[aaronlifshin]

Very good points. In fact, transparency legislation in California failed by one vote just this week. Check out California Clean Money Campaign (who are also working with us on the hackathon event).

My point here is that the system is locked down as long as money controls it. We cannot release state control over the economy until we get money out of politics.

The corruption goes both ways: politicians depend on donor money, but to get the donor money they have to create complex legislation to extort with.

There is a great story in Republic: Lost about Al Gore and early internet regulation where the senators essentially say: "If we leave this unregulated, how will we make money off these guys?"

From where we are now, we have to work to reduce the influence of money on politics before any other reform can be approached sensibly.