History Repeating Itself...What will we Become?

While I'm on a turn of the last century Russia kick, here is an illustration from history and how we should prevent its happening (yes, I'm sure on a less violent, but still repressive scale) at the end of this month. Thanks to Steve Gillard for pointing this article (hidden within the HTML) out.

Father George Gapon founded the Assembly of Russian Factory and Plant Workers, an officially sanctioned and police-sponsored organization designed to diverge unrest away from revolutionary activities. In late December, there was a strike at Putilov plant. Sympathy strikes in other parts of the city raised the number of strikers above 80,000. By January 8, the city had no electricity and no newspapers. All public areas were declared closed. Father Gapon organized a peaceful 'workers' procession' to the Winter Palace to deliver a petition to the Czar that Sunday. He was warned not to act. Troops had been deployed around the Winter Palace and at other key points. An unconcerned Tsar left the city on January 8 for Tsarskoe Selo.

On the appointed Sunday, striking workers and their families gathered at six points in the city. Clutching religious icons and singing hymns, they proceeded towards the Winter Palace without police interference. The army pickets near the palace fired warning shots, and then fired directly into the crowds to disperse them. Gapon was fired upon near the Narva Gate. Around forty people surrounding him were killed, but he was uninjured.

Estimates of the number killed are uncertain. Anti-government sources claimed over 4,000 dead; moderate estimates still average around 1,000 killed or wounded, both from shots and trampled during the panic. As reports spread across the city, there was instant disorder and looting. Gapon's Assembly was closed down that day, and he quickly left Russia. Returning in October, he was assassinated by the esers.

It is believed that this event sparked the Russian Revolution of 1905.

Click the story to find the modern day version of what I fear is the road to history repeating itself.

The first amendment is at risk, these are not Al Qaeda, they are not out to harm the President, they are out to send a message.

The joke of the "Protestors Coop" in Boston, the stiffling of dissenters in New York by putting them as far away as possible from the RNC is an outrage. It's repression on a mass scale. The public at large doesn't like protestors, it is disdainful of them, so its not exactly a powerful constituency for those in power to protect. Rather, it is a matter of principle. But principles without dollar signs are the hardest to maintain unless we as a populace demand a line be drawn. Not a line to prevent dissent, but a line at attempts to squash it, whether with the billy club or the ordinance, the lines are drawing ever narrower with our consent.

Stand up for your rights people, even those you wish not to personally exercise.

Our else we might as well put in the Romanovs.