I've long been a big fan of Douglas Rushkoff. In this keynote "invocation," (courtesy of BlipTV, 8 mins) which opened the second day of the Personal Democracy Forum on June 24, 2008, he argues that there is no such thing as "personal democracy" and genuine democratic discourse can only be participatory and collective. The power to write and publish, he notes, may finally be in the hands of everyone (after centuries of domination by religious and political elites), but real democracy isn't just blogging and commenting, it's treating the entire world as "open source" and remakable by direct participation.

Douglas Rushkoff is the author of ten books on media, values, and society, including Cyberia, Media Virus, Get Back in the Box, and Open Source Democracy. He also made the Frontline documentaries Merchants of Cool and The Persuaders.