Abstract

Imagine that one pleasant Sunday afternoon, you look out your window and see a group of twenty to fifty people picketing on the street in front of your home. The picketers are carrying signs that name you. Although the gathering is ''peaceful,'' the very presence of the crowd is threatening, prompting you to close your windows, draw your blinds, and keep your family in the house until,the picketers leave. Now imagine that these same picketers, in greater or lesser numbers, re-create this same event at your home every Sunday afternoon. What should be a day of rest spent with your family becomes an ordeal. Your children cannot play in the yard by themselves or in the streets with their friends. Any strange car parked across the street or driving slowly past the house feeds your anxiety. On Saturday night, anticipating the events to come on Sunday, you and your family become nervous and agitated. Because friends must traverse a gauntlet to reach your home, they stop coming to visit. Your home has become a fortress under siege; the only difference is that you and your family are not the fortress's defenders but its captives.

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