Saturday at YearlyKos in Second Life has been busy. The excellent thing is that I have also managed to be busy in my first life at the same time — with a log of sitting around goggled into the metaverse, true.

First, I went to one of the Presidential Breakout sessions, a somewhat casual question and answer session with an individual candidate. Senator Clinton’s session this morning was scheduled at a different time than the rest, which meant that she was (nearly) the only game in town and had a decent crowd.

Next, a long-view of the Presidential Leadership Forum while Senator Obama was speaking. Quite a few people were sitting, listening, chatting, and flying around Netroots Stadium.

A close up at the Presidential Leadership Forum of Hillary Clinton. If she has a giant grin on her face, it could be the little verbal slip the moderator made in calling her “President Clinton.” That’s what the woman wants, no doubt about it. I kept wondering why she was slumped over, though. Hey, Hillary, sit up straight. It shows more when you are wearing a turquoise suit. Note also the cushy chairs provided in the stadium.

Waiting around for a feed or a late-starting session has not been unusual, but there are generally enough people around that you can chat about it all while waiting. The avatars always look so bored — cross-legged and kicking, leaning over head in head, or head just cocked to the side in a vague vogue.

Final image of the day is from the best session: John Edwards’ Breakout Session — the casual conversation. John Edwards took charge in a different way than Hillary Clinton did. Edwards looks extremely comfortable with a crowd. Being the populist among them all, he doesn’t get that look on his face as if he wishes he could consult before answering.

All of the Presidential Candidates did well: Gravel, Dodd, Richardson, Clinton, Obama, Edwards, and Kucinich. Dodd and Edwards really rolled out the old time preaching style. They were hot. Some called it screechy, but I thought they were just excited about what they were saying.

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As I’m sitting here listening to lame stand-up comedy, I’m thinking about how much better this is than last week’s BlogHer in Second Life. Yes, I’m doing a lot of low-carbon conferences lately.

BlogHer helpers were not helpers willing to help. In the first session I heard, some woman talked about her very important blog making fun of Second Life newbies and their pathetic fashion sense. Nice.

By contrast, as I sat around in Second Life this afternoon with my head hung (happens when you are out of the virtual world), every time I came back, some extremely friendly person wanted to help me or chat. I told them I was on a conference call from Chicago, told them about Democracy for America (how could they not know?). Nice people — and animals and hybrid creatures.

This is almost as good as the police chase that just ended on my street. Which to watch? Mmm. Virtual lame comedian or real teenagers and cop in bullet-proof vest? Gotta go outside. Meet in the street. Say hi to the neighbors who are out there, too.
I’ll catch the keynote later because face to face always has to win out.

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Technically, I am sitting in my living room. Virtually, I am in the Netroots Stadium at the YearlyKos Convention in Second Life. I’m listening to the speakers testing the sound while doing my keyboard housekeeping. They’ve just opened the doors to the keynote. I’m telling you this is freaking cool. I’m looking for a couple of my friends who are there from Utah.

I have video backup. I’m sitting with my avatar friendlies. It’s all good.

Earlier, I joined a DFA Night School conference call, live from YearlyKos in Chicago, on Building an Open Progressive Community, lead by the perpetually bouncy Arshad Hassan (who was recently in Utah for a great DFA training weekend).

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Rather than putting out each fire as they light it, how do we put out the fire from the base? How do we change the fundamental story?

Ruth Rosen from the Progressive think tank Longview Institute (a spin-off of the Rockridge Institute for some reason) tells us to challenge market fundamentalism. You know that story. Tax cuts will provide jobs, which means people will buy their own health care, housing, and transportation. In this story, “the common good” means everyone for themselves. I have no doubt this is one of the lies we need to engage to some degree in order to discredit it. OK. Yes, let’s do that. But, let’s not stop there.

I want to see us go further than telling the story of what we are not. I want to see us tell the story of what we are.

I have been reading Mark Kurlansky’s Nonviolence: 25 Lessons from the History of a Dangerous Idea. He quoted Vaclav Havel as having said that the way to create a viable alternative to violent culture was to live not in opposition but to live in parallel. You can be, as John Mohawk wrote, a good subject (”Yes, sir”), a bad subject (in rebellion), or a non subject (moving on with your own concerns, not accepting the terms of domination). The non subject doesn’t live in reference to domination. (Though it is amusing that both nonsubject and nonviolence do refer to themselves in the negative.)

Rather than letting the dominant story determine our response (”not market fundamentalism”), we can tell the story the way we see it — not the challenge to their story but the heart of our story. We can tell the story of community, cooperation, and genuine democracy. This is a story in which we actually do love one another, a story in which the common good is determined in common.

Cliff Schecter thinks we’ll find synergy in the variety of voices and ways they find their audience to retell the story. I hope we reach synergy in our non subjecthood rather than in our bad subjecthood.

UPDATE:

• Immanuel Wallerstein makes an excellent point in his International Herald Tribune article, “The ‘Alter-Globalists’ Hit Their Stride”: the World Social Forum, which met last week, is already on that parallel path.
• Joshua Holland asks “Do you challenge them on their ‘free-market’ fundamentalism, or do you call bullshit on the entire premise?”

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Last weekend the National Conference for Media Reform met in Memphis, Tennessee. Please don’t just pass over that information with mild interest. Video highlights and all audio are available for you to hear. Click. Listen. The depth of what is available is astonishing.

In particular, I want to mention Bill Moyers. He’s on fire, and I want you to burn with him. Yesterday’s Democracy Now! consisted only of headlines and a replay of most of Bill Moyers’ Plenary Speech to the conference (also available unedited). If you can spare only one hour listening online this week, listen to Bill Moyers.

Moyers hasn’t been silent since leaving PBS. He’s become even more outspoken than I recall him being in his years on television. The call for his return has succeeded. Bill Moyers will be back on PBS this Spring with “Bill Moyers’ Journal.”

A theme Bill Moyers has come back to often is the power of narrative. I’m sure I am not the only one who remembers his series from nearly 20 years ago, The Power of Myth, an extended interview with Joseph Campbell. It is clear to me that this experience had a profound effect on him and his understanding of the ways we use narrative. A speech he gave in December has been adapted as an article in the current issue of The Nation, “For America’s Sake”, published elsewhere as “The Narrative Imperative,” which gets closer to the heart of the matter.

What I hear Bill Moyers saying is this: we have the power, even the obligation, to change the stories being told us about our society. We should not sit passively listening to versions of how things came to be the way they are and why, versions that serve elites who hold money and power so tightly. This is what I have heard from one of my important teachers. Changing the stories is also an important means to change discussed in David Korten’s The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community, a book that I read with a community group in anticipation of his visit to SLC last Fall (sponsored by the Sustainability Salon). Change the stories. How? There is no one answer.

After you are burning with inspiration from Bill Moyers’ speech from last Friday, what will you do to change the story?

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