Lawrence Lessig

“ Today we have launched a campaign to give us a government we can be proud of again, because the corruption that calls itself Congress is killing America's dream.
Join me today in a fight not to defeat any Democrats, but to defend the fundamental ideal of democracy. Help us fix this democracy. First, by building with us a campaign that rallies the most creative in America against the greatest threat to America. Not terrorists the living in caves, but the citizens convinced that there is no democracy anymore. The citizens who have given up. ”

“ But rather than actually paying for what we buy, the politicians pander to the rich to keep their taxes low. Indeed, some of the richest Americans -- hedge fund managers -- pay among the lowest tax rates. Yes despite the fact that not once in the past 20 year has Gallup found even a third of Americans who think the tax burden on "upper income people" is "fair," Congress has done nothing.
On every issue that matters to America, Congress doesn't listen to America. One every issue that matters to America, Congress listens to the funders of their campaigns.
America's government has been bought. ”

“ Not by begging Congress for corporate welfare, but by making money the old fashioned way: by earning it.
Yet today, 7,303 days after the Clinton-Gingrich pact, for too many in this economy, that's not the way wealth is made. For too many, wealth is made through the power of a lobbyist. For too many, wealth it secured through the special favor of government. For way too many special interests in America, the way they succeed is to get the government to favor them. Against others. Against those who don't hire the lobbyists. ”

“ We must promise our children the same patriotism and love. We must finally find a way to make good on the promise to give them a democracy that works. We must have the courage and the patriotism to rise to an idea that was given to this nation more than 200 years ago.
Because if we don't, then 7,303 days from today, our children won't be looking back at two politicians, and chuckling at how the politicians always promise reform some day, and how some day really means never. Instead our children will be looking back at us. ”

“ There is a connection between what the economic elite want and what our government does. There is a connection between what special interests group want and what our government does. But there is no connection between what the average voter wants and what our government does -- in a democracy; in a representative democracy, Congress does not represent the people. ”

“ That's is not to say that is the first time Americans have fought for democracy. Soldiers in America volunteer to defend our democracy with their life. They go to the field with a backpack, not a SuperPAC. My grandfather joined millions to fight fascism across the world. And our forebears fought a revolution to free ourselves from governments controlled by Donald Trump -- sorry, I mean aristocrats. We have been fighting for the ideal of equal citizens since the beginning of the time of American citizens. ”

“ This is not a democracy any more. In no sense of the word, it is this a representative democracy any more. The basic commitment that our framers made -- of a Congress dependent on the people alone, where the "people", as Madison promised, meant "not the rich more than the poor" -- that basic promise has been betrayed by the politicians. And it is time that we -- we who are citizens, we who are not politicians -- fight to get it back. ”

“ The America we live in today would be unrecognizable even twenty years ago. 400 families have given half the money in this election cycle so far. That's not American democracy. That's banana republic democracy. We have a Congress that is dependent on the tiniest fraction of the 1% to fund their campaigns. A Congress that bends over backwards to keep those funders happy. A Congress that is not free to lead, because it is bound to its funders. A Congress that has been corrupted by the system they have allowed to evolve for funding their campaigns. ”

“ Now I'm all for success in America. The promise of getting rich by creating and innovating drives the American spirit. I know this, because my dad was a entrepreneur. I saw how it drove him.
But entrepreneurs succeed by working harder. By competing better. By creating more. They succeeded by innovating, not by hiring lobbyists to get them a special tax favor. ”

“ Not because that's a pretty ideal, and not because campaigns should be fought for moral notions alone. But because only if we can restore this fundamental principle might we have a chance to solve the problems that hold us back as a nation. ”