1) We've already gotten ourselves into a situation where people who don't want changes to the system have immense power. It would be very difficult to force this (or any) solution on them without our own equal or greater power which would require a much larger population than just us geeks and would cost a fuckton of money.
2) What makes you think having this stuff be transparent would actually change anything? The saddest part of US politics in 2011 is the politicians and lobbyists don't even try to hide the fact that they are bending you over the barrel anymore, they just do it mostly out in the open and blatantly. The majority of the population is too numb at this point for knowledge to really matter much. If we can't get them to vote rationally (and so far we can't), who cares if they know who is screwing them?
We know SOPA (and other bad legislation) was bought and paid for. We know who was bought, who bought them and we know how they are going to vote. None of this information is going to help kill it or stop the same from happening in the future.
When you come up with an idea of how to mobilize the non-geeks en masse and you figure out how to do so in a "bi-partisan" enough method to get critical mass, then get back to us.
But VCS for Congress isn't going to solve anything.
1) We've already gotten ourselves into a situation where people who don't want changes to the system have immense power. It would be very difficult to force this (or any) solution on them without our own equal or greater power which would require a much larger population than just us geeks and would cost a fuckton of money.
2) What makes you think having this stuff be transparent would actually change anything? The saddest part of US politics in 2011 is the politicians and lobbyists don't even try to hide the fact that they are bending you over the barrel anymore, they just do it mostly out in the open and blatantly. The majority of the population is too numb at this point for knowledge to really matter much. If we can't get them to vote rationally (and so far we can't), who cares if they know who is screwing them?
We know SOPA (and other bad legislation) was bought and paid for. We know who was bought, who bought them and we know how they are going to vote. None of this information is going to help kill it or stop the same from happening in the future.
When you come up with an idea of how to mobilize the non-geeks en masse and you figure out how to do so in a "bi-partisan" enough method to get critical mass, then get back to us.
But VCS for Congress isn't going to solve anything.