LONDON — Just as one picture can tell more than a thousand words, so also one event can tell more, and provide a bigger shock, than a thousand written messages.
The almost unprecedented events of recent days, with banks collapsing worldwide, financial markets in turmoil, share values plummeting and the American political grass roots in revolt against its administration and against the whole official Establishment, send a message more vivid than countless warnings, speeches, articles and lectures.
It has been pointed out for a decade or more that the true sources of power and influence in the world have shifted, both geographically and politically, thanks to the vast impact of the information and communications revolution, but this obvious message has until now strangely eluded political leaders in the West, and especially in America and Western Europe.