Larry Lessig is considering a run for Congress in California, and I want him to run.And so do a lot of people, including many far from his Stanford home.
He's got a Facebook group. And a MySpace profile. And the DraftLessig website. And in a few days, the groundswell of netroots has started to buoy him.
Who, you might ask, is Larry Lessig?
I first crossed paths with Larry Lessig during the seminal Internet organizing campaign against the CDA. Congress, in profound ignorance of how the Internet actually works and how borderless it is, proposed to restrict web content only to content suitable for children. The standards they proposed were so strict they make modern school and library filters look permissive. For example, some parts of the Bible would be proscribed from being published online.
I first saw Lessig testifying before Congress in his role of Stanford Law professor, interpreting the various arguments against, and sometimes for, the CDA. He was sane, professional, savvy, and was able to elucidate fine points of both law and Internet culture in a way that was assimilable by the whole legislative body. I confess, I was impressed. I became an instant Lessig fan.
Since then, Lessig's involvement in Creative Commons, Free Culture, Free Software, and other interests at the vanguard of law and internet culture has warmed me, even when there are fine points of disagreement in our views. I never fail to learn something from the man's arguments.
But recently, Lessig has turned his eagle eye to another target -- government corruption.
I wish I could vote for him. I can help raise him campaign funds. My fiance and I are putting together a "Draft Lessig" campaign in Second Life, to support his candidacy. I encourage you, today, to find out more about this remarkable man who -- mark my words -- will be in our children's history books, come that day.
We so desperately need a sane, lucid, rigorous, unwavering voice for both Internet culture and governmental transparency and reform in DC. I hope, even if it's just joining a social media group, you'll do what you can to encourage this man to run.
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Shava Nerad, News and Opinion Correspondent:
Shava's column, Iconoclasm, published irregularly and frequently to Gather Essentials: News, is an examination of the provocative ideas emerging in media and world culture behind the news.
ShavaNerad has been working on the Internet for over twenty-five years, at the boundaries of Internet and social issues. She is CEO of Indigenis, a consulting group working at the intersection of virtual worlds, social networking, and gaming communities, and recently left her position as development director of The Tor Project to work on a book tentatively titled How to Raise a Risk Taker.
She lives in Somerville, MA with her teenage son, her fiance (a professional magician and fundraising coach), and a corgi/dachshund mutt named George. Her wedding in Second Life was recently featured in Business Week, and even she finds this surreal.
Opinions here have nothing to do with my consulting and so on.
You can find all of Shava's Iconoclasm columns at http://Iconoclasm.gather.com
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