The power of a human being

If you've followed my posts at all I believe that you would come away with the impression that I believe our political system to be flawed with the end result that power is in the hands of the rich rather than in the hands of the people as we are constantly told. It's unfortunate but little has happened to change my mind. Well actually nothing has happened to change my mind, lets be honest here. In fact the more I look at things and the more I review the history of such matters the more firmly this notion is entrenched in my mind.

I've recently been discussing the idea of whether or not we as individual people have the 'power' to effect change on a large scale. I've posted previously on a couple of examples of people that have been able to do just that, specifically Mohandas Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr. If one looks throughout history we can find numerous examples of such 'everyday' people effect great change either for good or for evil such as Adolf Hitler or Nelson Mandela.

In looking at such cases its not so much that one solitary person stood alone and brought about change but rather they were part of larger movements. It was not only the energy, passion and charisma of such leaders but the groundswell of support that they enjoyed behind them that made change possible. Is the same true today?

This discussion that I've been having has been over the ability of individuals in the west to effect change in the ongoing Palestinian/Israeli/Lebonese conflict. Our governments respond according to foreign policy design rather than what may be considered the humane and morally right way. What power do we have to change that?

Here is a brief clip talking about the situation edured by Palestinians day in and day out. Is it possible that if enough of us, Canadians, Americans, etc. stood up and demanded our governments constructively work towards a peacable solution that they would be forced to listen and ascede to our wishes?

Oliver Wendell Holmes once said: "Beware how you take away hope from another human being." Are we in fact denying these people hope everyday by virtue of our continued inaction?