A red guitar, 3 chords, and the truth

This weekend I participated in the NYC free culture summit and learned a few refreshing radical activism tricks from the class of '06.

In stark contrast to the scholarly focus group I attended last week, this group explicitly understands that they need to create social spaces for like-minded activists to congregate, learn, and plot. The tools of the revolution were revealed in the speed geeking session - Once someone in the 21st century finds the truth, all they need is a mailing list, a blog, a wiki, irc, and rss (with a dash of delicious and flickr, to taste). Remarkable how quickly and easily people with real communication needs figure out how to use this suite of tools, understand which is good for what and when.

Highlights included a Riot Folk performance, a talk by Siva ("Space. Hope. Imagination. Potential."), a talk by the Creative Commons gang, and suprise appearance by Cory Doctorow .

The most fun had to be not-protesting (you need a license to protest) outside of Time Sqaure's Virgin Megastore, and reverse shoplifting DRM info into the stacks of damaged cds.

The revolution might not be televised, but it could very well end up on flickr.