PROTESTORS AROUND THE WORLD

A WEEK OF PROTESTING AROUND THE GLOBE 

IN PICTURES AND QUOTES

To silence criticism is to silence freedom.

Toward no crimes have men shown themselves so cold-bloodedly cruel 

as in punishing differences of opinion..
.
No cause is left but the most ancient of all, 
the one, in fact, that from the beginning of our history
has determined the very existence of politics, 
the cause of freedom versus tyranny.

Yemen

.

How bad do things have to get before you do something? 

Do they have to take away all your property? 

Do they have to license every activity that you want to engage in? 

Do they have to start throwing you on cattle cars before you say

“now wait a minute, I don’t think this is a good idea.” 

How long is it going to be before you finally resist and say

“No, I will not comply. Period!”

Ask yourself now because sooner or later 

you are going to come to that line,

and when they cross it, you’re going to say

well now cross this line; 

ok now cross that line; ok now cross this line. 

Pretty soon you’re in a corner. 

Sooner or later you’ve got to stand your ground

whether anybody else does or not. 

That is what liberty is all about.

Syria

 .

The freedom to share one’s insights and judgments verbally or in writing is, just like the freedom to think, a holy and inalienable right of humanity that, as a universal human right, is above all the rights of princes.

Spain

.

An unconditional right to say what one pleases about public affairs 

is what I consider to be the minimum guarantee of the First Amendment.

Morocco

 .

He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, 

and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.

Kuwait

 .

The objector and the rebel who raises his voice 

against what he believes to be the injustice of the present 

and the wrongs of the past is the one who hunches the world along.

Jordan

 .

The first lesson a revolutionary must learn is that he is a doomed man. 

Unless he understands this, 

he does not grasp the essential meaning of his life.

Republic of Georgia ~ Russia

 .

Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels ~ men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, we may never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.

France

.

Every actual state is corrupt.

Good men must not obey laws too well.

Egypt

 .

We must not overlook the role that extremists play. 

They are the gadflies that keep society from being too complacent.

Belgium

 .

The whole earth is in jail and we're plotting this incredible jailbreak.

Bahrain

.

You can jail a Revolutionary, but you can't jail the Revolution.

Berlin
.

Where is the American outrage at what is happening in their own country?  Most of the world is fighting for freedom while American citizens veg out on sports, porn, junk food and general apathy. 

Back at the Thomas Jefferson Memorial in Washington DC you get THIS "freedom":

Medea Benjamin is the woman arrested; this sets off a red flag. This makes me wonder about the politics of this whole situation. There is much much more to Ms. Benjamin than meets the public eye.  

But here I do ask the question,

"This is American freedom?" 

A FEW SILLY AMERICAN PROTESTS....

I never thought such a right as protest should be wasted 

but... what do I know about anything?
These images, I have no idea when they occurred.

A few more quotes on PROTEST:

We are reluctant to admit that we owe our liberties to men of a type that today we hate and fear -- unruly men, disturbers of the peace, men who resent and denounce what Whitman called 'the insolence of elected persons' ~ in a word, free men. 

Political correctness is the natural continuum from the party line. What we are seeing once again is a self-appointed group of vigilantes imposing their views on others.

 The PETA birds.

... whenever the Legislators endeavour to take away, and destroy the Property of the People, or to reduce them to Slavery under Arbitrary Power, they put themselves into a state of War with the People, who are thereupon absolved from any farther Obedience, and are left to the common refuge which God hath provided for all men against force and violence. ... [Power then] devolves to the People, who have a Right to resume their original Liberty, and, by the Establishment of a new Legislative (such as they shall think fit) provide for their own Safety and Security, which is the end for which they are in Society.

The voice of protest, of warning, of appeal is never more needed than when the clamor of fife and drum, echoed by the press and too often by the pulpit, is bidding all men fall in and keep step and obey in silence the tyrannous word of command. Then, more than ever, it is the duty of the good citizen not to be silent.

 ??? What is this????

It was not by accident or coincidence that the rights to freedom in speech and press were coupled in a single guaranty with the rights of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition for redress of grievances. All these, though not identical, are inseparable. They are cognate rights, and therefore are united in the first Article’s assurance.

Surely a large part of the zealous repression of radical protest in America has its roots in the fact that millions of men who are apparently “insiders” know how vulnerable the system is because they know how ambiguous their own attachments to it are. The slightest challenge exposes the fragile foundations of legitimacy of the state.

 

 Political satire as protest.... 

But one has to be smart enough to understand

the whole concept of political satire to "get it"....

Others ~ as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and office-holders ~ serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as they rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the devil, without intending it, as God. A very few ~ as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men ~ serve the state with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part ...

... when the struggle seems to be drifting definitely towards a world social democracy, there may still be very great delays and disappointments before it becomes an efficient and beneficent world system. Countless people ... will hate the new world order ... and will die protesting against it. When we attempt to evaluate its promise, we have to bear in mind the distress of a generation or so of malcontents, many of them quite gallant and graceful-looking people.

 I think she means business, too.