Tags
Doris Haddock, influence of lobbyists, Lawrence Lessig, lobbyists, Money and Congress, New Hampshire, Political corruption, US democratic deficit, US Political reform
Now that the mince pies are finished, the balloons all limp, and the fizz all drunk, our minds may turn again to politics. And some have quite extraordinary plans to catch our attention in this the run up to the mid-terms.
Take Lawrence Lessig, a Law Professor at Harvard who is planning to walk across New Hampshire (the long way 185 miles) to publicise his campaign against the corruption of Congress by the influence of moneyed lobbyists.
In his own words “the #NHRebellion was inspired by the late Doris Haddock, aka, Granny D, a citizen of New Hampshire, and who, at the age of 88, walked across the country with a simple sign on her chest: “campaign finance reform.”
Lawrence intends to start off at January 11th and take two weeks over the journey. It will not be easy. Temperatures in a New Hampshire January can be sharp. It was minus 19 in Dartmouth recently.
Lawrence puts it this way on his blog.
“Long before I came to the issue, Granny D was recruiting anyone she could to the critically important cause of changing the way campaigns are financed. She believed, as I do, that the current system is a kind of “corruption.” And she believed, as I have come to believe, that unless we find a way to change it, our government will be incapable of addressing sensibly any of the critical issues that it must resolve. Granny D devoted the last part of her life to this fight. The #NHRebellion will continue her work.
The point of the January march is to focus the citizens of New Hampshire on this critical issue of corruption, so that they in turn will focus the candidates in 2016 on corruption too. We will be asking people from across the state to ask the candidates they will inevitably meet over the next two years: “How will you end this corruption?” And the hope is that if New Hampshire makes this an issue, it might well become an issue for the nation as well. “
We have seen this sort of grass root action before, a couple of years ago I reported on Paul Mathison’s “Running Against Redistricting” when he walked across Pennsylvania in 2011. Sadly these events are starved of the oxygen of publicity they need and fade swiftly from the memory or are dismissed as soon as the media return with their usual diet of films, reality TV and sport.
Somehow I doubt Mr Lessig’s endeavours will gain much coverage with this mainstream press, things being as they are, however if the smaller outlets on the internet give Mr Lessig the shout he deserves, then maybe his efforts will not be lost. There are of course the blog and Facebook outlets. Why not visit and give the guy a boost?
Finally I leave you with his YouTube presentation which is witty and informative of the points he wishes to get across.
Copyright David Macadam 2014
The Oligarch Kings 
Good post! On the political corruptions of U.S. of A. I would opine that this sort of funding for politicians has been going on throughout the globe. A bit of an elephant, that is likely impossible to change? While we can applaud the actions of Mr. Lessig and his predecessor, Granny D. Even should he become successful? Then what?
“The good do not need laws telling them what to do and the bad will just find ways around them”. ~ Plato 465 BCE.
Obama was never a “professor (sic) of Law at the Univ of Chicago.” Nor was he an associate prof, asst prof, nor even an instructor. He was listed as a “Lecturer in Constitutional Law”…not even a tenured track position.
I don’t think financing is the ‘root’. The root is that a population of 300 million is incompatible with good democracy – no matter how it is funded. If there was Socratic education everyone would see this.
Thank you for this important post, David. I’ve added a reference and link to it to my own post for tomorrow. Every little will help – over time. It’s no use kidding ourselves it’ll be easy, or even possible, but we have to keep trying to spread the word. Giving up isn’t an option.
Thank you for linking this post. Every little does help and if a lot help then it can become important. Maybe it might even be a catalyst for change.
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Right on – ity’s time for action. If not, we leave ourselves open to a false messiah
Absolutely Bob.