I truly believe that it was no accident that our very wise Founding Fathers chose to put “freedom of speech”, and the rights “to peaceably assemble” and “petition the government for a redress of grievances” into the First Amendment of the Constitution.

Every citizen has the right, and in my opinion, the obligation to utilize political protest as a device to generate social awareness, effect positive change or as a remedy for perceived ills and wrongdoing.

Political protest is nothing new even though my generation (baby boomers) would like to think that it was born in the 1960s as it did become an extremely familiar part of the political process.

Antiwar demonstrations against nuclear weapons and the Vietnam War; student protests; feminist movements; protests against racial discrimination, urban redevelopment and environmental pollution.

The two primary forms of protest are “direct action” and “indirect action”. Direct action includes strikes, sabotage, sit-ins, squatting, revolutionary/guerilla warfare, demonstrations and graffiti. Indirect action includes electing representatives to provide remedies or change.

One of our society’s greatest ills, and in my opinion, a pandemic that is suffocating our democracy, is apathy! Either you sit idly by, doing and saying nothing except for complaints….or you take action. It is either one or the other!

We are living in a time where there is much wrong with the wrold and it is easy to forget that we are not totally powerless over people, places and things.

One of The Lang Report’s most often used maxims is: “you are either part of the problem or part of the solution”. It is your choice!