Detailed here, and all over Facebook, on some local radio shows and throughout the country, a student of Texas A & M learned that the lunatic group Westboro Baptist Church planned to heckle a funeral of a fallen soldier nearby.
As the story on Huffington Post details, the student decided to take action and using Facebook and Twitter, managed to coral as many as 600 students and alumni of the university to form a human wall against the Westboro harassers.
Apparently feeling outgunned by the opposition, the Westboro loons never showed up.
The power of the show of solidarity underscores the power of the American people to come together for a cause they feel passionate about. With all that’s happening around the country, the calls for actions, the hopeful flurry of protests and events, many nod their heads in hopeless despair, feeling that the people will never have the ability to arise against their oppressor.
But as evidenced by this display of force, the people can indeed come together and when they do, people take notice, most especially the opposition. This underscores also the fact that lies, propaganda and misinformation by the corporate machinery of this country persist only because we allow it to. Like the Westboro fringe group, once people come together in a silent, strong show of force, the propagandists wither away like the wicked witch, crushed by the power of truth.
The capacity of people in this country to act against wrong can and should never be underestimated. Direct action, whether banging a drum and chanting or just standing in silent solidarity does work; it does send a message and it can make change.
Progressive Action New Hampshire 