"WE WHO BELIEVE IN FREEDOM CANNOT REST..." ELLA BAKER
January 21st was a day of hope -- real hope! Over 3 - 4 million people world wide demonstrated and marched against the presidency of a man who basically disrespects and wants to deport and or jail anyone who is a white anglo saxon protestant and rich.
Blogger Patrick James Walsh had this to say about January 21st:
Nothing like this has ever happened before in American history: one day after the swearing in of a new president, a massive nation wide revolt and rejection.
No American president has ever inspired such a response, but then no American president has so repulsed and frightened and insulted the American people as deeply as does Trump. .....Mass Revolt Against Trump in New York and Across America
GUARDIAN today said - We Made History. Apparently these were some of the largest demonstrations ever in our history. I like this statistical enumeration of our victories:
Whoops! Can't find an actual graph or chart. So I'll make one up.
WASHINGTON D.C. 500,000
LOS ANGELES 750,000
NEW YORK CITY 250,000
CHICAGO 250,000 [ALL MY FRIENDS SAY THIS MEANS WAY MORE]
DENVER 150,000
SEATTLE 130,000
BOSTON 150,000
LONDON 100,000
PORTLAND 100,000
TORONTO, CANADA 60,000
AUSTIN 40,000
ST. LOUIS 10,000 +
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA 10,000
PALM BEACH 7,000
SAN FRANCISCO 150,000
OAKLAND 100,000
An article from US Uncut has "official estimates" = http://usuncut.com/news/official-womens-march-attendance/
AND
Here's a google doc of estimates: high and low -- https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xa0iLqYKz8x9Yc_rfhtmSOJQ2EGgeUVjvV4A8LsIaxY/htmlview?sle=true#gid=0
It shows Los Angeles low estimate: 200,000 and high: 750,000. That is kinda crazy -- more accurate I think would be between 500,000 and 750,000.
Worries are that this won't continue. That the DNC types like Debbie Wasserman Schultz will try to co-opt any real chance we have by making it a bourgeois white thing. That the unity only loosely shown in DC won't grow - the speakers were very diverse there. Was the crowd? I didn't see enough diversity in Los Angeles - a real worry for me. More Asians and Latinos and few African Americans is not a good result. We should be there for these very people -- although I was told by one friend that this march "didn't speak for me" and another that it was pro-choice (of course it was!). These are issues that have to change if we are to win.
Plus today I had to unfriend some decidedly pro-Trump Facebook acquaintances because they refuse to see anything wrong with Trump at all. One person said that Soros funded 50 women's groups involved in the demonstration. Really? The absurdity of another's comment -- Trump has never smoked nor drunk alcohol in his life -- just made me cringe. I hope I am never that fanatic about another human being (as I believe I was in my teens and 20s). But to see Trump as flawless is truly frightening.
Guardian on the Women's March - http://portside.org/2017-01-23/womens-marches-may-have-been-largest-demonstration-us-history
Over 100 marches worldwide were also included.
Newsweek surprisingly has a nice piece on the marches: http://www.newsweek.com/womens-march-washington-donald-trump-national-mall-545608
A highlight for me of the march on Washington was the inclusion of Angela Davis - [this is my old poster from back when - ruined by mold in my garage, idiot that I often am]
Full Transcript of Angela Davis' speech January 21st - http://www.elle.com/culture/career-politics/a42337/angela-davis-womens-march-speech-full-transcript/
Reproduced here:
"At a challenging moment in our history, let us remind ourselves that we the hundreds of thousands, the millions of women, trans-people, men and youth who are here at the Women's March, we represent the powerful forces of change that are determined to prevent the dying cultures of racism, hetero-patriarchy from rising again.
"We recognize that we are collective agents of history and that history cannot be deleted like web pages. We know that we gather this afternoon on indigenous land and we follow the lead of the first peoples who despite massive genocidal violence have never relinquished the struggle for land, water, culture, their people. We especially salute today the Standing Rock Sioux.
"The freedom struggles of black people that have shaped the very nature of this country's history cannot be deleted with the sweep of a hand. We cannot be made to forget that black lives do matter. This is a country anchored in slavery and colonialism, which means for better or for worse the very history of the United States is a history of immigration and enslavement. Spreading xenophobia, hurling accusations of murder and rape and building walls will not erase history. "No human being is illegal.
"The struggle to save the planet, to stop climate change, to guarantee the accessibility of water from the lands of the Standing Rock Sioux, to Flint, Michigan, to the West Bank and Gaza. The struggle to save our flora and fauna, to save the air—this is ground zero of the struggle for social justice.
"This is a women's march and this women's march represents the promise of feminism as against the pernicious powers of state violence. And inclusive and intersectional feminism that calls upon all of us to join the resistance to racism, to Islamophobia, to anti-Semitism, to misogyny, to capitalist exploitation.
"Yes, we salute the fight for 15. We dedicate ourselves to collective resistance. Resistance to the billionaire mortgage profiteers and gentrifiers. Resistance to the health care privateers. Resistance to the attacks on Muslims and on immigrants. Resistance to attacks on disabled people. Resistance to state violence perpetrated by the police and through the prison industrial complex. Resistance to institutional and intimate gender violence, especially against trans women of color.
"Women's rights are human rights all over the planet and that is why we say freedom and justice for Palestine. We celebrate the impending release of Chelsea Manning. And Oscar López Rivera. But we also say free Leonard Peltier. Free Mumia Abu-Jamal. Free Assata Shakur. "Over the next months and years we will be called upon to intensify our demands for social justice to become more militant in our defense of vulnerable populations. Those who still defend the supremacy of white male hetero-patriarchy had better watch out.
"The next 1,459 days of the Trump administration will be 1,459 days of resistance: Resistance on the ground, resistance in the classrooms, resistance on the job, resistance in our art and in our music.
"This is just the beginning and in the words of the inimitable Ella Baker, 'We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes.' Thank you."
AND DON'T FORGET THE REBEL GIRL - ELIZABETH GURLEY FLYNN - organizer for the IWW - Industrial Workers of the World, co-founder of ACLU, and first female secretary for the Communist Party USA. [The ACLU eventually ousted her for her "communism".]
"The life and activism of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn merits wide recognition, especially in the era of Trump.
"Her political career shows that demonstrations are most effective when they have a tangible goal, and that organizers must be flexible in adapting tactics to the requirements and constraints of a situation. It shows that all those who take part in mass movements must be ready to face the repressive response of the state, whether it comes through legislation, intimidation, or direct violence.
"If Flynn were alive today, she would surely be in the forefront of the struggle against the right-wing populism of the Trump administration. She would be resisting anti–free speech laws coming down the pipeline, and working to organize the unorganized.
"For her, campaigns for democratic rights were bound up in the struggle for socialism, cross-racial solidarity was the foundation of any viable class politics, and the fight for liberation, while never over, always found its fullest expression in the streets."
We must never give up!
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