Today, thanks to the Change Congress mailing list I watched an amazing video by Lawrence Lessig as he explains why progressives and conservatives alike should be outraged by what has happened in the first year of the Obama administration.  I thought the video was great—no great surprise there, Lessig is a brilliant speaker—and shared it via the Twitter.

My good friend, Danial Porter, replied to my share with:

I’m torn. See, I agree that congress blocks progress, but this go ‘round, I’m pretty happy about the progress that’s being blocked.

This is an opinion that makes sense, and that I personally shared several years ago when I was still politically active.  I had rationalized that Clinton had a pretty good administration, because he was pretty solid with foreign policy and in most of the domestic issues his solutions— that I hated—were blocked.  A president that could do little harm sounded pretty good to me.

But I don’t share that opinion anymore.  It’s a misconception to think that “blocked progress” implies that congress isn’t doing anything.  Congress is still warping and violating the “spirit” of legislation as it passes through the system, it just isn’t doing any of those things that the American people symbolically voted for by electing Obama.  Instead, congress serves themselves, necessarily, by focusing up to 70% of their time in office on fundraising to secure their position and livelihood.

The reason that the Change Congress movement is so critical, is that it addresses a prerequisite problem to the most important political issue to you.  It doesn’t even matter what your most important beliefs or opinions are, if the systematic corruption in congress can’t be stopped, then your most important issue can’t be address properly and no great man or woman—left, right, center, forwards, or backwards—can make a difference.  Obama is failing, but it should be no comfort to conservatives, because your hero is doomed to the same failure.

Dr. Lessig lays out this dependency on fundraising in another brilliant presentation found on the Who We Are page of the Change Congress website.  It takes almost twenty minutes to watch, but will likely be the most politically responsible thing you do this year.  Understanding this issue is more important than voting.

This isn’t a partisan statement that Lessig is making.  The entire Change Congress effort from Lessig is the result of a brilliant constitutional scholar going through the real “school of hard knocks”.  He spent decades of his life working for American culture and the American people by attempting to correct asinine copyright laws.  He failed.  But in failing he recognized a problem that needs corrected first before his passion for a culturally beneficial copyright law can be realized.

Congress must be servants of The People, as the constitution intended, not of special interests.  What’s better for The People is not what’s best for special interests.  That’s what makes them special.  If special interests were what was best for the public, then they would be called public interests, not special ones.  In a congress where campaign funding is the prerequisite for all political power and political success, and nearly all campaign funding comes from special interests, congressmen and congresswomen must serve the special interests first, or they will stop being congresspersons.  This is the system that Lessig has identified as the failure in American democracy, and he’s right.

Conservatives have no reason to be pleased with the ineffectiveness of Obama as the 44th President of the United States.  His failure isn’t one of character, he’s a brilliant constitutional law scholar that has advocated honesty and transparency at every turn.  His failure isn’t one of agenda, he was elected on an agenda that brought a super-majority of his party members to office in congress with him.  His failure isn’t one of initiative, he’s brought to the congress each of his campaign promises and called congress to action.  You don’t have to agree with a political agenda to recognize potential in an administration.  If a brilliant, charismatic, internationally favored, honest president serving at the same time as a super-majority of his own party can’t change anything, there’s no reason to expect any other administration can.

Of course, that shouldn’t be a surprise.  Our founding fathers intended the legislative branch to be the great representative of The People.  The President would do the work, but without enough power to be a king or despot.  The Supreme Court would check the work and the law to insure the rights of The People and The States were maintained, but never enforce or create law themselves.  But the Congress would define the work.  As extension of The People and The States, the Congress would be the greatest influence on the government in these United States as representatives of The People, recognized as the power from which all just government originates.

Congress has failed that vision.  It is not representative of The People, it is representative of influential minorities that can support congressional fundraising in exchange for consideration of special interests.  Individual congresspeople don’t have a choice, to ignore special interests is to ignore fundraising and that means leaving office.

We do not progress.  Each congress, each presidential term, we—at best—slow the apparent decline of our Republic.

And that’s why my good friend Danial’s response of “but this go ‘round, I’m pretty happy about the progress that’s being blocked” is insufficient.  Every presidential administration, approximately 50% plus or minus 7% say the exact same thing.

But I guess as they say, “when in Rome.”