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<h2 class="itemTitle"> Aaron Swartz's Politics </h2>
<span class="itemDateCreated"> Tuesday, 15 January 2013 14:22 </span>
<span class="itemAuthor"> By <a
href="http://truth-out.org/author/itemlist/user/46195">Matt
Stoller</a>, <a
href="http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/01/aaron-swartzs-politics.html"
target="_blank">Naked Capitalism</a> | Op-Ed </span>
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<div style="padding:0;margin:0;float:left;width:100px;"> <a
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<p>Aaron Swartz was my friend, and I will always miss him. I think
it’s important that, as we remember him, we remember that Aaron
had a much broader agenda than the information freedom fights
for which he had become known. Most people have focused on
Aaron’s work as an advocate for more open information systems,
because that’s what the Feds went after him for, and because
he’s well-understood as a technologist who founded Reddit and
invented RSS. But I knew a different side of him. I knew Aaron
as a political activist interested in health care, financial
corruption, and the drug war (we were working on a project on
that just before he died). He was a great technologist, for
sure, but when we were working together that was not all I saw.</p>
<p>In 2009, I was working in Rep. Alan Grayson’s office as a
policy advisor. We were engaged in fights around the health care
bill that eventually became Obamacare, as well as a much
narrower but significant fight <a
href="http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/12/matt-stoller-how-the-federal-reserve-fights.html">on
auditing the Federal Reserve</a> that eventually became a
provision in Dodd-Frank. Aaron came into our office to intern
for a few weeks to learn about Congress and how bills were put
together. He worked with me on <a
href="http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/12/matt-stoller-how-the-federal-reserve-fights.html">organizing
the campaign</a> within the Financial Services Committee to
pass the amendment sponsored by Ron Paul and Alan Grayson on
transparency at the Fed. He helped with the website
NamesOfTheDead.com, a site dedicated to publicizing the 44,000
Americans that die every year because they don’t have health
insurance. Aaron learned about Congress by just spending time
there, which seems like an obvious thing to do. Many activists
prefer to keep their distance from policymakers, because they
are afraid of the complexity of the system and believe that it
is inherently corrupting. Aaron, as with much of his endeavors,
simply let his <a href="https://aaronsw.jottit.com/howtoget">curiosity</a>,
which he saw as synonymous with brilliance, drive him.</p>
<p>Aaron also spent a lot of time learning how advocacy and
electoral politics works from outside of Congress. He helped
found the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a group that
sought to replace existing political consulting machinery in the
Democratic Party. At the PCCC, he worked on stopping Ben
Bernanke’s reconfirmation (the email Aaron wrote called him
“Bailout Ben”), auditing the Fed and passing health care reform.
I remember he sent me <a
href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuF6bWGadRc">this video</a> of
Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, on Reddit,
offering his support to Grayson’s provision. A very small piece
of the victory on Fed openness belongs to Aaron.</p>
<p>By the time I met and became friends with Aaron, he had already
helped create RSS and co-founded and sold Reddit. He didn’t have
to act with intellectual humility when confronting the political
system, but he did. Rather than approach politics as so many
successful entrepreneurs do, which is to say, try to meet top
politicians and befriend them, Aaron sought to understand the
system itself. He read political blogs, what I can only presume
are gobs of history books (like Tom Ferguson’s Golden Rule, one
of the most important books on politics that almost no one under
40 has read), and began talking to organizers and political
advocates. He wanted, first and foremost, to know. He learned
about elections, political advertising, the data behind voting,
and grassroots organizing. He began understanding policy, by
learning about Congressional process, its intersection with
politics, and how staff and influence networks work on the Hill
and through agencies. He analyzed money. He analyzed corruption.</p>
<p>And he understood how it worked. In November of 2008, Aaron
emailed me the following: “apologies if you’ve already seen it,
but check out this mash note to Rubin from Lay. ahh, politics.”
This was attached to the message.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/?attachment_id=37297"
rel="attachment wp-att-37297 slb_group[37362] slb
slb_internal"><img style="display: block; margin-left: auto;
margin-right: auto;" title="warm memo from lay to rubin"
src="cid:part9.03060007.03040209@gmail.com" alt=""
height="768" width="569"></a></p>
<p>This note, from Enron CEO Ken Lay to Treasury Secretary Bob
Rubin, perfectly encapsulates the closed and corroded nature of
our political system – two corporate good ole boys, one running
Treasury and one running Enron, passing mash notes. This was
everything Aaron hated, and fought against. What I respected
about Aaron is that he burned with a desire for justice, but
also felt a profound desire to understand the system he was
attempting to reorganize. He didn’t throw up his hands lazily
and curse at corruption, he spent enormous amounts of time and
energy learning about and working the political system. From
founding Reddit, to fighting the Fed. That was Aaron.</p>
<p>Aaron approached politics like he approached <a
href="https://aaronsw.jottit.com/howtoget">technology</a>. His
method was as follows - <a
href="https://aaronsw.jottit.com/howtoget">(1) Learn (2) Try
(3) Gab (4) Build</a>. He was methodical about his work, and
his approach to life - <a
href="http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/dalio">this essay on
procrastination</a> will give you a good window into his mind.
Aaron liked to “lean in” to difficult problems, work at them
until he could break them down and solve them. He had no
illusions about politics, which is why he eventually became so
good at it. He didn’t disdain the political process the way so
many choose to, but he also didn’t engage in flowery lazy
thoughts about the glory of checks and balances. He broke
politics down and systematically attempted to understand the
system. Aaron learned, tried, gabbed, and then built.</p>
<p>This is a note I got from him years ago, when we were trying to
put together flow charts of corporate PAC money and where it
went.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Been playing around with the numbers tonight. Turns out
corporate PAC money explains 45% of the variance in
ProgressivePunch scores among Dems. Scatterplot attached.
Right is progressive, down is no corporate PAC money. So you
can see how all the people with less than 80% progressive
punch scores get more than 20% of their money from PACs.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/?attachment_id=37298"
rel="attachment wp-att-37298 slb_group[37362] slb
slb_internal"><img title="Picture 3"
src="cid:part14.03060501.00030707@gmail.com" alt=""
style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right:
auto;" height="242" width="388"></a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is a chart of power, one of many Aaron put together to
educate himself (and in this case, me). Most geeks hate the
political system, and are at the same time awed by it. They
don’t actually approach it with any respect for the underlying
architecture of power, but at the same time, they are impressed
by political figures with titles. Aaron recognized that politics
is a corrupt money driven system, but also that it could be
cracked if you spent the time to understand the moving parts. He
figured out that business alliances, grassroots organizing, and
direct lobbying to build coalitions was powerful, whereas access
alone was a mirage. He worked very hard to understand how policy
changes work, which ultimately culminated in his successful
campaign to stop SOPA in 2011. This took many years of work and
a remarkable amount of humility on his part.</p>
<p>But he was driven by a desire for justice, and not just for
open information. He wanted an end to the drug war, he wanted a
financial system not dominated by Bob Rubin, and he wanted
monetary policy run to help ordinary people. Some of <a
href="https://twitter.com/aaronsw">his last tweets</a> are on
monetary policy, and the platinum coin option for raising the
debt ceiling (which is a round-about way of preventing cuts to
social welfare programs for the elderly). Aaron was a liberal
who saw class and race as <a
href="https://aaronsw.jottit.com/howtoget">core driving forces</a> in
American politics. In a lovely essay on how he organized his
career, he made this clear in a very charming but pointed way.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>So how did I get a job like mine? Undoubtedly, the first step
is to choose the right genes: I was born white, male,
American. My family was fairly well-off and my father worked
in the computer industry. Unfortunately, I don’t know of any
way of choosing these things, so that probably isn’t much help
to you.</p>
<p>But, on the other hand, when I started I was a very young kid
stuck in a small town in the middle of the country. So I did
have to figure out some tricks for getting out of that. In the
hopes of making life a little less unfair, I thought I’d share
them with you.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Making “life a little less unfair.” Those aren’t the words of a
techno-utopianist, those are the words of a liberal political
organizer. They remind me of how Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth
Warren has described her own work. Aaron knew life would always
be unfair, but that was no reason not to try to make society
better. He had no illusions about power but maintained hope for
our society if, I suppose, not always for himself. This is a
very difficult way to approach the world, but it’s why he was so
heroic in how he acted. I want people to understand that Aaron
sought not open information systems, but justice. Aaron believed
passionately in the scientific method as a guide for organizing
our society, and in that open-minded but powerful critique, he
was a technocratic liberal. His leanings sometimes moved him
towards more radical postures because he recognized that our
governing institutions had become malevolent, but he was not an
anarchist.</p>
<p>I am very angry Aaron is dead. I’ve been crying off and on for
a few days, as it hits me that he’s gone forever. Aaron
accomplished more in 13 than nearly everyone I know will get
done in their entire lives, and his breadth of knowledge and
creativity in politics were stunning, all the more so since he
was equally well-versed in many other fields. But what I
respected was his curiosity and open-mindedness. He truly loved
knowledge, and loved people who would share it. We used to argue
about politics, him a hopeful and intellectually honest
technocratic liberal and me as someone who had lost faith in our
social institutions. We made each other really angry sometimes,
because I thought he was too sympathetic to establishment norms,
and he thought I couldn’t emotionally acknowledge when
technocrats had useful things to say. But I respected him, and
he frequently changed my mind. I saw that what looked like
stubbornness was just intellectual honesty and a deep thirst for
evidence. He wanted to understand politics, because he thought
that understanding, and then action, was the key to justice.</p>
<p>As I said, I am very angry that he is dead. I don’t want to get
into the specifics of his case, because others have discussed it
and the political elements of it more eloquently than I ever
could. His family and partner have put out <a
href="http://www.rememberaaronsw.com/">a powerful statement</a> placing
blame appropriately.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Aaron’s death is not simply a personal tragedy. It is the
product of a criminal justice system rife with intimidation
and prosecutorial overreach. Decisions made by officials in
the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney’s office and at MIT
contributed to his death. The US Attorney’s office pursued an
exceptionally harsh array of charges, carrying potentially
over 30 years in prison, to punish an alleged crime that had
no victims. Meanwhile, unlike JSTOR, MIT refused to stand up
for Aaron and its own community’s most cherished principles.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I want to make a few points about why it’s not just sad that he
is gone, but a tragedy, a symbol for all of us, and a call to
action.</p>
<p>Aaron suffered from depression, but that is not why he died.
Aaron is dead because the institutions that govern our society
have decided that it is more important to target geniuses like
Aaron than nurture them, because the values he sought –
openness, justice, curiosity – are values these institutions now
oppose. In previous generations, people like Aaron would have
been treasured and recognized as the remarkable gifts they are.
We do not live in a world like that today. And Aaron would be
the first to point out, if he could observe the discussion
happening now, that the pressure he felt from the an oppressive
government is felt by millions of people, every year. I’m glad
his family have not let the justice system off the hook, and
have not allowed this suicide to be medicalized, or the fault of
one prosecutor. What happened to Aaron is not isolated to Aaron,
but is the flip side of the corruption he hated.</p>
<p>As we think about what happened to Aaron, we need to recognize
that it was not just prosecutorial overreach that killed him.
That’s too easy, because that implies it’s one bad apple. We
know that’s not true. What killed him was corruption. Corruption
isn’t just people profiting from betraying the public interest.
It’s also people being punished for upholding the public
interest. In our institutions of power, when you do the right
thing and challenge abusive power, you end up destroying a job
prospect, an economic opportunity, a political or social
connection, or an opportunity for media. Or if you are truly
dangerous and brilliantly subversive, as Aaron was, you are
bankrupted and destroyed. There’s a reason whistleblowers get
fired. There’s a reason Bradley Manning is in jail. There’s a
reason the only CIA official who has gone to jail for torture is
the person – John Kiriako - who told the world it was going on.
There’s a reason those who destroyed the financial system “dine
at the White House”, as Lawrence Lessig put it. There’s a reason
former Senator Russ Feingold is a college professor whereas
former Senator Chris Dodd is now a multi-millionaire. There’s a
reason DOJ officials do not go after bankers who illegally
foreclose, and then get jobs as partners in white collar
criminal defense. There’s a reason no one has been held
accountable for decisions leading to the financial crisis, or
the war in Iraq. This reason is the modern ethic in American
society that defines success as climbing up the ladder,
consequences be damned. Corrupt self-interest, when it goes
systemwide, demands that it protect rentiers from people like
Aaron, that it intimidate, co-opt, humiliate, fire, destroy,
and/or bankrupt those who stand for justice.</p>
<p>More prosaically, the person who warned about the downside in a
meeting gets cut out of the loop, or the former politician who
tries to reform an industry sector finds his or her job
opportunities sparse and unappealing next to his soon to be
millionaire go along get along colleagues. I’ve seen this happen
to high level former officials who have done good, and among
students who challenge power as their colleagues go to become
junior analysts on Wall Street. And now we’ve seen these same
forces kill our friend.</p>
<p>It’s important for us to recognize that Aaron is just an
extreme example of a force that targets all of us. He eschewed
the traditional paths to wealth and power, dropping out of
college after a year because it wasn’t intellectually
stimulating. After co-founding and selling Reddit, and
establishing his own financial security, he wandered and acted,
calling himself an “applied sociologist.” He helped in small
personal ways, offering encouragement to journalists like Mike
Elk after Elk had broken a significant story and gotten pushback
from colleagues. In my inbox, every birthday, I got a lovely
note from Aaron offering me encouragement and telling me how
much he admired my voice. He was a profoundly kind man, and I
will now never be able to repay him for the love and kindness he
showed me. There’s no medal of honor for someone like this, no
Oscar, no institutional way of saying “here’s someone who did a
lot of good for a lot of people.” This is because our
institutions are corrupt, and wanted to quelch the Aaron
Swartz’s of the world. Ultimately, they killed him. I hope that
we remember Aaron in the way he should be remembered, as a hero
and an inspiration.</p>
<p>In six days, on January 18th, it’s the one year anniversary of
the blackout of Wikipedia, and some have discussed celebrating
it as Internet Freedom Day. Maybe we should call this Aaron
Swartz Day, in honor of this heroic figure. While what happened
that day was technically about the internet, it should be
remembered, and Aaron should be remembered, in the context of
social justice. That day was about a call for a different world,
not just protecting our ability to access web sites. And we
should remember these underlying values. It would help people
understand that justice can be extremely costly, and that we
risk much when we allow those who do the right thing to be
punished. Somehow, we need to rebuild a culture that respects
people like Aaron and turns away from the greed and
rent-extraction that he hated. There’s a cycle in American
history, of religious “Great Awakenings”, where new cultural
systems emerge in the form of religion, often sweeping through
communities of young people dissatisfied with the society they
see around them. Perhaps that is what we see in the Slow Food
movement, or gay rights movement, or the spread of walkable
communities and <a
href="http://www.businessinsider.com/vehicle-miles-driven-2012-12">decline
of vehicle miles</a>, or maker movement, or the increasing
acceptance of meditation and therapy, or any number of other
cultural changes in our society. I don’t know. I’m sure many of
these can be subverted. What I do know is that if we are to
honor Aaron’s life, we will recognize him as a broad social
justice activist who cared about transforming our society, and
acted to do so. And we will take up his fight as our own.</p>
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