How to make a statement

  If you have been anywhere near a news source in the last week you've probably heard all about the stuff going down in the Ukraine. It started off with just a bunch of riots, then the police came in, and it seemed like a fire ridden protest until about 2 days ago when the square in Kiev turned into the center of a quasi-war. People were shocked and horrified by what was going on, President Obama said  that "The United States condemns in the strongest terms the violence that’s taking place". 



    I too am shocked by how everything escalated  but I also started thinking about revolutions and what makes them "work". It's hard to define "sucess" within the context of a revolution because somebody always gets the wrong end of the stick. Also, "sucess" depends on what you define as "sucessful". Some Americans might  say that our revolution was awesome because we got to govern ourselves on our terms, whilst others might say that we should have just let Britian rule us for a while because look at all the issues we've had and are still having. Regardless, I noticed that the Ukrainian protest and revolution are similar to our own and also those of others in the past.
   Revolutions seem to start with hatred of the current state of things, that is virtually indisputable, but how it all plays out is murky. For us in America at least, we followed what I am calling the "default revolution"
    By that I mean the formula of starting out with actions, simple acts of defiance. Once those don't seem to get much done, we move on to the next thing: violence. The thing about violence is that it definitely, always, makes a statement.
   The Ukrainian rebels seem to know that as well. Violence seems to be the last straw for most revolutions because it is illegal and it causes visible harm, two things that make a very big statement to everybody. 
    We began with dumping tea into the water, when that didn't work, we signed a document, and when that didn't work, we resorted to violence. You can't deny it, revolutions with body counts and smoke in the air certainly make a statement.