‘Put vinegar or onion under your scarf for tear gas.’

As protesters in Tahrir Square in Egypt faced off against pro-government forces, they drew a lesson from their counterparts in Tunisia: “Put vinegar or onion under your scarf for tear gas.”

You’d have to be living under a rock not to have taken note of what’s been happening in the Middle East over the last month. And it ain’t over yet. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a piece on the revolution in Egypt in my personal blog post, “Millennials Rising.” It got me thinking.

But what does this have to do with printing, and why should I care?

Well, I tell you what it’s not about. It’s not about the price oil, Israel, the Muslim Brotherhood...and it sure isn’t about terrorism, no matter what Glen Beck or Rush Limbaugh says. It’s about the “kids.”

And news flash...we have kids here,too.

What we saw over there was the incredible execution of a game plan to overthrow regimes that had been in power for over three decades. And they did it peacefully. The only violence committed in either Tunisia or Egypt was committed by those in power, not the demonstrators.

These young people used social media—Facebook, blogs and Twitter—to communicate with each other and they followed a textbook. A textbook literally written years ago by a Harvard professor here in this country, Gene Sharp. And disparate players from all over the world worked together with military precision.

I don’t think this generation—Generation Y, the Millennials—hates their elders. On the contrary, these young people are closer to them than we were at their age. It’s the truth. But for some reason, their elders don’t seem to take them seriously.

“All they do is play video games and sit on Facebook.” It’s no different here in this country. And the ruling class of our industry—printing—probably sees things the same way.