God bless the dirty fucking hippies!

Raul Fernandez - Uploading American Politics - washingtonpost.com

But in 12 short years the Internet has grown to include more than a billion users worldwide and has empowered ordinary citizens to become engaged, active and highly influential participants in democracy, instead of passive consumers of campaign rhetoric.

These empowered citizens made the difference in the November elections by producing compelling content and distributing it to hundreds of thousands of voters across the country -- almost always without the candidates' consent.

Technorati Tags: Internet, blogs, democracy, election