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Lawrence Lessig: How Money Corrupts Congress

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The Long Now Foundation

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Lessig: 'Money Buys Results in Congress'

02 min 56 sec

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Lawrence Lessig, professor of law at Stanford University, points out a fact that we all know: Congress has been corrupted by money. Government distrust has led to abysmal Congressional approval ratings, and he asserts, "there was more support for the British Crown in our government at the time of the Revolution than there is support for our Congress today."
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01 hr 32 min 41 sec

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Previous FORAtv comments:

rbell01824

Posted: 02.17.12, 10:33 AM

There is, perhaps, a rather common sense solution to the issue of money corrupting congress. The Federalist Papers argue that Congress should be dependent solely on the people. Better still, individual congressmen should be dependent solely on the will of those who can vote in their election . Under such a criteria only real voters participating in the election could contribute to campaigns for the election consistent with existing contribution law! Non-voters have plenty of power without directly funding elections. They can lobby as much as they will but they should not be given power beyond that.

BillYoung

Posted: 02.11.12, 10:24 AM

I picked up this book after I saw him on The Daily Show and it is fantastic. I put the link to the talk on my Facebook page and hope that we can begin to use the medium of social media to begin a movement to recover the republic we have allowed to disappear. Everyone should see this talk.

Douglas Jack

Posted: 02.08.12, 01:23 PM

Lawrence puts together some interesting points, but falls into the basic 'frame-of-reference' trap we are all part of as an invading 'exogenous' (Latin = 'other-generated') illegal colonial society. My family and European America are here around 350 years yet very very few have even considered, "What would Turtle Island (North America) have looked like if we had immigrated here with civil respect and deference to the existing 'indigenous' (L = 'self-generating') governments, customs and peoples? Lawrence goes on to glorify our genocidal, murderous, racist, slave-owning, sexist, money grubbing founding fathers and constitution. First Nations here and our indigenous ancestors worldwide cultivated a form of Economic 'Democracy' (Greek = 'Power of the people') as well as a subsidiary Political Democracy based in a system of checks and balances. https://sites.google.com/site/indige...circle-of-life This system is summarized in the 'Haudenosaunee 'Great Law of Peace' but as well found around the world with two main components of local empowerment of individuals, families and community in 'economies of scale' 1. Housing based in 'multihome' ('Longhouse' = 'apartment-like'& 'Pueblo' = 'Townhouse-like') intergenerational multi-disciplined interaction covering both male and female work. 2. Inclusive welcoming economy based in specialized universal progressive ownership Production Society Time-based accounting for all contributions to the multihome, village, region, nation, confederacy, continent and hemisphere. Indigenous systematic 'fractal' (at all levels) organization of 'the power of the people', allowing for everyone to be part of functional and responsive 'corporate' or 'collective' economy and living. The String shell value system of our indigenous ancestors from around the world integrated 'capital' (L 'cap' = 'head'), 'currency' Greek 'money' from 'mnemosis' = 'memory'), 'condolence' ('social security'), collegial education (Production Society apprenticeship), Diplomatic Conveyance (Shared resource harvesting as part of time-management), Communications (Graphics & mathematics-based) https://sites.google.com/site/indige...omic-democracy douglasf.jack@gmail.com