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Lessig Equal Citizens Exploratory Committee
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[Music]
Lessig: In 1967
Democratic Senator Eugene McCarthy entered the primary he in New
Hampshire to challenge his own party's sitting president because he
feared the most important moral issue of the time -- the Vietnam War --
was going to be invisible in that election.
In four months McCarthy went from almost nothing in the polls to
almost beating Lyndon Johnson in the primary, and the one issue that no
one wanted to talk about became the one issue that no one could ignore.
At the core of our democracy there is a basic inequality. Not
the inequality of wealth, though that is a problem, or the inequality
of speech, though some think that a problem too, but the inequality of
citizens.
Jefferson's truth that all are created equal has become Orwell's
meme that some are more equal than others, and with this change the
core commitment of a representative democracy has been lost.
This inequality shows itself in a thousand ways. It's why we must
even say "black lives matter." It's why Congress bends over
backwards to benefit those who fund their campaigns. It's why a
huge proportion of us don't waste our time voting. It's why the
system, as Elizabeth Warren puts it, is rigged.
Rigged to block reforms that most Americans would benefit from,
rigged to help the very few, those with the money to fund the
politicians' campaigns.
We need to challenge this rigged system like McCarthy challenged the
war. We need to make fixing it the first priority of the next
president and next Congress, because until it is fixed no sensible
reform is even possible.
Yet though every major candidate in the Democratic primary for
president has acknowledged this corruption, so far every one of them
just puts it to one side as if without fixing the rigged system first
we could get climate change legislation or sane limits on guns; as if
without changing the way campaigns are funded first we could reform
Wall Street or take on the insurance companies; as if this corruption
were just a detail, something to be solved quote in the long run
end-quote; as if fixing democracy by achieving equality were something
that could just wait.
It can't wait. This must end now.
We need a campaign that's more than another partisan squabble.
We need a campaign for a referendum, a referendum that speaks our
mandate clearly, ends this inequality and corruption. Give us a
government free from the money, give us a Congress free to lead.
So here's the idea we're going to test. A referendum
president. A candidate who runs for president making a single
promise, that if elected he would serve as long as it takes, but only
as long as it takes, to pass fundamental reform to finally achieve
citizen equality. Once that reform is passed this president would
step down and the elected vice president would become president to fill
out his term.
The candidate is the referendum. The campaign is for that
referendum.
So I am asking you to help me crowdfund a campaign for a referendum
president so we can give the next extraordinary president, whether
Hillary or Bernie or Joe or someone else a Congress that can represent
us and a Congress that is free to lead.
And if we hit our funding target and the leading candidates in the
Democratic primary do not commit to making this fundamental reform the
first priority of their administration then I will enter the race as a
referendum candidate.
I would tie every issue in the campaign, from climate change to
student debt, to this fundamental corruption. I would make
citizen equality central to this election.
And if this referendum won, its mandate would be as powerful as any
that's possible within our political system.
This would be the clearest peaceful rally for equal democracy in our
lifetime.
TEXT: A MANDATE FOR EQUALITY: By the
People, For the People
This won't be easy. I get it. And no doubt there should
be someone better than me. I have tried to recruit them, and if
someone better known credibly commits to making this run, I would
happily step aside.
This campaign is not about a person; it's about a principle, an
American principle that we must reclaim, that all are created equal and
that a democracy must respect us all as equals.
Please give whatever you can, and more importantly please share this
as broadly as you can, because with the Net we can change this
election, and if we do we will change every election that comes
afterwards as well.
This is our shot to make democracy possible. We need to take
it now.
TEXT: YOU CAN MAKE THIS
POSSIBLE. lessig2016.us
Notes: This is one of the
videos Larry Lessig used to launch his exploratory committee.
[a, b,
c]