TIME magazine recently announced its annual Person Of the Year. Surprise! It's you, I, me, we.
And despite the fact I'm talking about a mass media corporation, TIME got it right -- even if it's not sure exactly why.
For this was the year of net neutrality. And so, expanding on that theme, may this year mark the end of ism and the rise of ize. The end of status quo, hegemony nouns and the rise of decentralizing, anarchistic verbs.
Terrorism, elitism, nationalism, globalism, institutionalism: the use of such ism nouns exhibits one basic principle -- banding together to exploit and to marginalize others -- i.e. the historic inevitability of the powerful, the status quo to perpetuate unfairness in the face of any and all rational opposition.
But for once, this was a year of we and not of us versus them.
This year:
We are finally united in opposition to the immorality and failure of the Iraq War.
We are against the blatant corruption of our governments, corporations and the status quo in general.
We want a rational energy policy that can support a sustainable planet.
We believe that open source Linux, not proprietary, malware hosting, corporate symbolizing Windows, represents the future of computing.
We believe that the most important human ideal, as America's founding fathers stated so eloquently more than 200 years ago, is the right of every human being to pursue her destiny unencumbered by superstition, manipulation, misinformation, lies, and violence.
We believe that a world where the only choice the powerless have is murder-suicide is a world destined to end in a mushroom cloud. We believe that life with fairness or death through hegemony is not a choice. And we choose life!
So here's to you TIME, and here's to us, to we. May we continue to realize, incentivize, democratize, self-actualize, and most importantly decentralize power and hegemony on this planet, for the benefit of all and not merely a few.
They are the past and we are the future.
Power to the people!