If you follow the ideas from TED conferences, ideas via TEDx, you may want to follow along the major ideas on democracy from Harvard Law professor Larry Lessig. I know Lessig from his tenure at Stanford Law School. He founded the Center for Internet and Society where I was a Non-Resident Fellow. He was vocal about the evils of software patents – for which I disagreed with him. But he's a critical thinker who sometimes hits his mark. He's been a mouthpiece and innovator with contemporary conflicts of law and technology. Among his innovations is copyright application with the Creative Commons. Lessig has four TED talks online.
Larry is running for President – a One Year President - of these United States as a Democrat. He's a person of ideas, of persuasion and presentation of those ideas.
His goal is overturning Citizen's United. He's informing through democratic election process the same way Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert took on campaign contribution loopholes through comedy. So, for those who were amused by Stewart and Colbert, Lessing deserves a serious review.
His formal proposal is the Citizens Equality Act 2017, to be enacted if he's elected President, whereupon he will resign.
His immediate problem as a candidate is that the democratic powers are blocking his appearance that the public televised debates.
Larry is a long shot; and the presidential position - even for one year - needs wider perspective than just this one issue. But he has real Silicon Valley pedigree.
My call to action is the following: let him join in the democratic debates. To that end there is a MoveOn.org petition for your consideration.
The Guardian has a recent story on Lessig: How Lessig's one-year presidency platform is winning over Silicon Valley
