This dread of going to prison for one's ideas so prevalent among American radicals is what makes the movement so pale and weak. I have no such dread. My revolutionary tradition is that those who are not willing to go to prison for their ideas have never been considered of much value to their ideas.
-- "The Social Aspects of Birth Control," 1916.I have been thinking about this statement for several years. "The Movement," as Goldman uses it above is the birth control movement of the early twentieth century, but it might as well be any other social/political movement before or since. Generalized, the statement would serve as a useful springboard for consideration of the development of the practice of "peaceabl[e] . . . assembl[y] . . . to petition . . . for a redress of grievances" in the United States, not to mention (but to strongly imply!) the complementary development of the containment and management of that practice by the government, since Goldman wrote the piece.
But not by me. Not just now. Just now, Dear Reader, I simply post the quote and the source, as I did the Wendell Berry essay last week, with these thoughts, and thoughts of the so-called Arab Spring and the current efforts to occupy wall street, in my mind, while I try to remain attentive to datapoints along the contemplated outline.