The ultimate revolution

The Opinion Journal published an article about freedom through technology. Smart cell phones, the internet, blogs, email, bulletin boards, chat, IM - they all add up to one thing - free speech run rampant. "Out of control" citizens whose voices will be heard no matter what the government tries to do to stop them.

"American influence" is the great white whale of the 21st century, and Jacques Chirac is the Ahab chasing her with a three-masted schooner. Along for the ride is a crew that includes Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, Vladimir Putin, North Korea's Kim Jong-Il, Kofi Annan, the Saudi royal family, Robert Mugabe, the state committee of Communist China and various others who have ordained themselves leaders for life. At night, seated around the rum keg, they talk about how they have to stop American political power, the Marines or Hollywood.

The world is lucky these despots and demagogues are breaking their harpoons on this hopeless quest. Because all around them their own populations are grabbing the one American export no one can stop: raw technology. Communications technologies, most of them developed in American laboratories (often by engineers who voted for John Kerry), have finally begun to effect an historic shift in the relationship between governments and the governed. The governed are starting to win.

I've been saying this for years - the internet is the greatest invention ever made by man - because it will change the world in ways we cannot even imagine.

Now we are beginning to see that simple, seemingly meaningless changes, such as web logs, originally designed to be online diaries, can revolutionize the world, threaten dictatorships worldwide and disseminate information that completely bypasses the privileged gatekeepers.

Even in America that makes certain men tremble.