Threadless Loves Democracy

Rock the Vote has teamed up with Threadless.com to challenge all of you to design a democracy-inspired tee shirt.

Read what they have to say:

By the people and for the people! It's the linchpin of democracy and it sounds an awful lot like what Threadless is all about. And so, as us citizens of the US will assemble this November to choose officials to represent us, we'd like you to nominate (submit) your design based on the concept of democracy.

There are already four great submissions that you can check out online. The contest runs until August 14, so submit your design today (and register to vote) at www.threadless.com/loves/democracy.

If only they had cell phones at Tiananmen

With all of the hype surrounding the iPhone this week, I figured it would be appropriate to blog about how cell phones are being used for a political purpose on the other side of the globe.

Protesters in Xiamen, China used text messages to coordinate a protest against the construction of a chemical plant in their city. Circumventing the censoring capabilities of the government, environmentalists sent text message blasts to town residents warning them of the dangers of a chemical plant, and coordinated a protest on June 1 and 2, turning out 8,000 and 10,000 people respectively.

Even more impressive was the way journalists used their phones to cover the event:

'Citizen journalists carrying cellphones sent text messages about the action to bloggers in Guangzhou and other cities, who then posted real-time reports for the entire country to see.

'The second police defense line has been dispersed,' Wen Yunchao, one such witness, typed to a friend in Guangzhou. 'There is pushing and shoving. The police wall has broken down.'

Just goes to show how technology can empower the people. The possibilities for democracy are endless. I couldn't help but to think about how a movement like this could ultimately be used to start a revolution in a countries like Iran, where young people are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the way their government is treating them. As the people of Xiamen have shown, where information flows, democracy follows.