Thursday, October 6, 2011

Protesting is always right

American history, and for that matter, all of human history, is replete with protest and revolution. Often times it is the only recourse of the downtrodden, the last unavoidable resort of the desparate, as Thomas Jefferson knew all so well.

And so America was born in protest and revolution, and yes, violence.

People almost always protest against their own country, as America did in 1776 and is doing now in 2011.

As America grew and expanded westward, the protests continued,  all the way to today.

With the U.S.A. tearing up one treaty after another, in 1830 Davy Crockett, in Congress, protested the  "Indian Removal Act", insisting that America must not break her promises.

In 1846 Henry David Thoreau protested the Mexican War, claiming that the USA had deliberately started the war in order to steal half of Mexico (Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, California).

Did Crockett and Thoreau have good arguments?. History suggests that they did.

During the Civil War draft dodgers protested in New York.

In 1932 thousands of World War One veterans descended on Washington D.C., camped out all over town, demanding early military pension payments because of the depression.

Fondly I remember the protests against the Viet Nam war, in which I was too young to participate, and the protests against the first war against Saddam in 1990, in which I did participate., proudly.

These people out in the streets now, out in Wall Street, need and deserve much popular support, because, like every other protest in American history, it is demonstrably justified.

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