Chris Blizzard celebrates Lawrence Lessig’s recent pro-Obama remarks noting how “positiv[ity]” and “Not talking about differences or what the other guy is doing” are the characteristics that make Lessig’s closing so good. Lessig’s remarks seem to be available exclusively in Flash format. I don’t have a Flash player because I find Flash to be annoying and there isn’t yet any good way to delineate what a Flash player should be able to access (what information it should be allowed to convey to a website, for instance). So I’ll take it from Blizzard’s blog that Lessig’s quote is accurate.

I hope the rest of what Lessig has to say isn’t as devoid of substantive content as his ending. I’m reminded of Obama’s sloganeering: “Hope” and “change” are not policies.

If anyone honestly discusses “what the other guy is doing” they’d reveal the unbroken pattern that the two corporate-funded candidates have so much in common on the most important issues of the day that their similarities dwarf their few differences. This is not surprising when you consider that both parties get their money from the same sources, both dialing for the same dollars. Anyone who seriously undertook this endeavor would also understand how neither candidate ever offers what the American public wants. From ending wars of aggression, to investigating and impeaching those who backed such wars, a strong universal single-payer health care system, strong working and air/water environment restrictions, to real food safety regulation, polls show us that these are among the things the US public wants but are famously “off the table” for those in power.

Another thing the public wants but won’t get from the corporate parties is to hear from the two main challengers to the duopoly. Democracy Now! reports that “A recent Zogby poll found 50 percent of voters nationwide want both Barr and Nader to participate in the debates.” (Zogby’s press release about the poll goes into more detail) but this won’t happen because those televised debates are controlled by the former heads of the Republican and Democratic parties who negotiate with each other in closed-door sessions about every detail of the decreasingly watched so-called “debates”.

Given how much Democrats go on about how horrible the past 8 years have been (only some of which can be laid at the Republicans’ feet) and how strongly that talk is said to resonate with the US public, you’d think any Democrat would be a shoo-in for the White House. A hugely unpopular war, an economy in recession, unemployment at intolerable numbers, more people without health care insurance, the issues plaguing the US go on and on. But polls show McCain is putting up a good fight, in fact on 2008 August 30 Zogby says “the race is a dead heat”. Why it’s almost as if people are aware that the Democrats have controlled Congress since the 2006 mid-term elections and not done of the things for which they were put into office: helping the economy, getting out of Iraq, Afghanistan, and not threatening Iran with war.

That ought to be a point of shame for the Democrats given Congress’ low polling figures (9% approval rate, an all-time low, I seem to recall Lessig discussing at his “Change Congress” talks featured on his Miro channel) and how the Republican president’s approval rate has plummeted for months.