Since the civil rights movement in the United States, many battles have been won for the civil liberties of Americans.

Even so, new conflicts over civil liberties continuously appear, as those who run the system devise new ways of oppressing its people.

Civil rights movement action is needed as much today as it was in the 1950s and 1960s when the movement flourished.

Globalization has been hailed for commerce, but many aspects of globalization lead to inhumane conditions.

Workers from poorer countries are doing jobs for American companies for nonliving wages, and meanwhile, America's jobless rate climbs towards 10%.

The NAFTA superhighway facilitates this system between the United States and Mexico in terms of the movement of goods and the movement of labor.

What about the rights of those global workers who are basically enslaved?

Private prisons that hold mostly non-violent criminals on minor drug offenses also engage in civil rights violations by forcing slave labor of the prisoners.

The labor goes towards the projects run by the private banks that are directly tied to these prisons, so these prisoners' lives have been made into a profitable commodity.

These examples are only two among many of the ways in which civil rights movement action continues to be necessary in current times.

MANIPULATING INTERPRETATION OF CIVIL RIGHTS LAW

CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

One method of civil rights movement action has been the use of civil disobedience. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi were both proponents of nonviolent means of calling for an end to oppressive systems.

However, the problem that is emerging along with new technologies is that even though the people may protest in a nonviolent way, it appears that the military and law enforcement agencies are getting their hands on devices for violent crown control.

The right to peaceable assembly is disrupted every time a Raytheon microwave gun is fired or any kind of violent force is used against the protestors. Why should taxpayer dollars be used to buy weapons for the government to use on its own people?

Civil disobedience is not always met with nonviolent discipline. The trend toward violent means of crowd control should concern more people than it does at this time.

THE VOICE OF ONE, THE VOICE OF MANY

Power is achieved in democracy through numbers. It is a system in which majority rule is an important concept, even though the ones who run the system are in a definite minority.

Globalization and prison labor are realities that do not occupy the thoughts of the majority. However, the voice of one can become the voice of many. This is also a form of civil rights movement action.

The ways of taking action are many. Anything that is not inaction qualifies. One does not have to be among the prisoners or the sweatshop workers to feel the effects of the discarding of civil rights. If the majority decides to do nothing about it, then the majority has been enslaved as well.