I was enjoying some old jazz and R&B on the radio the other day and was taken aback to hear a classic Gil Scott-Heron composition. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. And it struck me how that incorrect statement has changed the world around us.

Back in the 50 and 60s, some courageous newsmen (yes, they WERE men only back then) brought the Little Rock, Alabama,Selma, and Memphis battles into our living rooms. (Yes, back then, our TV sets were in the family room or the living room.) And it changed the way most of the US began to view the matter.

No, it didn’t lead droves of folks (unless you were among my circle of friends) to work hard to change the facts on the ground, but it did change your awareness. Far more than the sterile facts as they appeared in our newspapers.

The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon
Blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John Mitchell
General Abrams and Spiro Agnew to eat hog maws
Confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary
The revolution will not be televised

Or how many American viewed Mayor Daley and his bands of Chicago thugs (ok, you thought they were cops, but they weren’t battering your heads with their billy clubs). But, it was the reporting back from Vietnam, showing the destruction of the countryside and the relentless batteries of Viet Cong attacking our troops that proved the lies being conveyed by our government. (This scenario, coupled the inane lowering of the speed limit to 55 by Nixon that was widely ignored by all, were probably the beginning of the time when folks lost faith in our government…both in its veracity and its enforcement of laws.)

There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
Brothers on the instant replay
There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
Brothers on the instant replay

But, it was the ubiquity of the smartphone that has kindled the Black Lives Matter phenomenon. Where America easily sees the wanton disregard certain state governments and way too many police regard the need to treat civilians equally, lawfully, or to perform their functions the way we all (maybe that’s ‘you all’) thought they did.

Or, the wanton calls to send in troops to make the Middle East safe. (What the heck does that mean, by the way?) To carpet-bomb Al Qaeda or ISIS back to the Stone Age. (Sorry to inform you, Mr. Cruz, but that is exactly what ISIS and Al Qaeda are doing to the citizenry without a drop of your help.)

Because the Internet has made it possible. The Revolution will be televised. And the world will make great strides because of it.

The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised
Will not be televised, will not be televised
The revolution will be no re-run brothers
The revolution will be live.

Except for a few caveats.  How certain people edit the facts.  To depict items that just didn’t happen the way they show them.   It used to be just Communist Russia did such editing.  No longer.

Now, we have David Deleiden and his bogus Center for Medical Progress group that create fake Planned Parenthood videos.  (They are now being prosecuted for same.  However the damage has been done.  Like Carly Fiorina who further invented her own videos in her own mind.)  Or, how Hamas shows schools and hospitals destroyed by bombs.  Neglecting to show the weapons cache that were housed there- or their “troops” using said civilian safety zones to launch mortars and rockets.

Ah, yes.  The Revolution May Be Televised.

But, our citizenry must be vigilant to ensure that what they see really is.