This Is What Democracy Looks Like: Brazil 2005

Law professor Lawrence Lessig is one of the most important thinkers of our age, and I follow his blog and read his books. This recent post by Lessig describes an amazing evening in Brazil last week at the World Social Forum (the un-Davos).

Along with Internet activist/Grateful Dead lyricist/retired cattle rancher John Perry Barlow, Lessig attended the forum's Youth Camp just in time to see Brazil Minister of Culture/pop superstar Gilberto Gil debating free culture and free software issues in-between sets of his concert. The photo accompanying the blog tells as much of the story as Lessig's words, in an enigmatic way. Is this moment part of the concert, or part of the debate? The T-shirt in the photo sums it up: "This is what democracy looks like."