Charlie Rose

Kasha  11/30/2008 08:02 AM Report

Damn, this was a good interview. Compared this with the abominably bad Citibank CEO interview -- same interviewer, but a whole other universe.

esantoro  11/26/2008 12:34 AM Report

I like REmant's statement:

"Even among the well-trained there is only technique, and no point to what they do, like some Field of Dreams."

We are a nation of indentured servants maneuvered into positions of dependence on the status quo and with very few means and little will to function beyond it.

Our current economic situation reminds me of Frank Norris' _The Octopus_.

E

Brian  11/25/2008 01:55 AM Report

Lawrence Lessig sees the future more clearly than most people. It is a pleasure to listen to him speak.

REMant  11/25/2008 12:57 AM Report

First of all, I'd like to say I really enjoyed this interview. Not, however, because of solutions it suggested, but because of the subject undertaken. It is one I have thought about for decades. One could I suppose consider the Internet "sharing" community with those charitable souls who'll stop in the middle of the street to let ppl jaywalk across and gratify their own egos. But I think in general that we are speaking of two quite different cultures or ecologies here, which I am not sure can co-exist, or are compatible. There are political, religious, economic and biological aspects to it and I can only mention some of them now. The first is the difference between a capitalist or mercantilist system and a republican or free-trade one. Clearly patents, bounties and copyrights are granted with the idea of stimulating productivity, but if allowed to continue too long, they are counter-productive, yet this is clearly a major goal of capitalism. Another is the desire to replace products with services, which is equally counter-productive, since service implies some who are masters and some who are servants, but clearly neither is thus able to derive beneficial feedback from the process of doing something for oneself. Capital accumulation may be a problem under free-trade, because like inheritance it would tend to get subdivided and re-subdivided, which means that unless there is monetary inflation, or govt or other monopolistic accumulation, there would be none unless ppl voluntarily save. But the monopoly and inflation are surely counter-productive, even discouraging saving and work, when ppl do not receive the full fruits of their labors. It should not be surprising that free-trade theory was put forward with respect to agriculture, not industry. It is probable, in fact, that organized economic activity developed as a response to scarcity caused by over-population, but in the absence of problem-solving it means the addition of more mouths to feed as well as hands to work. It should be evident that such activity is more social than individual, and meant to replace the latter with the former, and this is also counter-productive, if it is realized that individuals are the most intelligent and adaptable form yet evolved, and that it is their generalizing ability, and hence their free will, not their specialization that is the reason. So what I think is that capitalism produces a lot of stuff, but few solutions, and does so, besides, by increasing scarcity, which enervates individuals, the environment and the natural process of evolution. I do not mean by this to be upholding either a Social Darwinism or a primitivism, but rather the views of Hobbes, Locke, Pope, Rousseau, or any other Stoic, in which evolution leads to an absence of competitiveness and scarcity increasing with education and creating interdependence. Never mind the DVD's, where, for instance, are today's Ginger Rogers' and Fred Astaire's, Irving Berlin's and Cole Porter's? When was the last time a decent Broadway show appeared, a Hollywood movie, or anything on TV? Kids today only imagine themselves as one of these, call it what you will. Even among the well-trained there is only technique, and no point to what they do, like some Field of Dreams.

esantoro  11/24/2008 02:54 PM Report

I like what Lessig has to say about a seemingly benign complacency that exists throughout our American system that fosters corruption and mismanagement of government. We see this in how much of the business world operates. We see this in the business of health care. And we see this in education.

Let's take education for now, because that is uppermost on my mind. Education, that place where we can foster a critical awareness, has been hijacked by the same complacency that infects the dysfunctional workings of congress. Superintendents and principals are forced by fear of losing their positions to follow agendas mostly influenced by the business world, agendas that have little to do with education but with a handful of other people's bottom line.

This is not a matter of standards, which is usually the limit of any discussion on education. Teachers, those people who have daily contact with students in an educational environment have been deprofessionalized and limited in how they can shape discussion and learning in the classroom. Their work is micromanaged in ways that leave them room only for a method of education that is easily identifiable and quantifiable.

We are in a time where it is ever so important for individuals in and out of the classroom to be able to contextualize their place in the American panorama, to understand precedents and how we've come to where we are, yet our systems leave very little room to develop any real understanding for that to happen. Perhaps fear is at the root driving this pathology. That would be a nice topic for discussion: Fear and loathing in America. Such a discussion needs to go beyond Hunter S. Thompson and look at how individuals across the American socio-economic spectrum have been maneuvered by our American systems into fearful places. I think this dysfunction has always been with America. I have yet to read Morrison's latest book, "A Mercy", but I believe that is what she is driving at. Yeah,that's it... A discussion that really plumbs these depths. That's exactly what Melville was doing with "Moby Dick," plunging the depths of American Dysfunction.

E

CarolJ  11/23/2008 08:52 PM Report

The Jake Tapper interview is not working. I get a tv test blurp and beep.

AntonGrambihler  11/22/2008 11:14 AM Report

Whereas, the Founding Fathers created a Congress with a House of Representatives to represent the people and a Senate to represent the States, the States now have no representation in the Federal Government and the they are begin forced to bear burdens for which they have no representation, it is therefore necessary to restore the Senators as representatives of the States.

Whereas, the 17th Amendment was added to the constitution in 1913, in 1917, which is the four years necessary for a majority of the Senators to no longer be representatives of the States, they voted for President Wilson to turn a European war into World War I by allowing him to declare war on Germany. This and the other Wars encouraged by the Senate is more than enough justification to show the need for repealing the 17th Amendment.

I support the Mike Gravel National Initiative for Democracy (WWW.NI4D.US)