I wasn’t planning on posting this slide-show presentation about the recent surge of mass movements around the world, since I prepared it for a consulting gig in Mexico, not for the Meta-Activism Project. But when I saw that the New York Times covered the exact same story on the front page… two weeks later, I felt the irrepressible childish urge to yell “I saw it first!”

We reach the same conclusions – failure of traditional political actors to respond to popular discontent with entire systems of governance – but neither I nor the Times journalist, Nicolas Kulish, know where it is going. It could mark a transformation in the definition of democracy and a recognition that annual voting is an insufficient implementation of democratic principles, or it could fizzle out. It will certainly be interesting to watch.