Reply #50: Really? Tell that to the Suffragists and the Civil Rights participants. [View All]

Things don't change unless there is momentum, something out of the normal everyday safety net of convention.

Throughout history those in power have rarely and/or never instigated change without others insisting that change must occur.

The Suffragists, in both England and the United States, began their movement politely asking for the same rights being granted to white men, by white men of course.

In England, women of significant status after years of protest and lobbying Parliament and their representatives, resorted to breaking windows, placing battery acid on their husbands golf courses and other small acts of property damage. This came after years and months of being ignored by those in power, incredible abuse, long prison sentences and terrorist tactics from the white males in power. The women spent years being diplomatic and it got them nowhere but in prison and being force fed when they were fasting like the American "iron jawed angels" like Alice Paul. In time, they decided they had to move to more drastic measures, which considering what had happened to them was mild in comparison. The Suffragists never killed anyone. However, the same cannot be said for the privileged white males in power.

If more of us read history, we'd have a more accurate view of how changes came about in the years before us. Change takes time and struggle. How much struggle seems to depend on the level of flexibility and understanding by those in power. Americans certainly, hopefully, will not have to resort to such measures like harming personal property, and in that sense, what Cindy Sheehan and other spirited activists have engaged in has been the vital exercise of our first Amendment rights. There is a reason it is there. So it is used.