone, and the idea of the Russian Bear bullying them around, really, picking on them, is completely and morally offensive to me, that, yeah, if we have to get back to another bloody cold war, and put American cities back on the nuclear firing line to stand against Russia, then, yes, that's just what we have to do.
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Good idea. What are you going to do about the millions of people who will no longer have a job due to the elimination of federal income taxes? You know, people working at your local H&R Block and most everyone with the IRS. Plus the scads of temporary labor that is no longer needed during tax season .....
That's easy - we'll set them to work making buggy whips.
Or participating in the massive new economy that results from the inflood of corporate headquarters from all over the world.
Whichever.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
All 100 Senators and 435 House Members with votes in Congress vote on issues that impact me. They all vote on military, taxes, social programs, regulations, and the like. Why shouldn't I, as an American citizen who is directly impacted by all 435, be able to contribute to any of them? Furthermore, would people be allowed to volunteer for campaigns outside of their district? How about work for them for a salary? Could I slap a bumper sticker on my car for the candidate in the next district over, where I happen to drive to every day for work?
You can't limit what people can do for national elections based on where they live. It's arbitrary and full of loop-holes, but more importantly it ignores the very fact that there are 535 Members of Congress working for me and 300 million other Americans, ostensibly equally. Why shouldn't we, the Americans, be able to get involved in all of their campaigns equally?
Support a few technologists in Washington.
By advocating one side of the political spectrum? No thanks. How is that any different than any other partisan attack?
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
The problem, then, is that the tax is too high. That guy looks at the tax he's paying, thinks about the government services he's receiving, and thinks, "This isn't worth it. I would opt out, if I were allowed to." So, of course it's not fair. Solution: vote to lower government's expenditures.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump