Geektivism and the Way DC Really Works:
For a couple of days, Scripting News has been harping on Lawrence Lessig, author of the pro-Internet books, Code and The Future of Ideas. I blogged about Lessig earlier this week and many times in the past.
Basically, Winer is upset because Lessig implied in the OSCON speech that the approaches of the technology geeks don’t have any impact on the policy wonks. In Lessig’s response to Winer, he re-iterates this eloquently.
Lessig has written two of the most coherent, well thought-out books on the Internet’s impact on freedom and intellectual property. Lessig is taking on the horrendous Sony Bono Copyright Term Extension Act in the the Eldred v. Ashcroft case which he’s arguing in front of the Supreme Court of the United States ferpetesake.
What’s Winer done? He’s written some blog software, proposed to raise money to defeat Berman in the elections even though he’s running unopposed (duh!), and is backing the Libertarian candidate against Coble (honorable but impractical — I hate to tell ya, but North Carolina doesn’t elect Libertarians).
I’ll take Lessig’s cogent strategy over Winer’s well-intentioned arm-waving any day.