An Academic exercise...What major social changes in America...

[skooooo]

...were brought about peacefully?

[valerief]

1. ATMs?

[skooooo]

2. Ok..let me rephrase...

What POSITIVE social changes have been brought about peacefully?

[valerief]

3. LOL!!!!!

[Eric J in MN]

4. Depends on how you define peacefully.

Supporters of labor reforms which ultimatley became the New Deal were violently attacked by the police and National Guard, but they weren't violent themselves.

[skooooo]

5. Violence is violence I guess....

Peaceful civil rights marchers were attacked. Freedome Riders were murdered. I can't think of anything that's happened in this country without blood being shed.

Even Gandhi who advocated peaceful violence saw that didn't prevent violent reaction from authorities.

I don't advocate violence, but I'm starting to wonder how anything can really change without it.

[Eric J in MN]

6. Gandhi was murdered. Peaceful protestors are often responded to

with violence.

[Yupster]

7. It depends on what you mean by peaceful

because there's some level of violence with everything one does.

But the women's right to vote was done by Constitutional Amendment as was the income tax. The programs of Medicare, medicaid, food stamps, AFDC, rent controll, housing allowances, energy assistance are all quick answers that happened pretty much non-violently.

[skooooo]

8. you could say though..

...that all of those achievements were preceeded by violence of one kind of another, but yeah, I see your point.

I think the feminist movement was possible because of the black civil rights movement - same for the gay (or whatever you want to call it) movement of the 70s.

[Tsiyu]

9. The Internet

and before that, cable TV.

However, I would add that the public and private airwaves and connections have been eaten up by corporate elements who use these entities to commit violence. They are not doing the public good they could be doing, but they do allow for a worldwide view of events and people.