Slashdot Mirror
Lessig Launches a Super PAC To End All Super PACs
An anonymous reader writes "Lawrence Lessig has announced plans to kickstart a SuperPAC big enough to make it possible to win a Congress committed to fundamental reform by 2016. From the article: 'If you can’t beat them, join them. Then take them down from the inside. That’s the basic idea behind a super PAC launching Thursday that wants to destroy super PACs for good. The Mayday PAC, as it’s called, seeks to raise enough money to sway five House elections in 2014 and elect representatives who have committed to pressing for serious reform of the campaign finance system. If that endeavor—a sort of test case—is successful, the PAC will then try to raise an enormous amount of money for the 2016 cycle—enough, PAC organizers hope, to buy Congress."
of time and money, imagine a politician doing what they say they will do.
good luck with that.
What about all of the other things they will do? Unfortunately, everyone involved will have different ideas about what else is important. Just saying the word "abortion" will split most of the people who might contribute.
Blink, Inky, Pink and Clyde. They are not going to be very happy about this announcement.
Anytime Congress passes serious reform, it gets struck down by a conservative Supreme Court that has no interest in reform and literally equates money with speech. The ONLY way to have serious reform that sticks is to...
1) Make sure Clinton gets into office in 2016, so she can appoint liberal judges once luddites and philistines like Scalia and Thomas are gone / die off.
2) Focus on an amendment to the Constitution that SPECIFICALLY says money is not speech for purposes of law.
That is it. Nothing else will do, because it will be OVERTURNED. Why is this so hard to understand, Lessig?
What's a PAC? It sounds like it's a way of buying politicians, but surely that can't be it.
I volunteer to determine how much handing an individual unused to wealth a couple billion dollars will affect his moral and ethical judgments. I don't even need the billions.. just a couple million. And I can do this from home.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
Lessig is amazing. I signed up. The question is, will all of you? Everyone here likes to complain about politics and politicians. Everyone agrees there's a problem. Here's a guy we know isn't bought trying to fix it. Put your money where your mouth is, or never open it again.
It's really easy to complain and do nothing. It's really not that difficult to actually do something...
Lessig appears to implicitly accept the idea that "money in political campaigns" = "corruption". Can it not be that the wealthy love their country enough to volunteer their own hard-earned wealth to improve it (as they see it)? The theory that every money-related act is necessarily self-interested (let alone corrupting) is naive.
And here's a man trying to BUY THEM BACK. Get off your asses and HELP HIM.
I'm not sure people realize how much money is needed.
As long as the end goal is public campaign financing, then fuck it, go nuclear.
They'll just happily take all your money and then get nothing done. This is the way of it. There are no actual consequences for failure in politics and that's the real problem. Nobody is bound by law to do much of anything resembling the will of the people.
Thatâ(TM)s the basic idea behind a super PAC launching Thursday that wants to destroy super PACs for good. The Mayday PAC, as itâ(TM)s called, seeks to raise enough money to sway five House elections in 2014 and elect representatives who have committed to pressing for serious reform of the campaign finance system.
Is that the only issue that they will press for? Or will they also be required to support Lawrence's position on gun regulation, or any of his other issues? I am all for campaign finance reform and would happily give large to the cause, but I don't support everything Mr. Lessig does, and I'm not sure I believe he has the self-discipline to keep his other issues out of his PAC. I'd love to see five campaign finance reformers elected, but despite my respect for him, I would not want five Lawrence Lessig clones.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
He's going to use the, so-called, corrupt system to change the laws to prevent himself from ever doing this again?
I dunno... why not kickstart a super-PAC that would buy candidates that does something productive? Like hire candidates who will restore our rights per the 4th amendment, stop the drug war, stop punitive taxation...yadda, yadda...
No no... gotta use the loophole to close the loophole..
Anybody who wants to ban corporate political speech needs to carefully study similar reforms in India, where about 1/3 of national political candidates are under criminal indictment (and 3% of sitting members of their congress) for campaign finance crimes. Despite what some will claim here, that is notand improvement.
The problem isn't corporate money in campaign finances, the problem is stupid, lazy voters who can't be bothered to find out what or what they're voting for, and just doing what the Magic Box in their living room tells them to. And no amount of campaign finance reform will ever fix that.
Only situationist strategies like this, have a chance to fix the political circus;
or make it onerous enough to precipitate the structural faults that drag it
Because it's provided plenty of windmills for Lessig to go tilt at. /me breaks out the popcorn
So they are going to influence policy by writing big checks? And this is change? Am I missing something.
The Distributions page makes no mention of what specific elections or candidates they plan to influence.
I checked the site before it was slashdotted, and all of the board members have actively contributed to Democrat campaigns. Every single board member, (except for maybe Mark McKinnon, arguably) have actively supported Democrat candidates and platforms. Of the top 10 SuperPACs in OpenSecrets.org, 6 are 'liberal' and 3 are 'conservative'.
So... explain to me how this won't end up being another Democrat SuperPAC?
I'm going to go on a limb and say this PAC will be used to disrupt the possible Republican takeover of the Senate, and I'll even wager that their donations will be steered towards Democrats only.
Yah, let's fight SuperPACs by supporting the candidates that benefit the most from them.
Is this as effing retarded as Wolf-Pac that wants to finance campaigns with tax dollars?
I really don't care what (Constitutional) limits are placed on holding elected office. Make chastity a requirement for all I care. Driving is a right. Owning firearms is a right. Speech is a right. Running my life is the fucking privilege!
Anyway, I don't need more TV ads, junk mail, telemarketing or whatnot, so if you are going to end the influence of money in politics, then END IT ALL! Don't replace Koch/Soros dick-waving money with tax dollars taken with force. Just end it.
No, once you are "inside" you are assimilated and become them.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
-MAN? As a non-American, I saw a lot of PAC but still had no idea what this was talking about. Until I Wiki'd what PAC could have possibly stood for.
Everyone's arguing (uselessly) instead of doing anything. Armchair generals, all of you.
I actually lobby. It's not that hard. Talk accomplishes nothing.
For those that don't know Lessig, here's a link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... Here's his TED talk. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Stop arguing (uselessly) with each other and HELP.
Clinton spent 12 years in the White House and this is where we ended up. No thanks. I hear that another Bush may be running - I think I'll pass on the too.
As to CU, so your proposal is that citizens can speak orally, as long as they don't use amicrophone, but cannot make Xerox copies of anything or make a web site, signs, etc. without prior government approval, correct? If you had a blog and paid $35 / for hosting, that would be money, not speech, right? CU was making videos. The government claimed that because they bought supplies to make the videos (which cost money), it's not free speech.
Understand, your proposal (no spending money on free speech), Martin Luther King's speech "I have a dream" would be illegal - the stage he stood on and the sound system costs money.
End Corporate Personhood while you're there Mr Lessig, It's about time that more power was allocated back to the Voters of the United States. Where the USA leads, other countries will follow. Don't bother trying to amend things like gun laws, or drug laws etc in the constitution. Just focus on smashing corporate personhood. Hell a Constitutiional amendment to end it needs to happen.
Once you buy them out, then what? How will you change the law? They will balk at not being able to receive such funding in the future, esp if your success hinged on the biggest buyout in history. The moment your funding is spent and they're back to business as usual, congress will undo those laws just enough to let funding trickle through again.
The fundamental problem with washington politics (and really, world politics) is that it is more interested in compromise than it is in making correct decisions. Not rocking the boat and risking their 'careers' is of higher concern than treating their positions as duties like they're supposed to. As a result, few politicians nowadays have the testicular fortitude and backbone to LEAD; to make unilateral decisions when the situation calls for it. It's the only way to break the vicious cycle of passive aggressive fallacious attacks that make up the bulk of the 'political process.'
Good luck. You'll need it. The mention of TED however makes me wonder this is just another left wing power grab, same as it might be a neocon power grab if this came from the heritage foundation.
http://www.colbertsuperpac.com...
At least the commercials were funny.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
To kill off PACs?
Somehow, I doubt that, what they mean is PACs they don't like.
Meanwhile OFA 401(c) which should endorse no political candidate, can post from Obama's personal Twitter account... but they don't get their tax status pulled. (Who Lawrence supported in both elections)
Just another endrun around the 1st amendment to shut down the opposition.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
What we really need is universal representation. I just finished a brief booklet—"Reinventing Congress for the 21st Century" (1st ed., 2nd ed.)—that makes a compelling case, depsite some quaint notions about CDROMs and video cassettes.
Were that I say, pancakes?
If the RIAA, for example, spent $10 million last year on lobbyists, it wasn't because they only had $10 million to spend -- it's because they only needed to spend $10 million to get the results they wanted. If they have to spend more, they will.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lawre...
Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button
Look, I'm as revolted by some of the campaign finance scandals as anyone. But I'm also very cautious of well-meaning reform attempts that likely will have totally different effects once they work their way through. Laws always do -- wrongdoers adapt in generally undesireable ways. Worse, I fear the scandals and reform is just a deliberate smoke-screen for a power grab.
To my knowledge, the US and Japan are the only G-8 countries with independent legislators. Everywhere else, the parties control lists/seats because they control the money. The UK/ca/AU/nz Prime Ministers are effectively elected dictators -- remember how Tony Blair (UK-L) put down three successive (perfectly reasonable) backbencher revolts over Iraq? That does not in any sense resemble democracy.
I'm afraid if US Reps/Sens do not control their own funds & re-elections, the money/power vacuum will be filled by someone else, most likely the D&R Party Central Committees. Which will give them (the Prez) power, and remove the legislature as a check on the executive.
The other problem is... does Lessig really think he can go up against the Koch Brothers? How much money does Lessig have that he's willing to throw away on this Quixotic dream?
Instead of struggling with the costs of trying to keep-up and close the Super PAC Gap, perhaps his efforts should be directed toward the creation of a Doomsday PAC.
Anyone who thinks that Americans' ownership of guns would be anything but a hilariously ineffective nuisance to the US Armed Forces in the case of an armed insurrection is a delusional manchild. The single least effective thing you could do against government tyranny in the USA is to start an armed revolution: first you'd look like psychopaths, then you'd look like DEAD psychopaths.
and I wish people would stop deluding themselves that it does. A bunch of untrained or moderately guys with AR-15s don't stand a chance against a modern military. That's sorta why we didn't lose in Iraq.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
sorta. Go read "A people's History of the United States". Education in America was meant to get Farm hands used to working in factories. That's why they have bells and drills. The Farm Hands kept wandering off the factory floor. They needed to be trained.
That said, a well educated populace can and will learn to think for itself. It's a by product of the education process. You can't really have one without the other, and China's starting to have problems with their middle class as a result...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Primaries are virtually ignored. A few dollars in the right primary at the right time could screw everything up for the Koch's of the world. They're not Gods you know? The wealthy have screwed up before, and been turned on by their own before. That's how Roosevelt got his reforms through. It happened before, and It can happen again.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Reformers check in but they never check out....
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
Corporations aren't people, they're machines owned and steered by people: vehicles. My car doesn't have citizenship and neither should my corporation.
Professor Lessig started in copyright. After his defeat in Eldred v. Ashcroft, he traced the blame for the copyright expansions of the 105th Congress (No Electronic Theft Act, Copyright Term Extension Act, and Digital Millennium Copyright Act) back to the source, and the source ended up being politicians who listen to Hollywood and other special interests over their individual constituents. This lead to Change Congress, which became Fix Congress First, which became Rootstrikers. The $100+ that I'd give to Lessig's organization is $100+ that I would have otherwise spent on something that's illegal to produce solely because of these expansions of copyright.
What would be cool is if this super PAC returned everyone's money if they don't raise the critical mass of dollars to make a difference. Ultimately that's my main worry. I'd rather donate $1000 to a cause that would give me my money back if it failed to raise enough money to make a real difference, than donate $10 that was gone forever regardless of whether it is used effectively.
Wasting my already-spent mod points by posting, but I think it's worth it:
That's exactly what they're doing. If you look at their FAQ, the second section explains that they will set certain funding targets, people will "pledge" their contributions, and only if they meet their total pledge target will any money actually change hands. Just like Kickstarter.
I've already pledged $20, and I wish I could give more, but our financial situation isn't super-stable at present :-/ I think what Lessig is doing is probably about the most important political action of our time.
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
In a lot of countries Mat 1st is Labor Day.
Interesting choice of timing.
Not a coincidence I think
Everyone mythologizes the idea of individual legislators standing up for their constituents against the will of the party but I suspect we want the exact opposite.
I'm a Canadian, there are three or four significant parties (four or five in Quebec). Next election I'll have four platforms to choose from, the entire country will be debating those same four platforms. We can have a relatively thorough conversation about them. When it comes time to vote the MP matters if they're a star candidate or going to be in cabinet, but I mostly choose the party.
You're an American, two legislative bodies and an executive, and two significant candidates for each. The presidency is discussed nationally. The house and senate? For each of those you have the party's platform but the candidates have their own records and policies so you better know those. So how many platforms are you evaluating? Eight (six candidates + two parties)? The four legislators won't be discussed outside your state, and the congressfolk are irrelevant outside your district. Nationally you have 639 elected politicians, each with their own platform. Good luck discussing that. Look at the cacophony over the ACA, which one of the Republicans' alternatives do you want to discuss? Remember the shutdown? Do you think a Republican party with strong discipline would have made a faceplant like that?
Money isn't as big an issue in Canada partially because when everyone is talking about the same four platforms its hard to drown that out with cash. And you can't influence the individual MPs with a big cheque because the voters vote on party lines and the MP would just vote the party line anyway. Get the parties to enforce strong party discipline and parties will start pushing good policy because voters will be able to watch what they're doing.
It doesn't fix everything, but the current system doesn't work. Simplify things so that voters can actually understand and regulate what's going on.
I stole this Sig
It's sad that the only way we can get meaningful change now is to attempt to buy our government back.
Stay with me here.
1) This super PAC hopes to rid the government of corruption.
2) It plans to do so by attempting to incentivize politicians to ban super PACs and get money out of poliics.
3) To incentivize politicians, it plans to buy them, thereby promoting the very corruption it seeks to abolish.
4) ???
5) Profit!
Is there any guaruntee that the politicians it attracts are actually honest, since they're effectively being bought anyway? What will their policies be once this passes?
For that matter, are there any fucking honest politicians? It seems the only people interested in politics are dishonest, immature, old little bitches. There should be a maximum age for politicians, let alone a minimum.
The Mayday PAC, as itâ(TM)s called, seeks to raise enough money to sway five House elections in 2014 and elect representatives.
The House has 435 members with voting rights.
It is May and the Mayday PAC doesn't have a list of five plausible targets.
1) Districts which are being seriously contested.
2) Districts in which a stand on PACs and campaign reform can be decisive in a primary or an election.
The problem here is that it is easy to run against "the lobbyists" or "the PACs" in general. But god help you if you are drawn into specifics. Your stand on political action by the NRA, for example. The Catholic Church...
The PAC can have a local constituency which is anchored in bedrock.
Most of the 4,600 active, registered PACs are "connected PACs" established by businesses, labor unions, trade groups, or health organizations.
Groups with an ideological mission, single-issue groups, and members of Congress and other political leaders may form "non-connected PACs". These organizations may accept funds from any individual, connected PAC, or organization. As of January 2009, there were 1,594 non-connected PACs, the fastest-growing category.
Super PACs, officially known as "independent-expenditure only committees," may not make contributions to candidate campaigns or parties, but may engage in unlimited political spending independently of the campaigns. Unlike traditional PACs, they can raise funds from individuals, corporations, unions, and other groups without any legal limit on donation size.
According to FEC advisories, Super PACs are not allowed to coordinate directly with candidates or political parties. This restriction is intended to prevent them from operating campaigns that complement or parallel those of the candidates they support or engaging in negotiations that could result in quid pro quo bargaining between donors to the PAC and the candidate or officeholder. However, it is legal for candidates and Super PAC managers to discuss campaign strategy and tactics through the media.
Political action committee
You're misunderstanding a bit.
It's not so much that money in political campaigns == corruption. Instead it's that money can influence perception. Things like representatives spending 30% of their week campaigning for more money instead of representing us. How lobbyists often get appointed to areas where there might be serious conflicts of interest and how our representatives often retire from office only to get an extremely high paying lobbyist job. It's not that any of these things absolutely means that money in political campaigns is a form of corruption, only that they might be in some instances. Even if it's not corruption it can lead to subconscious bias. Even if it doesn't cause corruption or bias, it can lead to perception problems.
He made the book free, it's worth a read IMO: http://lesterland.lessig.org/pdf/republic-lost.pdf
It's tougher than you think.
There were a lot of people that were thinking about the 2012 Republican presidential. There was a big culling from 10+ candidates. Rick Perry, and Sarah Palin were incompetent. Bachmann was crazy. Herman Cain lied about sexual relations. Others were ignored.
Ultimately, we got: Newt Gingrich, a man of ideas and intelligence, but with a big history of corruption, and absolutely hated by the press. Ron Paul, the most famous libertarian in decades. Rick Santorum, the evangelical, and Mitt Romney, the successful businessman/venture capitalist at Bain Capital, but a moderate who changed on various issues. Now, Newt Gingrich very briefly pushed the idea that Bain capital made its money by screwing banks and bond holders. It would have been interesting to see what would have happened if he pushed that. I am most disappointed by the fact that Santorum came in second place.
In the defense of McCain, he does the dicking around on smaller issues. McCain pushed for a naval missile defense system, to help calm Russia. McCain has opinions of conflicts the United States should be involved in, and on which side, (Georgia, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan). He has criticised, the F-35, Littoral Combat, and cost overruns of the EELV program.
For fuck's sake man, what is wrong with you???
What do you intend to do, put all the money in a big mattress and dole it out at election time? No? Oh, right that's what banks are for. Banks who make huge amounts of interest from your deposits and profits from HFT with your money? And where does all that shit go? Right back into the system that you are trying to take down.
And don't get me started with all the sharks that will be drooling to help you, and the other slime balls that will just want to steal it.
You want real change? Get yourself on the ballot in your local community. Work your way up to something you can handle and not fuck up. Stay respectful, honest, and work your ass off for principles you believe in. And don't be swayed by money and power. Once you turn your focus to acquiring money and power, you've lost yourself.
You want to "show Americans something unlike anything they’ve seen before"?
Show them an honest man. You.
This is part of why everyone, not just the really rich, pays taxes because it adds up to a large amount.
So for political spending as a simple example: Suppose Bill Gates put every bit of his wealth, about $76 billion, towards a PAC. Unbeatable right? Not hardly. If each person over 18 gave $320 dollars, they'd outspend him handily.
Now of course it is ridiculous to think that every eligible voter would give that much but it is equally ridiculous to talk about someone spending that amount of money. The point is that even for ridiculous sums, numbers still favour the population.
A more realistic example would be that Romney's campaign cost about $850 million dollars (the most expensive ever). Crunch the numbers and you'd need half of voters to give $7 average to match that. So literally if you could get half of people to give $10, you'd crush the amount spent on the most expensive campaign ever.
People also seem to forget that the rich didn't become, or stay, rich by spending all their money. Ya, they may be willing to kick in a lot, by a normal person's standard, to an election, but it is still only a small fraction of their wealth. Blowing a significant portion of their wealth on an election would be monumentally stupid.
It really IS doable. What's more, politicians really DO care more about a large number of people voting one way than all the contributions in the world because if they get voted out, well the gravy train stops. So doesn't matter how much money they are offered, if their constituents say "Do this or you are out," and mean it, they are extremely likely to do it.
People in the US do have the ultimate power, they just doesn't exercise it effectively.
It's 18 minutes, well worth a viewing.
"Error establishing a database connection"
Maybe they're not so good at web sites.
Lessig has a plan. If he gets enough money, he can buy votes for the good-doers and get the idle useless politicians out. The rich and powerful have gamed the system for at least 50 years. Enough. Time for an America that works for most Americans. Way past time. Those that work the hardest and do the most finally get a voice. This is good.
This is the first time I've ever seen that someone actually DID SOMETHING real and effective to make things better. It's about time. I think he'll have no problem getting people behind him. This is just like Microsoft. They piss EVERYONE off with Windows 8, just doing whatever they want and making everyone's lives horrible. Then Windows 9 details come out and they act shocked that everyone is getting behind it and it will succeed. Getting rid of some of the complete and utter crooked bullshit in DC is "what the customer wants" right now. Supply and demand. He's going to get some serious money.
Is buying into it? Good luck with that. Not only are you perpetuating the problem, you're going to lose to those with much deeper pockets while doing it.
Wolf PAC is working to get the states to call for a convention to pass an amendment saying that corporations do not have the rights of people and limiting the amount of money that a politician can raise from any person or entity.
Wolf PAC
The problem is not only the influence these large sums of money have on voters: the problem is also the influence on policy that the candidates are willing to promote, and then the influence on the policies after the election.
It's a good idea, but I fear the outcome will be like Animal Farm.
Ordinary people have no hope of effecting any change, since few people will even hear of the idea, in a country with such deeply seated totalitarian government.
How much media coverage will this really get in America, given the lack of any large independent media? The media is America, is controlled by the same people as the junta, so the idea is a non-starter. Things will have to get considerably more uncomfortable for the ordinary American, before revolution is possible.
I'm just glad I don't live there. It is hard to believe that any nation can consider itself civilised, when it doesn't provide universal healthcare to its citizens, guarantee privacy and human rights, have some form of democracy, and have reasonable employment rights. America has none of these. In terms of building a civilised society, they have a long, long, long way to go.
PAC: Political action committee, an organization formed to contribute funds to influence the outcome of political elections in the United States
For those non-US citizen among us.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Another way to look at it would be if about 10% of voters gave $50 each, which is a fair bit more but still not at all out of the realm of possibility for most people. Also if you are talking house/senate elections, which is what is begin talked about here, then the actual budget isn't nearly as high.
The point is you really DON'T need rich people to fight these big budgets, regular people can do it in large numbers, and really the numbers are in their favour.
The eternal pessimists on places like Slashdot seem to have this view that there is just unimaginable amounts of money being poured in to this that can never be equaled. That is in fact not the case. A number like $800 million sounds just terrifyingly high but then if you spread it across, say, 20 million people you are now talking $40 per person.
That's his point with this. If this is something you care about, you can toss in some money. Not an onerous amount, two figures is fine. However you get millions of people doing that and hey, that's serious dollars you are talking, the kind of thing that is hard to outspend.
Which is exactly why it will be business as usual. Sorry.
... this is what I would do:
- completely independant Federal Bank & Mint (think Bundesbank or ECB) ... this alone would solve a large chunk of all of todays problems in the US
- redesign, reprint and reissue of the dollar (forge-proof like the Euro or better)
- healthcare system, dutch refund-model (maybe some good parts of the German model, ... maybe, really not sure about that ... not sure if there are any good parts of the German model you could salvage in a meaningful way ...)
- "Loser pays all" for civil lawsuits, nationwide (this is a total no-brainer ... one of the reasons many people consider the US a tad wacko ... it boggles my mind how anyone can think of their nation as a land of the free where this rule isn't in place ... ), audited lawsuit cost support for the poor (German model with independant lawsuit feasibility evaluation along with it)
- NRA becomes official authority (Goat becomes gardener), mandatory 80 hour training, education and licencing required for any semi-automatic gun or more powerfull ones (nationwide)
- communities may create firearm ban zones where concealed non-single-action firearms are not permitted, these zone are then enforced by a nationwide law / ruleset
- ban of death penalty (nationwide)
- transform of anglo-saxon precedent law system to a more continental-european rules-based law system with revision opportunities (no more locking away of people for 25 years for stealing a slice of pizza or any of that sort of bullshit possible with todays state of affairs in the US ... land of the free bladiblah ... my ass)
- mandatory civil or military (personal choice) service of 15 months for all full-aged that have finished highschool (think the former German Zivildienst doing health-care support, community service or military service, all would be gouverned by a military type system, civil service would get same pay and follow the same disciplinary rules and order of rank)
- 5 years tution free college after completed civil-service + optional 3 vacation semesters or, as alternative, 4-5 years of regulated and guilded "Apprentice of Crafts" / "Master of Crafts" education, training and diploma (think German "Master of Crafts" model ("Handwerksmeister")) ... interest free gouvernment loans for the time of enrollment in college or "Master of Crafts" training (German model, time/amount of loan limited, repayment of loan takes precedance over any other private loan by law)
- change of the electorial system to a more direct democracy, German 5% rule for new parties in federal congress, implementation of 'election zones' based on fixed amount of citizens (nationwide) ...
That's all I can come up with now, but it would probably solve 90% of the problems in the US today.
My 2 cents.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
So he gets his candidates nominated, what are their positions on other issues? Many, many voters have a hot button that causes them to be single issue voters. Not to mention on what would happen if his candidate had a wrong initial in parenthesis behind his name?
Passionately Indifferent
... the powers that be are also glad when you do vote. One of the cool things about being a power-that-be is that you win regardless.
When you vote, you're indicating that you consent to be governed by these criminals. The criminals use that as evidence that they are not criminals.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Clinton made a good 12 yrs unlike the republican mess bush made.
...what is Lessig's new SuperPAC going to accomplish? Will it even fund its first-round goals? Outside of nerdy, academic circles, does Lessig have any name recognition? Do we know for sure that money = influence in anything other than the long term (decades)? Look at the last election cycle: the Republican Tea Party did pretty poorly, considering the vast sums of money that was spent. How do we that this money wouldn't be better spent other ways?
There are just too many unanswered questions, which, seeing that this is coming from a thinker like Lessig, is pretty disappointing.
A public funding system like a $100 per-citizen tax rebate (Lessig has proposed something similar) for use in campaign contributions would easily quell any fears of not being funded (if everyone who voted in 2012 saves themselves $100 and uses their rebate, it ends up being quite a bit of money--more than was spent in 2012 I believe). This is the kind of reform the backed candidates are being "sent" to enact. Not to mention, being responsible for such landmark reform is sure to keep you popular with your constituents for many terms. And I think you're a bit too cynical to think all of the backed candidates will be so self-serving, unless they were chosen from the current crop of money hustlers (you'd have to be an idiot to select from them and Lessig is not an idiot).
Also, it's very odd that you consider small dollar donations from a large number of average citizens as a "power grab" in the same sense as large (massive) dollar donations from a small number of citizens (as is the case with The Heritage Foundation). If the former is anything of a power grab, it's power that ought to be restored to them.
Clinton spent 12 years in the White House
Wow, you can't even get through your first four words without showing how ignorant you are.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
The supreme court is a feedback system. It is illegal to regulate the amount of money, but not the means says the supreme court. Ok if you spend more than X you can't buy prime time TV, spend more than Y you can't buy TV at all. But congress wants to be seen doing something, so they pass "reforms" that the supreme court will strike down and they shrug and say "We tried."
He has primarily liberal viewpoints and spent more time in "school" than anyone I know. Now he wants millions of our dollars because he's going to fix the system? Oh, but he's not doing that, he's just going to get rid of superpacs. How? Who are his candidates? Why do I need him to represent me? His rhetoric is the same as the Democrat party's. Getting rid of superpacs won't get rid of money in politics, does anyone really believe that?
He's just another person primed to become part of the ruling class like all career politicians.
Wolf-PAC has been working at the state level for quite some time now to convice the states to have an Article V convention to amend the constitution. A former SCOTUS member John Paul Stevens has even gone on record saying an amendment is the only real way to fix the problem. Vermont's house is voting on it today (it already passed the Senate).
I'm sure nothing can go wrong with this.
I live in the UK.
Campain financing is regulated and audited. Also adverts in any media can be examined and used for procecution.
It is sort of this.
Any advert promoting a candidate or party must be credited to that candiate/party and hence on thier books for money. Any advert credited to a party MUST be given a right of response (If your whatever can fork out the money you must be given equal advertising to respond no matter which candidate/party you are running for).
If you or anyone else runs adverts that diss the opposition then the producer may end up in court (negative advertising is not allowed).
It sort of works for mainstream media (TV/Radio) and oddly is not often abused. It is terribly complex though. Thankfully it does not cover local drives. The internet is handled on a case by case basis with nothing done for blogs and what have you.
As I said it is not a great system but as mass media (TV/Radio) became popular it was deemed that the owners of those media could not be allowed to block parties/candidates from the ability to respond to any "Party political broadcast".
When you click through, it says:
>Fun Fact: It costs $1 for 2 first class stamps.
What's a stamp?
who believes in "centrism" and "civility" sits on the board. I'm sorry. No. I love Lessig, but "centrism" is the essence of corruption. It means that whatever the rich Republican backers and the rich Democratic backers want in common, we get. While everything that the broad majority of normal Americans want, when it doesn't align with what the rich agree one, gets ignored. A vast majority favors more equal income distribution, legal marijuana, affordable higher education, active job creation programs, higher minimum wage, prosecution of criminal bankers ... we are basically, a majority of us, to the left of most of the Democratic Party, and far to the left of the Grand Oligarch Party.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
That's interesting, and separate issue. What you describe is that someone SELLING advertising space must sell to either party non-discriminately. We have a weak form of that here.
What GP is advocating is that you wouldn't be allowed to publish the unemployment numbers because they show that Obama isn't doing great. Publishing costs money, so publishing economic facts is spending money in a way that shows the failures of the current leadership. That would be illegal if GP had their way.
No no... gotta use the loophole to close the loophole..
The other things you talk about would be much easier to do if the money wasn't talking so loudly. Kill the money, get things done. Keep the money and you'll never change those things because, as of now, politicians of the major party stripe follow the money (as would any minor party's candidates should they get into power). Kill the money, you'd have a chance to get IRV or proportional representation or some other voting system that might give a third party a chance. Keep it, you'll be in unlistening two-party hell until the anarchist or fascist revolution comes around.
That is all.
so. The government, filled with reps, 90% of whom are millionares, is redistributing wealth away from the wealthy to welfare leeches......
I find it much more likely that the government, filled with reps, 90% of whom are millionares, is redistributing wealth away from middle class to rich leeches. Oddly enough, MY scenario fits with the rise in income inequality, and yours.... doesn't hold with real world data.
Whenever we have an example of some senator doing a cozy deal or bit of pork, is it EVER to some random poor dude? No....
Also.... redistributing wealth is the JOB of government. Government is there to create basic legal and physical infrastructure that benefits us ALL. And that takes money. They take it from people, and build roads/bridges/courts/etc. That's their JOB. So quite whining about wealth redistribution. You sound crazy. There are LOT of very REAL problems with our government. Go fight some of those.
Ok. armed revolutions don't work. Political revolutions do. I don't want to get into this, except to point out that despite your armed revolution fantasy (good luck with that. Let me know how an AR-15 armed moron does against trained military personnel and military equipment) there is some truth to your point. Stop Fucking Shopping.
Some would argue that the Alabama bus boycotts in the 60's did more to change the system than all the marches. I would. Money talks.
There are 300 million Americans. If they stopped shopping at... picking someone at random.... Taco Bell, why not... for just ONE day a month in protest, Taco Bell would be screaming for change in the middle of Congress. People have FAR more power than they suspect.
Unfortunately, they rarely use it. The week that the BP oil spill started I was standing outside my house watching the two gas stations near my house at the time. Arco and Shell. People were streaming into the ARCO station (Part of B.P., it's right on the sign) because the gas was 5 cents cheaper a gallon. The average gas tank is, what, 10-15 gallons? They were saving 75cents max. They could have sent a message, but they didn't care to. This is also why I don't believe in the invisible hand of the free market.
This reminds me of the Communist Manifesto. Marx always said the people would rise up. That's what you're calling for. The people to rise up. News flash... They rarely do.
So, I'm not going to count on People. They've shown me time and again that they don't care enough to take the basic actions to force change. I'll throw my lot in with Lawrence Lessig. He's shown himself to be an honest and dedicated guy who gets results.
Have we not had a lot of efforts to 'elect the right kind of people?' Isn't that how we got here?
The problem is too much power, too centralized. From the prior efforts to control that, we have quite a lot of evidence that newly-elected reformers act pretty much like the people they replaced, certainly by the time they need to be re-elected and need the campaign $ to maintain their very nice positions, positions that are making them wealthy at a rate far beyond what the rest of us manage.
There is no solution possible short of removing that power, putting the Federal gov back inside the Constitutional box and hammering some more nails into it to prevent another escape.
Given that ruling classes all eventually make Marie "let them eat cake" Antoinette look like a brilliant humanist and that they so rarely abdicate in their own best interest, we have exciting times ahead of us. Question is whether our fedgov's 50+ SWAT teams, no doubt all first rate, well-trained and excellently-lead, employed by federal agencies like the Dept of Education, will treat US citizens who are protesting any better than Assad's regime. Syrian citizens have cell phones with video cameras and access to Youtube also, it didn't seem to help much.
Everyone knows it's long past time to get rid of the damned First Amendment. Then the 2nd, we all agree about that. Then the 4th and 5th, they only protect guilty people. And certainly the 10th, 'cause we all hate it so when people talk back to Our Beloved and Revered Government Which Can Never Do Wrong Nor Make Mistakes Nor In Any Way Abuse A Position Of Absolute Power....