getrdone

Amen (and I'm an atheist). Two sources probably: I think people get acclimatized to the situation and fear big improvements because it involves change, and change is scary. And also, there is an amount of jealousy and resentment directed towards anyone whom may have a real shot at successfully fixing things because they won't get credit in history books. (This last one is also commonly experienced by anyone whom becomes much more successful in whatever they're doing. It sucks, but friends and peers fear being left behind.)

Larry Lessig, George Washington and all other figures are/were human beings like the rest of us; it's only other people which catapult them onto pedestals. I think we should take stock in the coming socio-political fight for social justice, which needs a strong and wise torchbearer, so that it does not devolve into a French Revolution, but instead an insurrection in the spirit of democracy's promise of continual revolution. Because without a equality functioning across-the-board, history has shown time-and-time-again, that people inevitably seek country justice if city justice doesn't work for them. (It's not "right," but it's human nature.)

Larry puts forth a number of very wise points. I think we need to go further by eliminating PACSs altogether and that limited donations may come from named individuals and must go to a specific candidate only; neither organizations, issue PACs, super PACs nor "personhood" corporations.

Larry listened to Aaron Schwartz'es clear insight... the political operating system must be fixed before any other meaningful issue reforms can be discussed.

His singular focus on that specific, hard issue combined with a pledge to step down after fixing just that is interesting, in a George Washington-revivalist manner. I think he needs a lot of coordinated "muscle" from broad support in order to push this massive "boulder" up and over the "mountain" of institutionalized resistance (the rich, lobbyists and entrenched politicians will fight this one to the death, so he needs to prepare to fight World Wars III, IV & V).