The revolution will be a change in values, or the establishment of new norms. It’s not a series of actions or policies. It must go deeper. We must rethink politics and capitalism, and change the way we do things. When most people accept these new values and society reflects these values, then the revolution will have achieved its goal.

The analogy or image in my mind, currently, of how the revolution will take place is that of reseeding America. The next revolution will be a decentralization of power — returning power to the people. It will be a democratic revolution. The people must take power. This means ordinary citizens, or even mobs. The next revolutionaries must be teams of Johnny Appleseeds reseeding democracy by teaching ordinary citizens how to take power for themselves. So I need to find those who know how to create programs that empower ordinary citizens. There must be a change in the way citizens view government. Cynicism must be cast aside and people need to believe that they own government.

There’s more to it, though. There are three organisms, and each relies on the others to maintain power: Government, business, and media. Each must be reformed simultaneously for the revolution to occur. These 3 organisms will reinforce each other and so must be attacked at the same time.

When I said that there’d be a decentralization of power, I’d like to also apply this to business and media. Only a few corporations control our news, and that needs to change. Banks became “too big to fail.” This calls for cutting things up.

For the media, the revolution means a change in values, not technology. Blogs. Twitter. Google News. None of these means a revolution. We must change the way we do news and the way we think of news, not merely a change in the medium or a change in the way news is disseminated. Technology is inherently neutral; we must make sure it’s used for good and not bad. So, it’s not enough to find the news innovators or the hottest bloggers. It’s about finding those who escape the stupid day-to-day vapidity of cable news and create news that has real value, not just entertainment value. It’s about finding those who don’t kowtow to those in power. It’s not about finding those who agree with me politically; it’s about finding those who have the right values when it comes to creating news.

Those are my thoughts, for now, on what I think a revolution should be. Defined this way, the revolution is already underway. There are already those seeking to do all the things I want. (Like the comment Lloyd left in my last entry on the revolution.) I need to find them and spread their insights.

The revolution will be about creating leaders. These people will show that these new values work and influence others to accept the new reality.

Will you join me?