I'm linking to the Common Dreams reprint, rather than the original in the San Francisco Gate, because the comments are more interesting (and less stupid). People are very quick to dismiss people who engage in these types of protest. But how many of us are committed enough to sacrifice comfort and safety for our beliefs?
But take heart, the fabulous ladies at the center of this controversy aren't ready to make nice, and I'm glad they're putting up a fight. All across this country the common but courageous dissent of citizens is being censored and attacked. Anti-war vets calling for withdrawal from Iraq were banned from a parade in Long Beach, CA. High school students in Chicago are threatened with expulsion for staging a peaceful anti-war protest. More than a dozen anti-war protesters, fittingly wearing gags over their mouths, were arrested outside of Boston's city hall.
And the list goes on. As individual incidents, each provoke a momentary pang of sympathy, a head nod, maybe an exasperated email to your bridge buddies. But taken as a whole, I suspect it adds up to a more disturbing picture--of a nation that went quietly mad, except for a few who spoke up and were ostracized for it; of a country where politics became so estranged from everyday life, that the ordinary expression of it was called treason.
People are comparing this story to that of Tommie Smith and John Carlos - the US runners who raised the Black Power salute at the 1968 Olympics - but I'm not ready to tag bridge with my "activism in sports" label.
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