Lessig, Corruption
The Economist has a piece on how copyright reformer and Stanford professor Larry Lessig has switched his focus from copyright reform to corruption.
"For years Mr Lessig has presented legal arguments against excessive copyright extensions. But he says lawmakers are so in thrall to big-media lobbyists that they do not even realise that counter-arguments to copyright extensions exist. Even though Britain's Gowers Review, published in 2005, argues against such extensions, and eminent economists such as the late Milton Friedman have declared the importance of copyright limits to be a “no brainer”, Mr Lessig says legislators are clueless about “an issue that any rational policymaker has no problem understanding.” Swayed by campaign contributions from vested interests—such as film studios, music companies and book publishers—America's Congress has lengthened copyright terms 11 times in the past four decades, he observes.Non-ivy-league yours truly found the same thing during the decade I've spent writing about broadband technology and telecom. I recently e-mailed Larry to see how I could help his new push, only to find that the push exists so far largely only on pages of news reports like the Economist -- which seem to pop up every two weeks or so.
Larry does say he's working on a plan of attack.
Anybody who is serious about killing corruption in this country first needs to set their sights on think tanks, astroturf (bogus grass roots) and the policy disinformation machine. Start targeting the propaganda. If you have no idea what I'm talking about or simply see this paragraph as a string of conspiratorial text, you're part of the reason corruption has been able to take a firm grip on our political system.
Exposing and embarrassing fake consumer groups run by massive corporations is a good start. In my casual conversation with friends over the past ten years (many of whom have been PHD candidates lately), I don't think I've found ONE person who had even the faintest idea the length companies go to in order to distort public opinion.
Cluing people in and holding high standards as to what constitutes science and truth has to be a priority. Well, that and nachos. I like nachos.