Open letter to Christopher Locke

Dear Christopher Locke:

Always a thrill to hear from an author you admire. I would have posted this as a comment on your blog, but I don't see a way to post comments. A few corrections are in order:

You are right, the quote of you from Cluetrain stops at the line "...And it hasn't been coming from corporations." I added the next sentence, "Nor has it been coming from politicians, not until recently." When The Nation published my article, back in November, they created the error and never corrected it. I noticed it when I read it print, but forgot to tell them. My bad.

Now Alternet.org has reprinted the piece, and repeated the error. Just so you know, I didn't post the piece on Alternet--I had no idea they were going to reprint it. Had I known, I could have asked them to fix the attribution. Now that you've re-brought this to my attention, I'm going to ask them, and the Nation, to at least fix the mistake on their websites. Maybe I can get the Nation to run a correction in their print edition too. I don't know. I don't work there (just in case there's any confusion--I haven't worked there since 1997).

As for the larger argument you make, that "being digital" isn't going to change anything, well, maybe not, maybe so. These things are just tools--it still comes down to human agency and what we decide to do with the tools at hand. I do think something fundamental in how we get to participate in the decisions that affect our lives (aka politics) is changing, which is why I wrote the Personal Democracy Forum's manifesto. And it's why I'm spending a good deal of my time on that project now.

Cheers,

Micah