You Say You Want a Revolution

A big picture lesson from the revolution is the use of social networking to bring down a despot and hopefully the end of an oppressive regime. Throughout history, the emergence of new technology has sparked revolutions. For example, in the early 1900s, parents lost control over their children due to the emergence of the radio. A parent might say to a child, “This is the way it is,” but the child would disagree, saying, “But that’s not what I heard on the radio.” The radio was the beginning of the shift of authority in the home.

, President Obama used social media to win the last election. He was the first president elected by Twitter and Facebook.

In the 1960s, Martin Luther King also used television to spark the civil rights revolution. King used school children to march in the streets of Birmingham, Alabama because their parents weren’t willing to march, still fearful of the oppressive racist culture of the South. When television cameras caught police chief “Bull” Connor’s Birmingham Police using dogs, clubs, and fire hoses to crush the demonstration, the world watched in horror, finally realizing the intensity of racial hatred.

After the scenes of fire hoses being used on students were aired, President Kennedy was forced to take action, initiating the Civil Rights Bill. As you know, Kennedy was soon assassinated, as was Martin Luther King.

Without those TV scenes of racial violence, we might not have an African-American President today, a historic development and something to be celebrated no matter your political stance. Today, it seems distant to most people that America could have been that racially divided. While racism is alive and well today, it’s much less tolerated.

The television revolution continued when TV news brought the horrors of the Vietnam War into our homes. No longer was war a glorious and glamorous Hollywood movie. Seeing kids and civilians murdered, especially after the My Lai massacre, students on college campuses burnt their draft cards, protested en mass, and refused to go to war.

A few years ago, President Bush, a man who dodged the Vietnam War and understood the power of television, was very careful about the television coverage of body bags returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Aircraft carrying bodies back from the war zone were required to land at night and TV coverage was censored.

Today, the revolution is in the Middle East and driven by social media. If the revolutions spread to Saudi Arabia, watch oil and gold prices go through the roof.

The important point to remember is that new technology creates new revolutions. In America, the Information Age is creating the biggest revolution in US history—the end of the Industrial Age and the end of Industrial-Age government as we know it. As political leaders become more desperate, their acts of desperation will be revealed. The old ways of government will not be tolerated in the Information Age.

The good news is that politics, government, and the welfare state are dying. The bad news is that those expecting government and political leaders to take care of them will face much uncertainty in the coming decade as the welfare state comes to an end.

In the meantime, the future looks bright for those moving on and evolving into global citizens of the Information Age