Occupy Wall Street and Tea Party and Arab Spring: evidence of shifting power
Concentrations of Power. We take these truths to be self-evident: imbalance of power invites abuse of power, and power has tipped wildly out of balance. The evidence of abuse is widespread and mounting.
Of the People, By the People, and For the People. Abe Lincoln in the Gettysburg Address gave us this myth that our government was about the People. The actual institutions have always been a government of the elite. The Declaration of Independence opens with "We the People" but the Constitution divides power between State and Federal governments. The People are an afterthought squeezed into the Bill of Rights.
The S&P and Fortune 500s. The world's largest corporations have grown into stateless governments unto themselves. We the People have no representation in these corporations. Our only influence is how we work or how we spend. As wealth has concentrated into the hands off the few, the influence of the People over multi-national corporations has dwindled.
New Tools of Communication. We no longer need long chains of command and hierarchical organizations to organize and implement ambitious projects. We no longer need the talking heads in the media or political polls to tell us what the People think. We the People can speak for ourselves.
Emergence. We no longer need the singular vision of individual charismatic leaders to focus our collective action. The new tools of communication empower even very small groups to effect significant changes and for one small group to adopt and adapt the successes and failures of others.
We witness a shift of power. Power never shifts gracefully.
We the People are finally catching on that we can govern ourselves instead of ceeding power to Representatives and we can collectively relaim power ceeded to multi-national coroprations.
This is gonna be an interesting ride.