>But it certainly does not prove the point that you
>seem to defend, namely that it was the protesters alone who deserve the
>credit for a policy change.
I'm not defending that. I think a good discussion could be had about how it was much more complicated than either/or. But that kind of discussion is precluded by your reduction of domestic movements to "yahoos throwing sticks and stones" and dismissing the whole lot as something less than it was. The facile collapsing of chronology you've employed can be read as throwing stuff against the wall to support a foregone conclusion.