Where were you? Where are you and what are you thinking?

Sarah Parcak ‏(@indyfromspace) writes:

Hundreds protest against the sale of #Sekhemka, yet where were all your voices during 3.5 years+ of Egypt looting?

I suppose the question is what use are "voices" alone in either scenario? Sixty thousand people could have protested the Sekhemka sale and we can easily imagine that still the anonymous fat cat collector would fork out his fifteen million on a tawdry geegaw trophy for the hallway without a scruple. In he same way sixty thousand people can voice their protest at the looting, but still the smugglers will carry on smuggling while there are anonymous selfish collectors who'll fork out money on tawdry geegaw trophies for the cabinet in the den without a scruple. But then, we cannot really manage to get more than a thousand signatures on an antiquities petition in the entire English speaking world.