PolITiGenomics

I just added the WordPress Mobile Pack plugin to the site. When browsing from a mobile device, you should get a small-screen friendly view (and you won’t see the video below).

If you are at all interested in a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, the presentation below by Lawrence Lessig is well worth the 18 minutes.

Political commentators play the blame game. Don’t worry, it’s really no one’s fault.

The same news commentators who defended the previous administration’s shortcomings now use those same incidents to label the current administration’s difficulties (starting at about 5:00). So are they now saying that the previous administration had failures, or that the current administration is handling them well? I suppose what they are really saying is that there are limits to their powers of persuasion (“Rosebud!”).

Lawrence Lessig uses Sen. Scott Brown’s (R-MA) inability to explain why he opposes the financial reform bill as further reason that .

Scott Brown, Massachusetts’ new senator, opposes legislation in Congress that would strengthen regulations for Wall Street.

But when a reporter recently asked him why he’s against this bill, Brown couldn’t give an answer. He’s against financial reform, but he has no idea why.

Let me help Senator Brown: During his campaign last year, Brown received half of his campaign contributions from Wall Street and business executives. He benefited from another million dollars in issue ads by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. They oppose the bill, so Senator Brown opposes the bill. It’s no wonder Pew recently found that trust in Congress is at its lowest point ever.

I focused on Scott Brown, but the influence of special interest money pervades both parties in both chambers. Americans are right to suspect that their representatives are merely doing the bidding of those funding their campaigns.

Last week, I recorded a new episode of the Change Congress Chronicles, talking about Scott Brown, the economy of influence in Washington, and the path to reform. Take a few minutes to watch, and then please share it with anyone you know who is fed up with our electoral system:

Congress can fix our campaign finance system right now by passing the Fair Elections Now Act, which would create an opt-in system of citizen-funded elections. But to get this bill written into law, we must build enough grassroots support so that Congress has no choice but to listen.

Whatever your party affiliation, whatever change you seek — it won’t happen until we Change Congress.

So head over to and take action.

NPR has a series this week about the current level of distrust Americans have with government. The latest installment, Americans Distrust Congress? That’s No Surprise, ties some of the low opinion of Congress to the highly partisan rhetoric. What the story hints at, but does not state explicitly, is that partisan rhetoric is a positive feedback loop. Those who pay attention to politics, and therefore fund campaigns and watch political shows, tend to be more partisan. This encourages politicians and political pundits to be more partisan (to increase their base/donations and viewership, respectively). This in turn gives credence to and reinforces those more partisan views of their constituents and viewers. Unfortunately, the articles fails to mention the fact that all of this partisan rhetoric is mere theater; a means to get elected and re-elected in perpetuity. It is a means to distract the general public from the fact that partisanship only exists on the fringes of the political debate. Both parties are happy to do the bidding of the same lobbyists on issues that actually matter.

I know it’s two posts in a row, but here is another clip from The Daily Show worth checking out.

I would encourage you to check out Media Matters to get some sense of the breadth and depth of deception in the popular media on this and other issues.

Yesterday on NPR there was a story reporting new details on the assassination of Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero. Of course, according to one member of the Texas school board, no one knows who Oscar Romero is, so I suppose there is no need to report on things like this.

And posting that gives me an excuse to post Jon Stewart’s impression of Glenn Beck from a few weeks ago (it’s 13 minutes, but well worth watching).

During the 30 minutes or so after boarding a plane and when you are free to use approved electronic devices, you can get a little reading done. On my last couple trips I had a stack of somewhat dated Newsweek magazines to pore through. Fortunately, there were several good articles, which I now pass along for your consideration (which I type on my computer during the period I am free to use approved electronic devices with the wireless features disabled). First a couple articles on the topic that has been on everyone’s mind now that the Republicans are no longer “responsible” for the growing debt: Fareed Zakaria’s Defusing the Debt Bomb talks about several concrete measures that can be taken to reduce the debt and The Real Greek Tragedy talks about why it is important to do that. Bringing a dose of reality to the debt issues is We the Problem which talks about why the US Congress will not enact any of the needed changes (he only gets it half right by blaming the people, lobbyists are part of the equation too). Shifting topics to the “partisan gridlock” in Washington DC, Ezra Klein’s Stay Out Of It, Mr. President discusses how the mere act of the President, any President, supporting some legislative agenda tees it up for the opposition party to, well, oppose it. This opposition occurs even when there is not much substantive difference between the two parties’ stances on the issue or when significant proposals of the opposition party have been included in the bill (giving credence to Mr. Klein’s thesis is the fact that Republicans no longer support their proposals from the 1993 health care debate that are in the current bill). The actual distance between Republicans and Democrats on issues is discussed in How the GOP Sees It. Finally, Google’s Orwell Moment discusses their flubbed roll out of Google Buzz and . I like the Newsweek article because it actually uses Orwell’s name in an appropriate reference to 1984. Most references to 1984 use terms like “Big Brother” in a pejorative way, e.g., “another example of Big Brother watching you.” But what is most powerful about 1984 is not that people saw the hyper-surveilling, truth-manipulating government as an intrusive presence in their life, but as a comforting one. The vast majority of people saw the government as something that brought benefits (peace and stability) and were more than happy to trade some small, meaningless rights for these benefits. What rights are you willing to trade for the benefits of social networking?

Speaking of global climate change and snowstorms, NPR has a story this morning about how a lot of snow in Washington, DC does not contradict the theory of global climate change. For those who missed second grade, the piece contains this information.

A storm is part of what scientists classify as weather. Weather is largely influenced by local conditions and changes week to week. It’s fickle — fraught with wild ups and downs.

Climate is the long-term trend of atmospheric conditions across large regions, even the whole planet. Changes in climate are slow and measured in decades, not weeks.

Judging from the comments on the story, it seems some are not swayed by facts and logic. I am sure their objections are based on sound scientific inquiry and not politically motivated.