The point isn’t that money is evil or politicians are corrupt, the point is that dependence on money breeds mistrust.

So what if politicians and scientists argue that even though it might breed mistrust, it really doesn’t change the way they behave? Well, congress has had common sense public policy questions that they just get wrong. Think copyright, think recommended sugar intake, think global warming. Are they idiots? Or are they guided by dependency on money?

Bribery wasn’t even a crime in congress until 1853. Is today the same? We do have a corruption today, but it’s a corruption of a different kind. We have legislators of integrity. Their actions are legal and do not constitute ethics violations. But the consequence of being dependent on money from the institutions you regulate breeds mistrust. It breeds the common view that money buys results in congress. Congress members become addicts. They are always thinking about how to get more contributions. The lobbyists are the pushers, and they are increasingly productive at buying results.

The problem is not big government or regulation. The problem is mistrust. There were probably more people who believed in the British crown during the revolution than believe in congress now, but congress continually claims that it’s not because of the money.

We must have citizen funded elections. Lessig started Change Congress and called for a strike for change. They asked for people to pledge to stop contributing to congressional candidates who are not committed to citizen funded elections.

We must not only have good behavior in our daily lives, we must be good citizens and demand good behavior from our government. We have lost faith in congress. We have lost trust in congress. We have a democracy crisis. It’s not that this is the most important problem, it’s that this is the root of the most important problems we have. We must solve this problem first.

How can we survive the near term influence of K Street? Obama says you can’t work for his administration and then go work for the people you were regulating during his administration, but you can as soon as he leaves office. Our ethics aren’t strong enough.

Baratunde Thurston is asking about Conyers. The numbers could be interpreted a different way. Lessig says he is a supporter of Conyers. There are two kinds of problems out there. There is actual corruption, which does not apply to Conyers. Then there is the good souls problem. There is the problem that the money he accepted breeds doubt and mistrust. Lessig holds Conyers to a very high standard, and because of his respect for the man, he holds him to a higher standard that gets rid of doubt, that doesn’t create the skepticism.

What is the difference between the amount corporations give and the amount people give? Even if everyone went on strike, would we make a difference? Yes, we will make a difference, because the republican party is in trouble, and the democrats know that, and the 2010 elections will be a fierce battle for cash.

Could it be that the solution to corruption is civil disobedience? The only way this happens is if non-politicians are behind us. The only way we can reform this is from the outside. We want to inspire hackers to help us, to build the pressure we need to change it.

Mockingbirds are the true artists of the bird kingdom. Which is to say, although they’re born with a song of their own, an innate riff that happens to be one of the most versatile of all ornithological expressions, mockingbirds aren’t content to merely play the hand that is dealt them. Like all artists, they are out to rearrange reality. Innovative, willful, daring, not bound by the rules to which others may blindly adhere, the mockingbird collects snatches of birdsong from this tree and that field, appropriates them, places them in new and unexpected contexts, recreates the world from the world. For example, a mockingbird in South Carolina was heard to bend the songs of thirty-two different kinds of birds into a ten-minute performance, a virtuoso display that served no practical purpose, falling, therefore, into the realm of pure art.

– Tom Robbins, Skinny Legs and All, 1990

Having read that, can you honestly feel that the law ought to ban outright artists like Girl Talk and sound advice? We are strangling the innovative, willful, daring mockingbirds of our time.

It’s strange to read a book about people like myself, my “tribe”. There are some things in the book (like the shock at getting paid to write code for the first time), that my friends and I have all experienced, but reading them in a novel is a bit surreal. In that sense, the novel does speak for my generation. Although I’m certain that not everyone in my generation would agree with the values or morals promoted in Little Brother, the book does accurately capture our culture and our communication style, as The Catcher in the Rye and Ulysses did for previous generations.

The message in the book is a hugely important one. Although it’s theoretically set in the near future, since I’ve read it, I’ve noticed pieces of the surveillance society in the book coming true in real life currently. I worry a bit that when the book comes out in April, it will be closer to current events than futuristic possibilities.

The book is very readable for young adults, and still layered and engaging for old adults. I’m not sure a lay-person could grock dual-key encryption from Cory’s explanation, but it’s not an easy concept to communicate, especially in a young adult text. Overall, I think it’s an essential book for young adults to read. I especially liked the bibliography, which efficiently brings together several different books and blogs that together give a decent picture of our tribe’s culture and beliefs.

I think that current young adults will engage with and be inspired by this book because it speaks to them and their lives. Whether the book will hold up over time is another question, as many of the technologies in the book will become antiquated and obscure. Watching the characters interact with technology was half the fun for me (but my passion connecting people with technology to accomplish a greater good, so maybe I’m not the best judge). I wonder whether that piece will be lost on future generations.

The book has a clear unapologetic theme of civil disobedience which resonates with me as a hacker and a young person. Civil disobedience is critically important in this society where the traditional reigns of power are held by an increasingly small segment of our country. My generation sees technology as an extension of ourselves, and many of us feel that it is our duty to use technology to wrest power from that minority and give it back to the people. Cory’s book tells a passionate story about a member of our tribe doing just that.

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Cory Doctorow’s new book just landed on my desk