When we think of civil disobedience in modern times we conjure up images of Martin Luther King Jr. fighting for African American civil rights against White America, or Ghandi peacefully defeating the British in India. Today Chinese students and spiritual worshippers continue to fight their governments. Civil Disobedience has as long a history as governments themselves. Some governments are more tolerable to such actions while others ruthlessly put down any form of anti government protest as quickly as it arises. The other option of violent revolution often leads to military or dictatorial regimes being thrust into power where they act as bad if not worse than their predecessors. On the other hand social protest in the form of civil disobedience has been proven to be one of the most formidable ways to deal with government injustices. .
Henry David Thoreau shows in his work that America has changed little in over 150 years. It was written in 1849 and the same arguments could be made today against the present American government. An example of this is when Thoreau says "It does not keep the country free It does not educate" "it" refers to the government. He goes on to rail against the machine like humanity that the country has embraced with soldiers using their robotic bodies as an extension of the politician's robotic minds. Blind patriotism is one of the worst mistakes a country can undertake. .
Like citizens of Germany under Nazi rule Americans today are blindly following their leadership down the road to global conflict. In Afghanistan, Iraq, Madrid and countless other places around the world the Bush administration is making war and/or terror a common daily life for the World's population. America today, or more correctly right after 911 had flags flying everywhere possible. One frightened Iranian student at my school remarked that it horrified him and that the climate felt to him as Nazi Germany may have felt to an outsider not brainwashed by the current leaders.