It was, well, what else? an iconic moment. Now forever burned into the psyches of everyone in the world. It's right up there in the iconography of democracy with the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the liberation of Paris, the release of Nelson Mandela from prison, the crowds surging in Yugoslavia against Milosevic... I skipped class to see it live, and I don't regret it at all. It's a very gratifying moment for those of us who saw the potential in the war.
Make no mistake: this was not the beginning of the end, or the beginning of the beginning. This was the opening of Pandora's Box. Every evil parasitic on democracy will be unleashed now, and the fight for meaningful representitive government and self-determination is in its moment of birth. But there is also, now and for the first time meaningfully, hope. This is the moment for fire in the belly, in affirming the everlasting commitment freedom-loving peoples have to one another. Their hope is ours, their fate is our fate.
"Thou shalt not extinguish thine anger, but shall master it,
that thy conscience may not be blunted by adjustment
to wrong causes."
-The Dutch Ten Commandments to Foil the Nazis
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