Friday 26 May 2006

Revolution - POWER TO THE PEOPLE (right on)

1968. It was the height of the Vietnam War, the year of My Lai and the Tet offensive. Student riots in Paris nearly brought down the French government. Soviet tanks put a premature end to Czechoslovakia's Prague Spring.

In the United States, the streets were teeming with antiwar protesters and civil rights demonstrators.

The world was seething, and for good reason. There was a lot to be angry about. It was a lousy year, 1968. (1969 wasn't too great either)

But as bad as things were then, they seem infinitely worse now.

Why aren't we marching to demand an end to the illegal surveillance of American citizens by their own government,

................ where the hell is everybody?
I'll tell you where they are. They're at home, tuning in to root for the next "American idol." They're plugged into their iPods, utterly self-involved and disconnected from what lies just outside their doors. They're spending 25 hours a week playing video games in virtual worlds instead of fighting to save the only world that really matters. They're surfing porn. They're text messaging and e-mailing and scheming to close that next big deal. They're flogging their useless crap on eBay.

Whither the press? Forget it. Britney Spears gets more ink -- and better play -- than global warming does.

The real voices of dissent and engagement are found on the internet these days, but the internet is simply too diffuse to effectively galvanize a revolution.

And we desperately need a revolution.

Read the full article here: WIRED