Republic Lost

Something very worthwhile over at the Orange Satan. Mark Sumner points us at Lawrence Lessig's recent TED talk. Here is  the money quote from Mr. Sumner.

Lawrence Lessig's new TED talk starts off in the fictional semi-democracy of Lesterland, then, with statistics that are no less shocking for their familiarity, reminds us that this land of the few, by the few, for the few is the land we call home. Worried about the 1 percent? Don't be. Worry about the 0.05 percent. That's the percentage of Americans who maxed out their contribution to any political candidate in the last election. Or the 0.01 percent who made contributions of $10,000 or more. That's the number of Americans who actually show up on the radar of politicians. But those are only flyspecks on the screen. Save your real worry for the 0.000042 percent. That's 132 people. Those 132 people provided 60 percent of all the money that ended up in Super PACs.
If you're a politician, and you spend between 30 and 70 percent of your time begging for funds for the next election cycle, as American politicians do ... who you gonna call?

The talk is not too long but very sobering.