If you were in Selma, Alabama on March 7, 1965, you had most likely made up your mind about the Civil Rights movement. You either supported Martin Luther King, Jr., John Lewis, and the Civil Rights activists or you lined up behind Sheriff Jim Clark who'd ordered every white male to the Dallas County Courthouse to be deputized.
The point is you had a dog in the fight. John Lewis wasn't going to convince Sheriff Clark that blacks be given equal rights under the law, and Sheriff Clark couldn't convince John Lewis that his attenuated status as an American was right and just.
This is where the press comes in because the press is one of the great allies of political change. Socio-political protest, covered by the media, is aimed at the fence-sitters, the well intentioned people who don't condone human cruelty and prejudice, but who live in communities where its reality hasn't been dramatically presented to them.
These are the people who don't have a dog in the fight, and typically, these folks are kind, reasonable, and considerate. They don't condone blasting a young black girl with a water cannon.
These are the people who, when they saw pictures and video clips of Alabama State Troopers attacking peaceful protestors in Selma, said to themselves that enough was enough. And they said it to their neighbors, and to their friends, and to their Congressmen, and they said it so many times that it became atmospheric.
And so the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed, extending the franchise to all races, creeds, and colors in this country.
With the advent of real-time social media, the protests in Tibet have the capacity to bring the world's attention to the Tibetan's plight in ways that King and Gandhi could only dream of. A simple re-tweet, a blog posting, a mention, an IM'd photo, shared, reposted, a follow, a "like" here and there . . . these are all important adjustments in the atmosphere that will bring pressing attention to what China is doing in Tibet.
As supporters of Tibet who aren't on the front lines, either in Tibet or in the exiled community, this is what we can do, and it is very important. In fact, it's an essential part of the formula for social change: protest + media coverage = action.
The Tibetans are standing for freedom. That won't change. The Chinese military and police are resisiting that stand. This will not change either until these images, impressions, and reports are spread around the world, to the fence-sitters who don't want to hear of human oppression, really, but who, when they do hear of it, will be repulsed by it.
And Tibet wins every time that happens. Free Tibet? Yep. Retweet now.