The world is on the edge. The corporation has been diagnosed as a psychopath. Time and again big government has demonstrated itself incapable of meeting the long-term needs of local communities. Indeed, big government and big business have begun to look frighteningly similar.

Don’t believe me? How about Rumsfeld, Cheney, or Ann Veneman. Problems with your phone bill? Trouble with your cable connection? Ok, just call your “local” provider. The nature of the service is eerily bureaucratic, and the red tape and buck passing creates a feeling not dissimilar to visiting your local courthouse or the IRS. Special interests and lobbyists have actually begun to write our country’s legislation.

The economic machine is insatiable. It sucks the earth’s natural resources into its massive jaws, on one end it spits out a deluge of goods and services, while on the other it spews the most toxic mixture of waste and sludge. Climate change is now viewed as a scientifically demonstrable reality.

Never before have we been so connected, never before has technological innovation increased at such a rapid rate. Our connectedness offers a window of opportunity for change, while at the same time it is a result of the unsustainable economic and social system which we are all a part of. History, it seems, has reached a turning point. The pendulum is swinging, the paradigm is shifting.

The vast majority of the world’s people want the same things. We want security, democracy, and a stable and healthy community to raise our families. We want economic opportunity, but we also want clean air and water. We want freedom and community and parenthood and peace. We recognize that these things will not come from big government, or big business, or big anything.

As governments and corporations search for new ways to control and manipulate populations, something much more subtle and insidious has been happening. People have been talking, in their communities, in the blogosphere, at conferences and in the street. People have been organizing. The debate has begun. The swarm is emerging. The new model will not be hierarchical, centralized, and megalithic. The new model is vertical, diffuse, and appropriately localized. Global democracy is arriving. Fasten your safety belts, ladies and gentleman, the revolution is now.