Posts about Lawrence Lessig
Not sure why r/politics isn't letting me repost this. It's only been submitted once before (EDIT: 3 months ago by someone else) and it received one upvote.
Here's the original submission of this ten minute video of Lawrence Lessig succinctly explaining how money dominates our legislature. I can't think of a better resource to direct someone to who doesn't already understand how this works.
EDIT: Since this has garnered some attention, I'd like to point everyone to r/rootstrikers for further discussion on what can be done to rectify this situation.
More Lessig videos:
*A more comprehensive hour long video that can be found here.
*Interviews on The Daily Show part 1 & part 2
Lessig has two books he put out recently that are worth a look (I haven't read the second yet):
Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress--and a Plan to Stop It
One Way Forward: The Outsider's Guide to Fixing the Republic
Copied from another comment:
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Thanks for the AMA and the comments.
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I teach law at Harvard, and run an ethics center focused on Institutional Corruption. And I co-founded Creative Commons, Rootstrikers.org, and have now started the MAYDAY PAC — a SuperPAC to end all SuperPACs.
**My Proof: https://twitter.com/lessig/status/462049858660995072
I just finished reading Republic, Lost and highly recommend it as it not only humanizes politicians (something rare considering the current media landscape that portrays politicians as saviors and supervillains), but also points to the root issue that is distracting actual change and reform.
Additionally, Lessig offers up some damn interesting strategies while acknowledging that it will be an incredibly difficult fight that relies not on politicians, but on citizens to challenge the status quo.
I know this has been brought up on r/politics several times, but this dependence corruption in congress is the root of most of the problems we see with our current government. I hope campaign finance reform is an issue that will start to gain more visibility.
More reading if you're interested: Lessig's tumblr book website
Hey reddit,
When we launched the first phase of MAYDAY.US, we had a great discussion about the influence of money in our political system.
Now, with three days to go in the second phase of MAYDAY, I'd like to dive into more detail about what exactly our country faces and how it specifically impacts the Internet.
I'm excited to be joined by Jack Abramoff, a man who has seen how this process works up close. You probably know him as the super lobbyist who was convicted for violating lobbying laws. He is that. But I know him as someone who has made changing the system a number one goal. He helped write the American Anti-Corruption Act (His task: to design a law that could have stopped him.) And he has written an fantastic book — Capitol Punishment — detailing how the system “works."
We're excited to discuss corruption, money, and its effect on the future of politics, technology and the Internet, so...
Ask us anything!
Lessig & Jack
Proof: https://twitter.com/lessig/status/484365736773566464
[Sorry: Wrong about the time zone -- back now for 45 minutes. And from Jack:
"thank you so much for including me in this scintillating discussion today. I am grateful for all the messages and hope I was able to provide some responses that were adequate. Please support Professor Lessig in his efforts, as he is a true American hero. Thanks. - Jack"]