Nice article on Lawrence Lessig in the Nation

I'm excited by Lessig's new project, Change Congress, but will admit to some skepticism about its prospects for bringing about the ambitious reform it aims for. That said, I was struck by the following quote from Mr. Lessig in a recent article in the Nation:

We have an opportunity--and it won't last long--to take advantage of the uncertainty that Congress has about how the Net actually works. They don't get it right now. And while they've learned how to ignore 1,000 e-mails, they haven't quite figured out what to do about fifty blogs talking about various legislation or meet-up events. So there's an opportunity to leverage the technology and the irrational insecurity of members of Congress, who look at any objectively insignificant resistance as something to be dealt with immediately.

I think he's exactly right, in the way the Lessig so often is. We are in the middle of an epochal shift in the way the information and opinion is created and disseminated. The clumsy on-line presence of most politicians (e.g. both McCain and Clinton), provides ample evidence that they do not grok the net in any meaningful way. Not yet.

So perhaps we do have a window of opportunity to change the fabric of our politics for the better. It is a narrow window to be sure, so we'd best press our advantage while we have it.

A number of talks have been posted on blip at: http://change-congress.blip.tv. If you haven't heard one of his Change Congress lectures, you should check them out. I personally find Lessig to be the most effective speaker I've ever heard when it comes complex abstract subjects like this one.