by Feed your head with a play by Pamela Olson

Created on: March 03, 2009

No More Donations Without Representation
By using the Internet, people exercised power; activists took the lead, held others accountable, just said no, and exposed wrong.

The days when one can sit safely insulated in a luxurious ivory tower are gone. Superiors are ever increasingly more vulnerable to exposure, and accountability. Subordinates have become bolder and more strategic. They are less likely to keep to their place, do as they're told and keep their opinions to themselves. Although rank dictates they are subordinates, whistleblowers increasingly step out of that role and bring down a superior. Their rank is trumped by their behavior when they expose superiors that are incompetent, law-breakers or immoral. Today's superiors that dismiss or ignore their subordinates do so at their own risk. The Internet has changed the contextual complexities of exercising power, authority and influence. Gone are the days where settings from Auschwitz to Abu Ghraib contaminated in isolation both superiors and subordinates as the Internet is real-time exposure forcing attention, and repercussions.

America, from its beginning has put a premium on individuality and independence. In Tocqueville's words, there "is a general distaste for accepting any man's word as proof of anything." The result has been that to be deemed a submissive blind, deaf and dumb follower is an insult. Due to the Internet, to be timid and docile has been increasingly rejected by the rest of the world. Zbigniew Brzezinski refers to it as a "global political awakening." Zeitgeist struck and the result was the rise of activism with an increase in holding others accountable, just saying no and exposes.

Activists Holding Others Accountable

Franklin Raines, CEO of Fannie Mae, was forced out of his job by activists. In June 2008 The Wall Street Journal reported that Raines was one of several public officials who received below market rates loans at Countrywide he was a "FOA"-"Friends of Angelo (Countrywide Chief Executive Angelo Mozilo. On December 21, 2004 Raines accepted what he called "early retirement"while U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigators alleged accounting irregularities. The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), the regulating body of Fannie Mae, accused him of abetting widespread accounting errors. One included the shifting of losses. That resulted in senior executives, such as him, earning large bonuses.

In 2006, the OFHEO announced a suit against Raines in order

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