But listening to Prof. Lessig speak so fulsomely (in the actual meaning of “fulsome”), so glowingly — with absolutely no qualification, as if this were indeed the Second Coming — leaves me terribly concerned.

There is simply NOTHING so far in Obama’s choices for advisers or cabinet members to sustain hope for a “transformational presidency”.

Moreover, the idolization of the middle is purely fallacious. Where on earth do Americans, including Stanford law professors, get the notion that being in the middle means being correct? The notion is patently absurd.

If being pro-civil rights in 1955 meant being left — and it did — then the left was correct. Being pro-union in 1932 was a leftist position. And it was the true position.

There is a world of difference in giving a hearing to all sides and trying to find a solution that synthesizes all sides. It is a sad commentary on American discourse that even the _best_ educated clearly do not understand this.

Moreover, Obama is most emphatically NOT giving a hearing to all sides. Entirely absent from his advisers are any representatives of labor, of the common people, of advocates for single-payer health care, of advocates for Arab or Muslim rights (most especially the rights of Palestinians in their own homeland).

All of this points to a nascent Cult of Personality with Obama as the Revered One.

Anyone moderately familiar with the history of the past three or four thousand years should be wary, at best.

No, by the time this is all done, France will look at us and snicker that *we* are way too socialistic…

Considering that we have sophisticated web collaboration tools to manage communities, why do we still have a political system that is so entirely dependent on one person?

I think we need to do more than change congress, and more than hope that our precious leader will be beneficent in his rule over us. I think it is time we started governing ourselves, ala http://metagovernment.org

“The Shock Doctrine” illustrates how crises are exploited by those in power to further their agendas while those that are effected by the crises are too confused and powerless to do anything about it. It is a stern warning against the very argument that Prof. Lessig has made in his analogy.

There is this frog and this scorpion and the scorpion wants to cross the river. The scorpion is all real nice to the frog and says if you let me ride on your back across the river I promise not sting you. The frog says yes you will sting me and the scorpion says no I won’t because if I do, you will die and we will both drown. And the frog thinks, wow, this scorpion is really different, he understands that we are all in this together, things are gonna be different, I can really trust this scorpion. So the frog lets the scorpion hop on his back and off they go across the river. Just as they get near the other bank, zip, the scorpion stings the frog. In its last dying moments the frog asks the scorpion why he did that? The scorpion replies, “Cause I’m a f$cking scorpion, you idiot.” The scorpion then swims the tiny distance left to the shore, laughs his a$$ off and sets off in search of another victim.

Asking Democrats (or Republicans) to change Congress while giving them more influence/power/cash is like asking a teenager not to drink while handing her a fake ID.

As much as I want to believe that Obama’s and the Dem’s reign will lead to lasting governance change, I can feel the soft forms of influence picking up, the capture swooping in, and the embers of a lean mean government dying…for example, let’s pay close attention to the treatment of the Big Three, who are bleeding cash and need a lifeline. Will the inclusion of MI’s gov and reps as advisors provide an image of impartial decisions? I think not.

But im cynical and I guess I should give them a chance…