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Hello, All: <br>
<br>
<br>
Yesterday, Drew Johnson, Brian Good, and I plus roughly 500
others gathered at San Francisco State for the "Conference to
Restore the Republic", organized by Rootstrikers.org and their
founder, Harvard Law Prof. Lawrence Lessig, author of "Republic,
Lost", and other related work (<a
href="http://www.rootstrikers.org/conference">www.rootstrikers.org/conference</a>).
The conference included presentations by a dozen leading figures
including David Cobb of Move to Amend and Buddy Roemer, former
governor of Louisiana and presidential candidate, to name only 2. <br>
<br>
<br>
Lessig says that whatever your primary concern is, liberal,
conservative, environmental, economic, business climate,
unemployment, government deficit, schools, law enforcement, etc., we
must fix the problem of campaign finance before we begin to honestly
deal with any of these other problems. He says that campaign
finance is not the most important problem, but it must be the first
problem we solve -- because it prevents us as a nation from
addressing any of the other, more important problems. <br>
<br>
<br>
If you haven't already seen Lessig's TED talk on "We the
People, and the Republic we must reclaim", I encourage you to vew it
at "<a
href="http://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_the_republic_we_must_reclaim.html">http://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_the_republic_we_must_reclaim.html</a>".
It's 18:19 (mm:ss), which is longer than I like to devote to
watching videos, but it includes some quite useful information, in
addition to being highly motivational (which it must be for TED) and
informative. <br>
<br>
<br>
Best Wishes, <br>
Spencer <br>
<br>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Spencer Graves, PE, PhD
President and Chief Technology Officer
Structure Inspection and Monitoring, Inc.
751 Emerson Ct.
San José, CA 95126
ph: 408-655-4567
web: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.structuremonitoring.com">www.structuremonitoring.com</a>
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