Social Networking/File Sharing/Web 2.0 mentality is starting to get political clout. Pirate Party wins seat in European Union parliament. Quite amazing really. Statements like this: "People were not taken in by the establishment and we got political trust from the citizens," hints at a groundswell in global consciousness... if I may extrapolate wildly?

Freedom of information! A very interesting debate that. Starts eating away at the concept of ownership, which is a cornerstone tenet of capitalism. A kind of leftist zeitgeist in a way. In fact, I'm finding this global economic crisis has forced many leftist thinkers out of the closet. Where's the happy medium? Or are we doomed to Marxist Conflict Theory? The rampant consumerism of the past two, even four, decades has left many of us disillusioned. We're refugees from a global war. A war that has been waged by corporations. Multinationals that have wielded the tools of capitalism - especially insidiously subtle marketing techniques - to indoctrinate the masses into a culture of vacuous consumerism and desultory aspiration. We have been yoked into the position of "willing slaves". Lemming hordes waiting for the corporations to tell us what we need.

But the corporations have now eaten themselves. Myopically exploiting a finite system, the collapse was inevitable. Greed run amuck. Consume, acquire, horde, "success", status, ego! Feeding the insatiable beast. Infinitely insatiable!

Now the corporations are gasping for breath like suffocating fish in a drought-stricken pan. The scales are falling from our eyes. No longer will the multinationals prescribe our needs and dictate our wants. The revolution must come from our unfettered consciousness. The revolution is now. The revolution demands a champion.

And that champion will be found on the battle ground of the internet.

The greatest information resource the human world has ever conceived. Yet we fritter away this precious resource with distracting frivolity. The mere fact that it is an information resource is neglected by the playground ignorance exhibited by many, if not most, of its citizens. The slave mentality, borne of decades of abuse by the corporations, has permanently stunted their ability to think freely. Generations have forgotten how to think independently. Perhaps the internet itself has already been exploited by the corporations as yet another tool in its arsenal of mind-numbing consumerist proselytising.

The world's largest and most powerful cyber-nationals (as opposed to multinationals) - the emperors of the internet - are funded and powered by advertising. An entire profit-mongering economic model that worships at the altar of force-feeding marketing messages to the masses. Dire straits! The socialist nature of information sharing is being hijacked by the power-hungry corporates.The gauntlet has been thrown. The battle lines set. This is where the final war shall be waged.

Will the internet succumb to the might of consumerist greed, or can we win it back for the citizens of this planet? Minor victories, such as the Pirate Party in Sweden (perhaps a throwback to their Viking past? hehe), point to a band of free-thinking rebels intent on harnessing the awesome power of the internet - the springboard for true global conciousness. We need an online perestroika. A cyber-citizenry intent on plundering the amassed riches of the corporates and opening this wild frontier to a pioneering restructuring... not of our society, but of our way of thinking.

The revolution is now. The revolution demands a champion. And that champion will be found on the battle ground of the internet.