Beware somebody’s watching

By Alex P. Vidal

“The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall.” —Che Guevara

BECAUSE of the power of CCTV and the digital technology, there is a possibility that some sensational crimes committed in the streets and even inside the residences can be solved.

The netizens are also quick and vigilant with their cellphone cameras. Most exclusive videos and photos taken during actual mishaps, brawls, killings, robberies, traffics snarls, road rages come from the netizens, CCTVs, dash cams and webcams.

Our ancestors would have been amazed by the force and effectiveness of today’s netizens to influence and shape public opinion.

In this generation, they constitute the social media’s most vigilant vanguards.

No act of brutality, arrogance, malfeasance and demagoguery in our civilized society can escape the radar of amazing digital world.

A hailstorm of public censure and condemnation awaits those who possess the delusions of putting the law into their hands; those who think they are above the law and reason owing to their power and influence, pelf and privileges for belonging in society’s higher social and political strata.

Gone were the days when publicly performed criminal acts and other forms of civil disobedience could be kept under wraps and the culprits getting away with impunity.

Nowadays, there’s always a big brother and sister watching: CCTVs and mobile phone cameras.

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Meanwhile, our favorite objectivist Ayn Rand held that abstract ideas are man’s basic means of dealing with practical life.

She stressed that abstract ideas enable man to understand concrete issues, to evaluate them, and to act successfully to deal with them.

Rand further held that the problem with Western civilization was not that it was too intellectual, but that too many of its intellectuals accepted and propagated fundamentally wrong ideas.

Rand believed that what the world needs urgently are New Intellectuals.

As civilization marks this year the official end of the French Revolution on December 15, 1799, we begin the era of fighting graft and corruption, abuse of authority in military and government through a new wave: the social media.

We cannot afford today to give life to a modern Napoleon Bonaparte, the dictator who wanted to overrun Europe had it not been for his Waterloo defeat.

Politicians who want to overrun our treasury via pork barrel and other thinly-veiled acts of plunder and graft and corruption, are the smaller versions of Napoleon.

The specter of graft and corruption in government today is the rallying point of public anger and disgust that transformed into a bloody revolt; the tipping point that brought down the monarchy and cut off King Louis XVI’s and Marie Antoinette’s heads in the revolutionary scaffolds.

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Under the mantra of “Liberte, egalite, fraternity” (liberty, equality, fraternity), French society itself underwent a transformation as feudal, aristocratic, and religious privileges disappeared and old ideas about tradition and hierarchy were abruptly overthrown.

Under the “walang kaibigan, walang kamag-anak” boast of former President Joseph Estrada, “tuwid na daan” mantra of the late former President Noynoy Aquino, the “papayain ko kayo” slogan of former President Rodrigo Duterte, the age-old graft and corruption was never curbed.

The rich became richer; the poor became poorer.

Marie Antoinette wanted to give cake to the French people with empty stomachs; our government has been giving us empty promises and left our treasury empty.

The wealth of the nation has been wasted.

Our leaders have abandoned the spirit that ignited the “Cry of Balintawak” or “Pugad Lawin” of the katipuneros, and the “Cry of Sta. Barbara (Iloilo)”.

We give them our votes and confidence; they gave us shame and scandal via plunder and graft and corruption.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of local dailies in Iloilo.—Ed)