The political revolution we're experiencing, the movement towards open systems, microfinance, and citizen journalism are co-dependent ideas; they run in tandem, and are a part of our evolution toward a truly egalitarian society.

And so, it is not surprising to see that Ron Paul's run for presidency has been dubbed the Ron Paul Revolution, has set fundraising records using Internet-driven microfinancing campaigns (i.e. "money bombs"), and is a grassroots, decentralized movement.


Here are some interesting sites that I think reflect our evolution towards egalitarianism.

republicmedia.tv. The site has a lot of functionality that I think is a part of where the web is headed, in the sense that it is a production community for bloggers, vloggers, and will allow media to be aggregated, reconstructed (and thus, rebranded), and syndicated. I think a big problem with the site is the layout, and the lack of any communication on how the site works.

ronpaulwarroom.com. A social news community. Doesn't seem to have social voting, though, which I think is huge to building a social news community. I love the military analogy, and think it's a great example of cultural branding, which I feel is crucial to building a passionate community. The ability to create sub-cultures will be a hugely important discipline for Internet marketers to understand as we progress towards open systems.

ronpaulspayday.com. Without question my favorite Ron Paul site. It's an attempt to get a meme started of people donating a part of each paycheck until Super Tuesday. The site's design communicates the message instantly, which is so key from a usability perspective, and so many sites don't do that. Even if Dr. Paul doesn't get the Republican nomination, he will probably run third party, so I don't think these funds will be wasted.

Anyway, if that initiative works, it will, like the Ron Paul Money Bomb, show the power of grassroots, microfinancing -- and how memes can change that game, and pretty much every other game too.

What's Needed?

A virtual corporation? A central place where the Pauloholics can plan their own grassroots initiatives? Meetup.com, but taken to the next level, and media-specific? Republicmedia.tv has potential to be this. Although I think something that starts by creating more value out of what is already being published on the web is the most economically efficient way of creating more value (and the new ticket to creating greater scalability). As we've discussed previously, there are great economic advantages to externally aware innovation models.

I think I'll try to create a community for Ron Paul that serves to help quality grassroots initiatives get going. It's a perfect spot to try a virtual corporation, introduce a virtual currency (a great way to educate about Ron Paul's economic policy as well), and create an economy to help fuel this revolution.

In any event, one thing's for certain: as open systems help us awaken to a more egalitarian reality, and as the monolithic, immobile empires of old collapse, the public will increasingly crave for media that reflects the group psychology they are evolving to -- a group psychology that champions the spirit of freedom, and thus depicts the hero accordingly.