The General Strike has taught the working class more in four days than years of talking could have done.
One of the greatest disasters that happened to modern civilization was for democracy to inscribe "liberty" on its banners instead of "justice." Because "liberty" was considered the ideal it was not long until some men interpreted it as meaning "freedom from justice"; then when religion and decent government attempted to bring them back to justice, organized into "freedom groups" they protested that their constitutional and natural rights were being violated.
I went West and took part in the strike of the machinists - the Southern Pacific Railroad, the corporation that swung California by its golden tail, that controlled its legislature, its farmers, its preachers, its workers.
I have been personally victimized by organized disruption of a public lecture on a university campus - at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Michigan State University, and Rhode Island's Providence College, to name only a few.
The main accomplishment of almost all organized protests is to annoy people who are not in them.
It no longer counts as remarkable that Egyptians organized their uprising on social media.
People don't just show up and lie down in the middle of the street some place out of nothing. Somebody said meet me there, let's get together, and let's do this thing. The interesting thing is that we don't know who all of the leaders of these groups are, but we know that they're out there, and we know a new group of leadership is being created. It shows you that leadership can come from anywhere.
Violence from protesters themselves is extremely rare, but has been made into a talking point by those who stand to benefit from breaking the perceived legitimacy of organized protest and resistance. Organized, disciplined nonviolent resistance is alive and well, and we see it all around us in cities across the country.
