uncharted.ca

The videos of the opening plenary with Bill Moyer:

Part I

Part II

I agree with Moyers that we must tell our stories ourselves (and the sooner we get to this people, the sooner the r_evolution will kick into high gear) but we should focus on using our own media - the Internet, p2p file sharing, e-publications and so on.

Free Press applauds Senator Kerry's leadership on this issue and urges the Senate to move quickly to pass the Wireless Innovation Act of 2007. This bill holds the potential to create universal, affordable broadband access across the United States.

"A microphone is a magic wand, waved against silence. A recorder preserves the stories that microphones catch. And radio casts the stories to a broad audience—bringing us together in special ways. We need more young voices, young stories in our lives. Make your microphone magical. Break our silence."

but somehow I still felt apart as if there wasn't a real connection.

I think that may have been why or what you felt at the conference AT, merely the conflicting winds of change.

Forgive me fodder, for I have sinned. I hate to admit it, and it'll come as no surprise to the people who know me, but I've sort of lived my life rejecting most everything. I've sort of lived my life by restaurant rules; if you can't eat it send it back.

To make a long story short, from my earliest recollection and for whatever reason, I had no desire to thrive in the box, I quite simply didn't want/couldn't function by nor did I understand the box program. And up against the box, even I could recognize the naivete, so checking out seemed like the right thing to do. (I always knew that if worse came to worse, there were books, I could emulate what was in the box. That was my back-up.)

I have to say that until I hooked up with youse I thought I was the only human on earth that wasn't into the mainstream pro_sumer bullshit.

MEMPHIS -- The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose legacy has been celebrated this weekend in Memphis by National Conference for Media Reform speakers such as Bill Moyers, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Vermont Senator Bernie Sander, actor Danny Glover and Democracy Now's Amy Goodman, often prodded the U.S. media to do a better job of covering the civil rights movement that he championed in the 195Os and 196Os...
Recalling King's observation that, "Our nettlesome task is to discover how to organize our strength into compelling power," Glover told the crowd, "The nettlesome task about which Dr. King spoke is still being carried out by people who embody character, courage and the fortitude to make decisions in support of truth not spin, people who critically embrace diversity and reject monopoly." Dr. King and the Media

Perhaps it was a personal problem of my own in being in the presence of so many well known people. Or perhaps it is a problem of our mainstream reformers to relate to the common people like myself.

I marvel every day to think that workers can accept the fact they will never retire.

And if we are talking about technologies, why no discussion of the implications of a changing web—the so-called WEB 2.O? Or of social networking? Or the new mobile technologies? Most of the discussion of the internet had a dated quality to it. I would have liked to hear from the folks at Buzzflash, ZNET and Common Dreams et.al. to learn what their experience has been, and of course a panel of all the competing media sites. What about channels like Link, Free Speech and International World Television?...

How can we have 3000 people assemble in one place and leave with no clear focused plan of what we do next, how we work together, what’s the next step? I felt the same way when I left earlier conferences in Madison and St. Louis. They were cool events—and heady networking opportunities, but now what?