Read Any Good Books Lately?

I read Harvard Is Burning, a Kindle Single, the other day. It took about 15 minutes and that was too much time wasted. The author seemed to make a tirade against himself and certain liberals of which I’m not very familiar. Though he had a point he seemed to mainly take another fellas thoughts and ramble on about them. I decided his crystal ball of conjecture was cloudy. Don’t waste the buck it costs.

The second book, One Way Forward: The Outsider’s Guide to Fixing the Republic, is also a Kindle single but much meatier. The author, Lawrence Lessig, has a good thought. Conservatives and Liberals, Republicans and Democrats and Independents, should be working together on a common problem (enemy). That problem/enemy is the government, particularly how we elect our officials. Currently congressional members spend about 70% of their time working to get elected or re-elected (the percentages can vary a bit, but that’s fairly accurate.) Thus, we don’t get much work out of them. Worse, in order to get elected they have to go where the money is – essentially the 1% and the PACs. Thus they are constantly in debt to these folk with vested interests of the few and are inclined to ignore the folk they are supposed to represent. It is not a new argument but a good one. Tea Partiers and MoveOn have a common agenda but are so manipulated by the 1% they fight each other rather than their common enemy. Lessig says we should fight for our principles but in order to have a fair hearing of debating those principles, first we must get our election process in order. I think he is dead on right.

A solution he promotes is that the government with vouchers should fund elections. Every citizen would get a $50 or $100 to use to support whoever they want to support in an election. This could amount up to $7 billion dollars more than enough to put forth candidates ideas for the public to weigh and decide who they want to support. And, it takes the big money not completely out of the picture, but limits it significantly. This book is well worth it’s buck.

Now, just a comment on the media distractions that are not as big a deal as they are made out to be. Oooh the IRS targeted conservative groups for audits. So what else is news. The church world is well accustomed to being singled out for special scrutiny and for good reasons. Any jerk can form a church then claim tax free status and make or rip off money from folk with impunity; they should be investigated. PACs conservative and liberal have done the same thing and they should be targeted for investigation. I think the media is only giving us half the story here. Of course, I’m against picking on the Tea Party, unless groups are breaking the law, but that is true of a whole bunch of folk. The following cartoon could be used with differing labels and still make its point.

I’d also recommend Robert Reich’s blog on this.