A familiar name to many in this community; Lawrence Lessig is considering a run at US President.
For those unaware, Lessig is a prominent advocate for copyright/trademark and campaign finance reform.
From the article:
Lessig, a Harvard law professor and government reform activist, announced Tuesday morning that he was launching a presidential exploratory committee to run as what he called a "referendum president" with the chief purpose of enacting sweeping changes to the nation's political system and ethics laws.
"Until we find a way to fix the rigged system, none of the other things that people talk about doing are going to be possible," Lessig said in an interview with The Washington Post, borrowing a phrase that has become Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren's rallying cry. "We have this fantasy politics right now where people are talking about all the wonderful things they're going to do while we know these things can't happen inside the rigged system."
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Founder of Wikipedia Jimmy "Jimbo" Wales is now the Committee Chairman for Lawrence Lessig's campaign to become the Democratic nominee for President of the United States:
"Larry's run for President is different," said Wales, who founded the free-access, free-content encyclopedia in the early 2000s. "He's crowdfunding his campaign instead of seeking out rich donors. He's showing people that we can change the rigged political system."
Both long-time supporters of Internet freedom, Wales and Lessig have stood side by side on previous issues, most notably in opposing the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in 2012. Wales' day-long Wikipedia blackout protesting SOPA influenced other major Internet players to follow suit and is credited with helping to sink the legislation.
"I'm deeply grateful for Jimmy's support," said Lessig. "We both believe in the power of the people to push back against special interests. He's a valuable player in this fight to end the corrupting role of money in politics once and for all."
"The Internet community came together to fight back against SOPA and we were successful." Wales said. "Now we're behind Lessig to fight for citizen equality. When you light up the Internet, anything is possible."
Lawrence Lessig sues New York Times over MIT and Jeffrey Epstein interview
Harvard Law professor Lawrence Lessig is suing The New York Times over an interview about the MIT Media Lab accepting money from sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Lessig's defamation suit covers a September 2019 article titled "A Harvard Professor Doubles Down: If You Take Epstein's Money, Do It in Secret." He claims the headline misrepresents his interview, where he condemns the donation, but says that "if you're going to take the money, you damn well better make it anonymous."
Lessig is the founder of Creative Commons and a longtime policy activist; he once ran for president on the promise to pass a single anti-corruption law and then resign. He's also a friend of former MIT Media Lab president Joichi Ito. When Ito admitted last year to secretly receiving around $800,000 from Epstein, Lessig signed a supportive letter and argued that accepting secret donations was better than publicly laundering a criminal's reputation — although he said taking Epstein's money at all was wrong in retrospect.
Times reporter Nellie Bowles interviewed Lessig about the donations and appeared unimpressed by his reasoning. "It is hard to defend soliciting donations from the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. But Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard Law professor, has been trying," she wrote in the article's opening paragraph. Lessig quickly dubbed the piece "clickbait defamation" by the Times. Now, he's turned that accusation into an actual defamation complaint and launched it with a full-fledged multimedia campaign, including a website called "Lessig v. Clickbait Defamation" and a related podcast.
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(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2015, @03:59PM
Harvard Law. Nothing good comes out of Harvard.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2015, @04:14PM
No worthwhile comment has ever started with "I stopped reading at". Your comment didn't break that rule either.
(Score: 2) by bugamn on Thursday August 13 2015, @02:38AM
So you are saying that you could have stopped reading at "I stopped reading at"?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by jmoschner on Wednesday August 12 2015, @04:57PM
While intention may be noble, this is the wrong way to go about such change. The President just doesn't have the power to make the changes he wants. Congress would just shut out such a President and never make the changes needed. He would be better off using the money and effort to back those running for office against the incumbents and push for reform from the ground up while pushing out the career politicians. Though that is easier said than done without getting your hands rather dirty.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by massa on Wednesday August 12 2015, @05:06PM
That is an universally needed campaign: NEVER VOTE FOR THE INCUMBENT.
(Score: 2) by etherscythe on Wednesday August 12 2015, @05:18PM
More specifically, I think, if he can garner some attention then he may sway the campaigns of the other candidates. I don't think anyone expects him to actually win an election, but if it helped to curb some of the excessive influence of the IP lobby or bring a voice of reason to the debate, that would be a good thing.
"Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2015, @06:12PM
That's his way of attracting eyeballs to the issue - he's not trying to get elected. You know, like Trump (but for different reasons).
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2015, @09:01PM
Others have mentioned that a 3rd-party candidate has a low probability of taking the top spot. [wikipedia.org]
Without gaining the candidacy of an -existing- party which has an already-vibrant structure in each state, the chances are even lower.
Should Lessig gain that spot with an existing party and subsequently win the national general election, he could then leverage that party structure to press for constitutional amendments via individual state governments. [wikipedia.org]
The guy with the top job also has something called the bully pulpit. [google.com]
He could use his influence as Chief Executive to press for a constitutional convention that could make major changes like ranked voting.
Now, being affiliated with a party that doesn't have enough oomph to have already gotten people elected to Congress, it's questionable how much he could get accomplished.
Others have also mentioned that just being in the national race gives him a taller soapbox than Joe Average from which his ideas can be itemized.
This assumes, of course, that
- Lamestream Media will point their cameras and microphones in his direction.
(If you look at the "coverage" of Bernie Sanders in LSM, you will see that LSM is doing the opposite of that because Bernie isn't a complete whore for Wall Street and he desires meaningful change for the 99 Percent.)
- Alternately, it requires that USAians tune out Lamestream Media and instead consume e.g. Pacifica Radio or Free Speech TV or go to non-Reactioary websites for information with zero corporate propaganda.
(I'm not holding my breath on that one.)
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by zafiro17 on Wednesday August 12 2015, @05:03PM
Kidding. I know who he is and so do probably most of us here. But elsewhere he is nobody, unknown, zero. Beyond that, he's a on - issue candidate, always a bad strategy. For that matter, despite taking on worthy causes, I'm told he has lost most of the cases he has fought. I admire his ambition but I don't any hope for his campaign. Don't even think I'd vote for him.
Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis - Jack Handey
(Score: 2) by zafiro17 on Wednesday August 12 2015, @05:05PM
* one-issue. Stupid android autocorrect.
Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis - Jack Handey
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MrGuy on Wednesday August 12 2015, @05:05PM
Let's be honest. I generally admire Lawrence Lessig on a wide variety of issues. And while he's saying all the right things here, I doubt very much that even he really thinks he's a realistic candidate for president. Particularly when his platform is basically a "stunt" presidency.
I'm all for getting his message out there, and there's a non-zero chance that this could have a Trump-like effect of getting some news cycles from a vocal minority fed up with "the way things work." But let's be honest. This isn't a serious candidacy.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2015, @11:10PM
When his protégé Aaron Swartz needed someone to represent him in court?
OK, that would've been difficult. So Lessig will campaign for a less stressful job... POTUS.