This is the power of self-organization to overcome hierarchy - the 'disenfranchised' many against the 'privileged' few. As long as the Intertube remains accessible to all, change will come. Democracy may fail if access to all or any is denied - which is why the Intertube is a right.

Historically, latent mass popular movements have been suppressed by the relative speeds at which organization takes place in the self-organizing versus the hierarchic system. Organization requires communication. The process of communication (pre-Intertube) for latent mass movements was always slow enough and public enough that the controlling hierarchy could use a faster system of communication to a) discover what, where and how the protest was going to be and b) plan to confront, reduce, or remove its power.

Post-Intertube, the hierarchic system is too slow to be effective. Finally, numbers count.

This Italian school protest fills me with optimism. But we should remain intensely aware that the threat to our 'rulers', of the speed at which we can organize, will force them to deny access. Networks can be selectively shut down.

 

You can't be me, I'm taken