An Aspen Ideas Festival Big Idea

Posted on July 9, 2008 by Lessig

A congressperson in the Aspen Ideas Festival audience was not happy.

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12 Responses to An Aspen Ideas Festival Big Idea

  1. mike says:
    July 9, 2008 at 4:01 pm

    I liked your speech. Its very true. The influence that money on congress is largely ignored by media except when its grossly criminal.

    Also, I’m reading Code 2.0, and its a fascinating read. Thanks.

    On a separate note, you mentioned a successful diet, out of (self interested) curiosity, what was it.

  2. Gen Kanai says:
    July 9, 2008 at 4:30 pm

    I’d love to see the reaction to your speech.

    The website says: “This is the quick clip of this session. To see the entire session, which is between 60 and 90 minutes, download below.”

    Was there more to watch?

  3. The Aspen Institute says:
    July 9, 2008 at 5:05 pm

    In response to Gen Kanai: We will be posting video of the full session as soon as it is encoded. Thank you for your interest.
    Kind regards,
    Jean Morra, The Aspen Institute

  4. bluebirch says:
    July 9, 2008 at 8:12 pm

    If you don’t have flash the video can be downloaded[1] as .flv and watched with (almost?) any modern player (e.g. vlc).

    [1] http://www.aifestival.org/library/10min/01_063008.flv

  5. Rick says:
    July 9, 2008 at 10:22 pm

    Oh! An unhappy congressperson? Tragic.

    Nicely done sir. You avoided the sarcastic political wit that we collectively chuckle at and forget. You avoided the wild-eyed activist rant that we all dismiss. You cagily swaddled a photon torpedo in words like “faith” and “trust” and sneaked it through the poor-baby’s force field. Good show..

    And I especially liked that this brief talk had a bit of an “edge” on it. I had hoped that you’d offer more of this. Lean-and-mean; that’s the ticket.

    Now if we can get Amy Goodman wielding an AK47 and spitting out four-letter words we just might get somewhere…..

  6. idjit says:
    July 10, 2008 at 2:36 am

    Hey Lessig,

    what happened to “Rah Rah Rah Obama, oh yeah he’s our man!”

    your buddy Obama just voted to destroy the 4th Amendment. Looks like your political opinions suck ass.

  7. Steve Baba says:
    July 10, 2008 at 3:30 am

    If campaign finance the primary issue, one might want to support John McCain who is the candidate running with public money, who has his name on the major campaign finance reform bill and has not sold out the ethanol industry to win Iowa.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/23/us/politics/23ethanol.html

    On the bright side if campaign finance reform is the major issue, and Obama can keep half his promises, things are bound to get better no matter who wins.

  8. Dan says:
    July 10, 2008 at 8:04 am

    You can be darn sure that the only reason that McCain is taking public funding is because he doesn’t think he could raise more on his own (or that he’d rather help raise soft money). McCain is hardly principled about it. He flipped and flopped all through the primary purely according to expediency.

    If he could raise money the way Obama has, he’d be rejecting public money along with Obama, because he knows the system is broken just as much as Obama knows it.

    In the past McCain stooped to desperate measures and got caught in the Keating scandal. Perhaps that’s why he pushed for “reform”; because he was never a fundraising leader and it would be to his relative advantage to bring others down and level the playing field to his level.

    I wonder if he would have been such a “maverick” if he had been on top.

    Bottom line: McCain surely doesn’t come out smelling like a rose here. He’s down in the trenches like everybody else, driven by his practical circumstances as opposed to some fictitious “principle”…

    I mean, gimme a break.

  9. Steve Baba says:
    July 10, 2008 at 2:10 pm

    It’s too bad that a presidential candidate did not know a year ago that the campaign finance system was “broken” when he promised to use it. But now that he has smartened up, right take Obama’s word that he can fix it.

    I don’t accept your argument that McCain is for campaign finance reform for selfish reasons (as Obama likely switched for selfish reasons) but even if McCain is just for campaign finance reform because it’s in his own interest – IT DOES NOT MATTER – you get campaign finance reform in any case.

  10. Velvet Elvis says:
    July 10, 2008 at 4:31 pm

    @Steve Baba

    Obama pledged to accept public financing iff McCain would reign in the 527s. McCain said there was nothing he could do about the 527s so the deal was off.

    Obama, on the other hand, has asked all his big donors to not donate to 527s. Disavowing 527s is, IMHO, a much bigger commitment to ethical campaigning than accepting public financing because you took out a loan against it during your primary campaign.

  11. Nick Smtih says:
    July 10, 2008 at 5:30 pm

    I loved the speech. Very truthful.

  12. scott says:
    July 16, 2008 at 4:29 pm

    Great speech. I wonder who will fight for the title of most unwanted? Congress person or used car salesperson. Anyway, nicely done.

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