Protest

"Some years ago, in the aftermath of a PEN New England panel on the post-9/11 Patriot Act, I asked Howard Zinn what good there was in participating in small demonstrations. Zinn acknowledged that such a protest might not change a terrible policy, but taking direct action against it might change the protestor. You could, he said, become even more steadfast in your commitment to a cause."

-- Fred Marchant, "'Water to the Brim, Please': Notes on the Haiku of Maxine Hong Kingston," Poetry Magazine, April 2025, vol. 226 no. 1. p. 69.