American Protesting

SOMEBODY SHOULD WRITE the definitive history of protest in the United states, starting as early as the Boston tea party, or even earlier, and going up through Trump's inauguration. For that matter, over the next four years, as Trump's programs are paraded one by one before the American people, there may be as much protesting as there has been since Viet Nam, and that's going some. The History Of American Protest Movements will need constant updating during Trump's first term, possibly. Of all the many protests in American history, there is hardly one that I don't admire, with only an exception or two. For the most part, I never met a protest I didn't like. As a child, I was against the Viet Nam war, and in favor of the protesters, but I dared not let anyone know, most of all my parents. Protesting the Viet Nam War was unpatriotic in mainstream American circles, and could get you a bad reputation. The Viet Nam protesters were brave, and, let the record show, quite correct in their cause, as have been almost all protest movements, from woman's suffrage, to black civil rights, to gay rights, to transgender rights, to protests against our eminently protestable American wars. Many protests, all valid, all morally correct and justified. Finally in 1991 I got my chance to protest a war, and made up for missing out on the Viet Nam protests due to excessive youth. It was exhilarating. Walking down a crowded street with hundreds of other people, carrying my sign which said "No War For Oil". The protesters at Trump's inauguration may have had the right idea, but regrettably, some of it got out of control. Whatever throwing rocks through the window at Starbuck's has to do with dangerously bad presidential policies is quite beyond normal human apprehension. Not to worry, however. Over the next four years, patriotic Americans will have ample opportunity to perfect their proper protest skills.